“There is a growing need for workers who have to deal constantly with the public to manage emotions – and this is especially true for those on the phones,” said Steffanie Wilk, a Wharton management professor who has done extensive research on call centers.
With an estimated 3% of the U.S. workforce employed in call centers, the emotional labor of dealing with customers can lead to costly employee burnout and high turnover rates, according to Wilk. It’s important, she said, to figure out ways to counter stressful situations so that employees “are not feeling overwhelmed by their work, so they are not building up more steam.”
Nancy Rothbard, professor of management at Wharton, presented the results of research on workers’ mood, performance and burnout conducted by her and Wilk at a large property and casualty insurer. During three weeks in May 2003, a group of 40 call center workers received computer prompts to answer four short questionnaires at the beginning and end of the day, and another two at random times, to gauge their mood. In addition, the researchers taped the workers during the period and are coding 6,000 calls to develop an objective measure of the emotions evoked during those calls. Each worker’s overall positive or negative personal nature was also evaluated and controlled for in the research.
"When we think about call center workers, one of the biggest challenges is remaining resilient to the anger and hostility that can come their way.
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