Work relationships in telephone call centres: Understanding emotional exhaustion and employee withdrawal

TY - JOUR

T1 - Work relationships in telephone call centres: Understanding emotional exhaustion and employee withdrawal

AU - Deery, Stephen

AU - Iverson, Roderick

AU - Walsh, Janet

PY - 2002/6

Y1 - 2002/6

N2 - This paper examines the nature of employment and the conditions of work in five telephone call centres in the telecommunications industry in Australia. Call Centre work typically requires high levels of sustained interpersonal interaction with customers which can lead to burnout and employee withdrawal. Customer service staff can also become targets of customer hostility and abuse. In addition, this form of work tends to involve extensive employee monitoring and surveillance with little ob discretion or variety of tasks. The paper draws upon survey data from 480 telephone service operators to identify the factors that are associated with emotional exhaustion and the frequency of absence amongst the employees. A modelling of the data using LISREL VIII revealed that a number of job and work-setting variables affected the level of emotional exhaustion of employees. These included interactions with the customer, a high workload and a lack of variety of work tasks. Moreover, higher rates of absence were associated with emotional exhaustion.

AB - This paper examines the nature of employment and the conditions of work in five telephone call centres in the telecommunications industry in Australia. Call Centre work typically requires high levels of sustained interpersonal interaction with customers which can lead to burnout and employee withdrawal. Customer service staff can also become targets of customer hostility and abuse. In addition, this form of work tends to involve extensive employee monitoring and surveillance with little ob discretion or variety of tasks. The paper draws upon survey data from 480 telephone service operators to identify the factors that are associated with emotional exhaustion and the frequency of absence amongst the employees. A modelling of the data using LISREL VIII revealed that a number of job and work-setting variables affected the level of emotional exhaustion of employees. These included interactions with the customer, a high workload and a lack of variety of work tasks. Moreover, higher rates of absence were associated with emotional exhaustion.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0036623999&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/1467-6486.00300

DO - 10.1111/1467-6486.00300

M3 - Article

VL - 39

SP - 471

EP - 496

JO - Journal of Management Studies

JF - Journal of Management Studies

IS - 4

ER -