Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy
Open Access

Turnover intentions and attributes of the call centre environment-the moderating effect of hardiness

29^th World Summit on Positive Psychology, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy

May 21-22, 2018 | New York, USA

Teodora Kazalarska Lazarov

Globaltrack, South Africa

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Psychol Psychother

Abstract :

This research examines the call centre industry and some of the key challenges that arise in South Africa. Call centres are a core function in the operation of many businesses and have proven to be highly beneficial for organizations. Nevertheless, the work environment is still characterized by low quality, poor job attitudes, stressful, highly monotonous, repetitive, demanding interpersonal and technical skills (Workman and Bommer; Holman). This might explain why the employees� commitment levels are low and the work climate is poor. The high levels of call monitoring and the perceptions of fairness of the monitoring systems might be the contributing factors of the increasingly high levels of stress and turnover intentions in the call centre industry (Little and Dean, 2006). Thus, this research project aims to examine what is the situation in the South African call centre environment in terms of turnover intentions and employees� perceptions and attributes of that environment. Workforce turnover is well-recognized as an issue of critical importance to managers. Lack of employee continuity and organizational stability, the high costs involved in the selection and training of new staff and organizational productivity are some of the challenges that arise as a consequence of turnover. A recent industry study of call centres in Australia reported full-time staff turnover (resignations) as being 26% per annum. These research findings are different to what have been found in previous research. This is due to call centers being perceived as white collar labor in an economic environment with high levels of unemployment.