Record Details

Call Centre Work and Health and Safety Issues

Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies

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Field Value
 
Title Call Centre Work and Health and Safety Issues
 
Creator Hunt, Vivienne
Rasmussen, Erling
Lamm, Felicity
 
Description The international research on call centre employment presents a mainly negative view of the nature of this work. A more positive portrayal of call centre work has been demonstrated in some New Zealand research, highlighting the problem of generalising across different contexts. Previous New Zealand research has also found variation in terms of employment outcomes, job satisfaction and career opportunities across various industries, type and size of call centre and different management approaches. This paper continues to explore the work experiences of call centre workers and is based on research in New Zealand conducted in public sector call centres. Insights from focus groups of trade union delegates informed the development of a survey which was circulated across 22 organisation, drawing responses from 845 call centre workers. The findings show that over half of the workers consider their call centre work is enjoyable most of the time, their work is strategically important and there are a number benefits. The benefits include career enhancements, new skills and developing social capital. However, despite the positives described in open ended survey questions and the ranking of attributes important to call centre workers, almost half of the respondents have health concerns about the nature of their work or the call centre workplace. It is this particular finding that is the focus of the paper. It illustrates the need for an occupational health focus to be extended to call centre employment in New Zealand.
 
Publisher Victoria University of Wellington
 
Date 2010-11-06
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Peer-reviewed Article
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/LEW/article/view/1677
10.26686/lew.v0i0.1677
 
Source Labour, Employment and Work in New Zealand; 2010: Labour, Employment and Work in New Zealand
2463-2600
 
Language eng
 
Relation https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/LEW/article/view/1677/1519