Part Three: The Call Centre Operator by Rod Whiteley

Stress News 2003 Vol.15 No.4

I was paying some bills and, as it happens, two of the jobs I had to do involved telephoning companies' customer service departments. In each case I was able to complete the job by pressing buttons on my telephone without speaking to an operator at all.

So I am aware, as I write this, that the infamous difficulties caused by call centre operations are gradually going away. The reason is that, just as call centres have caused many problems for the people who work in them, they have also caused problems for the companies that run them, with costs and inefficiencies that were not anticipated when call centres first came into being. Many of the costs and inefficiencies, of course, arise from the same problems of stress that afflict the people who work in call centres - the people whom I will call operators in this article. (You will also see call handler, customer service representative and other terms used in different places.)

Many companies are not making the problems go away by solving them, however. In some cases they are making them go away by inventing fully automatic systems that do not need human operators. In some cases they are encouraging customers to use the internet instead of the telephone to conduct business. And in some cases they are simply moving the call centres overseas to countries where wages are lower, and perhaps expectations of work-related stress are different.1

My purpose in this article is not to review all the issues of stress in call centres. That has been done in many other places. For a brief overview, I think Channel 4 TV's health magazine on the internet is a great starting point.2 For more detailed information, I recommend the Health & Safety Executive's circular on the subject.3

This article's particular focus is on how computer systems influence some of the stress factors that are common in call centres. So in that sense this article is a narrow view of just one part of the problem. But the kinds of computer system that call centres use are also used in other places in companies and other organisations, and in those other places they can cause stress in similar ways. So in that sense this article is a broad view that applies to many workers who not only handle telephone calls.

Like the other articles in this series, this one mainly describes issues that are found in medium to largeorganisations. You might find that there are similar issues in small organisations and even with individuals. Working in stress management, you can use your expertise to improve the ways that people and organisations use their computer systems, and help to remove some of the pressures that can cause stress.

The good news - workflow

The problem that organisations have, in areas like customer services, is that huge numbers of tasks have to be performed efficiently and well by their employees. And these are often complex tasks, requiring coordination, a smooth flow of information between different departments, and good person-to-person communication with a customer. If employees had to sort all this out for themselves, it would cause them intense pressure and stress.

There are two parts to the solution. The first part is realising that many of these tasks are very similar, or that they can be broken down into a manageable number of categories of very similar tasks. Then a standard procedure can be established for each category of task. Where stress levels are generally high in part of an organisation, one of the causes that you can look for is a lack of standard procedures. Standard procedures decrease the amount of decision making for individual employees, ensuring that things happen predictably most of the time, so they reduce levels of anxiety and reduce the amount of time spent fixing problems.

The second part of the solution is realising that computer systems are good at dealing with large numbers of similar things. It is costly to program a computer, but once the computer is programmed to do something, it is cheap and efficient for the computer to do it over and over again. Where stress levels are generally high in some part of an organisation, and where people are performing repetitive tasks involving information, one of the causes that you can look for is a lack of computer support. Computer support can decrease stress by reducing boredom and errors, leaving employees to do the varied and interesting work that computers cannot do well.

So the good news is that organisations can manage huge numbers of similar tasks by programming computers to implement standard procedures. These kinds of computer system are known as workflow systems, because they manage the flow of work. They take the pressure off employees by identifying what has to be done and by always providing the right information at the right time to the right person.

Perhaps you remember once being a junior in some job, and you were set to work alongside a real expert - someone who had been doing the job for forty years, who knew the answer to every problem or who to ask, who knew exactly where to find every tool or piece of information. Well, working with a good workflow system is like that. It is a partnership in which you do the interesting and creative work, and the computer does the difficult and boring things.

Workflow systems are used in many parts of organisations, not only in call centres. A call centre is just a particular case, where the workflow system is linked to the telephones. In other cases the workflow system is linked to document scanners and printers, resulting in a system that manages mail, reports, proposals and the like. Whether the workflow system is linked to special equipment or not, the intention behind it is always to enable people to achieve more and reduce the pressure on them.

The bad news - workload

The central problem is that a badly programmed computer system does not know when to stop. When I wrote "do it over and over again" in the section above, I made it sound like an advantage, which it is. But, like the bewitched broom in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a computer does not need to take time to draw breath. In the Disney version of the tale, no matter what Mickey Mouse tries, he cannot stop the broomstick drawing water and flooding the house.4 In the same way, poorly managed workflow environments become a battleground where the humans are made to fight the computers' incessant demands:

Ah, the word with which the master
Makes the broom a broom once more!
Ah, he runs and fetches faster!
Be a broomstick as before!

There is no need for it to be like this. Just as the master magician in the story can control the magic, programmers can make computers do whatever we want them to. A welldesigned workflow system puts the operators in control of their workload.

So when you are dealing with stress in a workflow environment, and workload is a factor, never accept excuses about the way the computer system works. It can be programmed to work differently.

More bad news - overextended systems

Other problems can arise when these systems are extended to do extra things that they are not really suited for.

One example is performance monitoring in pursuit of targets. The computer can automatically monitor employees' performance, producing statistics and charts for managers. The trouble is, monitoring of this kind is very difficult to do effectively. Simply collecting data on things like lengths of telephone calls is unlikely to help the organisation achieve its real goals. Such botched attempts at monitoring put pressure on employees and cause stress without delivering statistics that are of any real use.

Another example is the verbal abuse that call centre operators often find they must deal with. As the Channel 4 magazine points out, customers who have already had a bad time fighting the call handling system are more likely to be abusive when they finally get through to a human being. So when abuse is a factor in work-related stress, it can be revealing to examine a sample of cases in detail to determine the root causes, instead of dealing only with the symptoms:

So have a nice day

You ring the bank or building society and an automated voice tells you to press a dozen buttons on your telephone keypad, then you listen to Greensleeves for 10 minutes and finally hear the dreaded recorded message: 'You are held in a queue, your call will be answered shortly'. By the time a human being answers, your stress levels are sky high. Now spare a thought for the person on the other end of the telephone.

Channel 4 Health Magazine2

When you are investigating the effects of computer systems on employees, it can be revealing to examine whether the system is being used for the things that it is really good at. If the system has been extended in inappropriate ways, there might be a case for removing the system and using people to do the job properly.

For example, one of the organisations I mentioned at the start, which uses a completely automatic system to handle customer service calls, had to reply to me with details of the job. I was telephoned twice by people who were really involved with the work, not by call centre operators. I had real and meaningful conversations that resolved the issues efficiently. No doubt there is a workflow system behind the scenes linking all this together, but it is clearly in its proper place, doing only the things that it is good at. Wellintegrated systems like this reduce stress for employees and customer alike.

And more - inflexible systems

Automated systems that drive employees' workload cause pressure by disempowering people. It is to the organisation's advantage to get the best out of employees by using their skills, yet inflexible computer systems can prevent this from happening.

This kind of problem can occur in different ways. For example, a caller makes a sensible request, but the system does not allow for it. The operator is caught in the middle and must make excuses. There is a risk that the caller will become abusive or make a complaint. A risk like that is itself a source of pressure, even if things turn out well in the end. Or, for example, an operator realises that the scripts programmed into the system are confusing customers, but the system does not allow scripts to be changed. Following the scripts may upset the customer, but failing to follow them may upset the supervisor. Again, the operator is caught in the middle.

Computer systems can be programmed to empower people, allowing a degree of choice and control to operators that capitalises on their skills and knowledge. Where disempowerment is a stress factor, poorly programmed computer systems may be part of the cause.

I find it disappointing to see that the otherwise excellent HSE circular that I recommended above seems to assume that the best way to use a computer system is to use it to remove choice:

Empowerment or control?

Each time a user logs on, display a short checklist on screen to prompt them to make appropriate adjustments to any of their workstation equipment as required. Allow them sufficient time to make these adjustments before they start work.

HSE circular3

Organisations that make good use of automated systems know that retaining well-trained and empowered employees who participate in continuous improvement of the systems helps them to achieve their wider goals while keeping stress levels low.

In conclusion

If your own expertise leads you to recognise the symptoms of stress in a workplace where automated systems drive people's work, you might think that changing the way people respond to this and cope with it is the only way forward. It is wrong to assume that pressure caused by the computer systems is always necessary, and that the only thing you can do is alleviate the symptoms. By understanding the causes of pressure on employees you may be able to work with IT professionals to develop changes in the system and make fundamental improvements.

In parts of organisations where repetitive and exacting work with information puts pressure on employees, well-designed computer workflow systems can make things significantly better.

Workflow systems of the type I have been describing here are usually used to manage tasks that are carried out by an individual employee. After each task, the work flows to the next employee, who carries out the next task. In the next article I will explore tasks that are performed by teams of people, and how computer systems can both cause and prevent pressure in that environment.