Retention increases if workers given more autonomy and access to management: study
About one-third of Canadian call centre employees will leave their jobs this year, but employers can stem the loss of workers by giving workers more individual discretion, access to more varied work and putting them in teams according to a new global study.
The study, the Global Call Centre Report, looked at operations in nearly 2,500 call centres in 17 countries including Canada.
Call centre employees face monotonous tasks, low pay, low job discretion and high performance monitoring, which all leads to high stress. This in turn leads to high turnover rates — as much as 31 per cent of the workforce in Canadian call centres turns over each year — as employees quit, retire, are promoted or fired.
The costs of turnover are high. On a global basis, replacing one agent equals on average 16 per cent of the gross annual earnings of a call centre worker.
But there are specific steps that employers can take to stem the turnover, including providing more interesting work, giving employees more autonomy and compensating them well, said Ann Frost, an associate professor of the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ont.
For example, directory assistance workers spend little time on a call and answer about 800 calls a day, said Frost, one of the author's of the Canadian portion of the report. This is very stressful and less enjoyable than working for an insurance company where employees can spend more time on the phone, talking with the customer and trying to meet his needs, said Frost.
Also, if an employee's work is so controlled that she isn't allowed to hang up on an abusive customer, she's not very likely to stick around, said Frost.
The study, which looked at 387 call centres in Canada, found the typical level of turnover in call centres with very high quality jobs (high discretion/low monitoring) is nine per cent, whereas it is 36 per cent for low quality jobs (low discretion/high monitoring).
Unfortunately, about 55 per cent of the jobs in Canada offer little discretion.
The study also found that centres with at least 30 per cent of the workforce in problem-solving groups, where employees get to meet with managers on a regular basis, had lower quit rates than centres with less than 30 per cent of workers in these teams (11.5 per cent compared to 16.9 per cent). And centres with at least 30 per cent of employees in self-directed work groups have 70 per cent lower quit rates than those with less than 30 per cent of workers in these teams (9.2 per cent compared to 16.5 per cent).
Customer service representatives earn an average of about $31,000, with unionized workers earning 36 per cent more than their non-unionized counterparts. Non-unionized centres also have twice the turnover of unionized centres (34.6 per cent compared to 16.9 per cent).
The study, the Global Call Centre Report, looked at operations in nearly 2,500 call centres in 17 countries including Canada.
Call centre employees face monotonous tasks, low pay, low job discretion and high performance monitoring, which all leads to high stress. This in turn leads to high turnover rates — as much as 31 per cent of the workforce in Canadian call centres turns over each year — as employees quit, retire, are promoted or fired.
The costs of turnover are high. On a global basis, replacing one agent equals on average 16 per cent of the gross annual earnings of a call centre worker.
But there are specific steps that employers can take to stem the turnover, including providing more interesting work, giving employees more autonomy and compensating them well, said Ann Frost, an associate professor of the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ont.
For example, directory assistance workers spend little time on a call and answer about 800 calls a day, said Frost, one of the author's of the Canadian portion of the report. This is very stressful and less enjoyable than working for an insurance company where employees can spend more time on the phone, talking with the customer and trying to meet his needs, said Frost.
Also, if an employee's work is so controlled that she isn't allowed to hang up on an abusive customer, she's not very likely to stick around, said Frost.
The study, which looked at 387 call centres in Canada, found the typical level of turnover in call centres with very high quality jobs (high discretion/low monitoring) is nine per cent, whereas it is 36 per cent for low quality jobs (low discretion/high monitoring).
Unfortunately, about 55 per cent of the jobs in Canada offer little discretion.
The study also found that centres with at least 30 per cent of the workforce in problem-solving groups, where employees get to meet with managers on a regular basis, had lower quit rates than centres with less than 30 per cent of workers in these teams (11.5 per cent compared to 16.9 per cent). And centres with at least 30 per cent of employees in self-directed work groups have 70 per cent lower quit rates than those with less than 30 per cent of workers in these teams (9.2 per cent compared to 16.5 per cent).
Customer service representatives earn an average of about $31,000, with unionized workers earning 36 per cent more than their non-unionized counterparts. Non-unionized centres also have twice the turnover of unionized centres (34.6 per cent compared to 16.9 per cent).
