As per Dataquest-IDC E-Sat survey, the top five reasons for high degree of stress for Indian BPO companies are as follows.
Insufficient Holidays
While BPOs work 24×7, executives work 12-14 hour shifts on an average: mostly at US or UK shifts. Going by the Indian Standard Time, people work nights. Staying up nights for days, weeks and months together adds not just to physical stress levels but to the psychological stress levels as well. In addition, BPO executives are required to work on all other public holidays and during festivals, which only adds to the burnout levels.
That’s why the lack of sufficient holidays has emerged as the most critical contributor to high stress levels at Indian BPOs.
Long Working Hours
Call center executives work 12 hours, on an average, every day. Twelve hours every night with hardly any break or a mere five-minute one, if any, can be extremely stressful. Nearly 22% of the respondents revealed that long work hours played an important part in creating high stress levels at the job.
Repetitive Nature of Work
Most BPOs in reality are call centers. The daily experience, therefore, tends to be repetitive, intensive and stressful, and this frequently results in employee burnout. Over 28% of the respondents revealed that the repetitive nature of work is an important cause of stress.
Pressure to Perform on Metrics
Organizational rhetoric in inbound calls centers in concerned with customer satisfaction (quality service). Yet these goals are associated with an ongoing pressure to keep call times down and call volumes up. Efforts to attain the desired balance between the quantity and quality of calls remains a huge challenge.
Health Issues
Health is one issue that plays a major role for high stress level recently. Factors like long night shifts, stress, pressure to perform on metrics, high call volumes and irate customers invariably take a toll on the health of the BPO executive. Common ailments that emerge are insomnia, depression, visual and hearing problems, and digestive problems.
Source: Dataquest, India
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