In the article “Stressful Work, Citizenship Behavior and Intention to Leave the Organization in a High Turnover Environment: Examining the Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction” Paillé (2011) presents the notion that a high stress environment has a connection with increased employee churn rates within particular organizations. He argues that job satisfaction is an important factor in keeping employees wherein employees that were satisfied with their jobs were more likely to stay despite being within a stressful work environment. In order to prove such an assertion, Paillé (2011) utilized a questionnaire based study on 1,000 prospective participants that were alumni of a French engineering school.
Out of the 1,000 studies that were examined, only 138 actually provided usable data. Paillé (2011) focused on measures of perceived stress, job satisfaction and citizenship behaviour (OCB) to examine the likelihood of an employee staying or leaving. The results of the study confirmed his initial assumptions involving job satisfaction and a lower likelihood of employee churn. It should be noted though that the Paillé (2011) study is far from unique given that the topic of stress, job satisfaction and employee retention has been extensively investigated over the past several decades with numerous assertions all being similar to that of Paillé (2011).
To better understand the concept of employee retention, the article “Levels of Involvement and Retention of Agents in Call Centers: Improving Well-Being of Employees for Better Socioeconomic Performance” by Pierre and Tremblay (2011) was examined. In the study, the researchers examined the case of the call center industry and its high churn rates wherein nearly 70% of hired and trained employees do not stay within the organization over extended periods of time (i.e. limited to 1 to 2 years).
They noted that agents felt that they were not involved in the organization (i.e. they felt they were treated more as a statistic that an actual person) and, as a result, such feelings impacted the quality of their work. Similar to the case of Paillé (2011), Pierre and Tremblay (2011) presents the notion that job satisfaction has an impact on employee retention. They point out that factors related to tight managerial controls (i.e. the use of metrics to measure performance), low salaries, lack of sufficient diversity in tasks, the scheduling system utilized (i.e. alternating night and day shifts) as well as a lack of appreciation for the work that they do contributed significantly to employee displeasure with their jobs and a greater likelihood of leaving.
Such data was collected utilizing 20 interviews involving agents, managers and various stakeholders within the call center industry. Overall, the Pierre and Tremblay (2011) is similar to the Paillé (2011) with the noted exception that it showed individuals who did not receive the same level of professional training as the research subjects of Paillé. This is indicative of the fact that regardless of educational status or type of employment, job satisfaction in terms of actually enjoying one’s job and working environment is essential in retaining employees.
In support of the views of Pierre and Tremblay (2011) and Paillé (2011) the article “How to Put the Quality Back in Call Center Customer Service: Potentials and Pitfalls” by DeNucci (2011) presents potential solutions to the problems found in the call center industry. The article itself does not utilize a particular methodology to present results, rather, it focuses on the presentation of information as gathered by DeNucci (2011) in his experience within the call center industry.
The researcher explains that in order to resolve the issue of service quality as well as retain employees within the call center industry, it is necessary to add a degree of professionalism, continuous challenges, proper training as well as sufficient career development for call center agents. In fact, DeNucci (2011) presents the essentials of the “metrics” based method of call evaluation wherein the performance of employees are based on the resolution of the issue on the first call, the length of the call, access to the representative, the consistency of service, and accurate and complete answers which results in a satisfied customers.
By analyzing adherence to such metrics and creating job satisfaction through sufficient professionalism of the job, DeNucci (2011) presents the notion that not only can this help in improving the quality of work done but would also result in better levels of employee retention. However, as revealed by Paillé (2011), professionalism in a field does not necessarily result in greater employee retention. Not only that, Pierre and Tremblay (2011) also delve into the processes utilized in call centers and how stricter managerial controls actually results in greater levels of employee resentment towards their jobs.
The metrics based method of improving call center agent performance is a form of strict managerial control and, as such, despite his focus on empowerment, training and creating more career opportunities for agents, it is likely that his advocated methodology would still result in high employee churn rates. On the other hand it would definitely address the quality issues that Pierre and Tremblay (2011) and Paillé (2011) brought up, but again it still would not resolve the main problem of considerable employee job dissatisfaction
In another analysis, the Batt, Doellgast and Kwon (2005) study “Service Management and Employment Systems in U.S. and Indian Call Centers” focused on the concept of outsourced call center services and the considerable level of employee churn as well as questions regarding call quality and security.
Utilizing a survey technique of U.S. and Indian based call centers, it was shown that the main issue involving problems of quality was that Indian and U.S. call centers were underutilizing the technological capabilities of their employees which is an indication of a lack of sufficient training and infrastructure in terms of enabling companies to get the most out of the skills of their employees. As a result, job dissatisfaction develops since there is a feeling of skill and work stagnation among employees. A solution to this was presented by DeNucci (2011) wherein the best solution would be better training and more effective use of technologies.
What these studies reveal is that in order to resolve the issue of high employee churn rates within the call center industry, the issue of sufficient job satisfaction needs to be addressed. However, the problem with articles such as that by DeNucci (2011) and Batt, Doellgast and Kwon (2005) is that they advocate the use of better training and professionalism in order to address the issue of job satisfaction which is different from what Paillé (2011) and Pierre and Tremblay (2011) which show that education (i.e. training) and greater levels of professionalism (i.e. use of strict managerial controls and metrics) do not automatically equate into job satisfaction. This shows that more research needs to be done in order to develop sufficient methods of job satisfaction that address the two viewpoints that have been presented.
Reference List
Batt, R., Doellgast, V., & Kwon, H. (2005). Service Management and Employment Systems in U.S. and Indian Call Centers. Brookings Trade Forum, 335-372.
DeNucci, T. (2011). How to Put the Quality Back in Call Center Customer Service: Potentials and Pitfalls. Benefits Quarterly, 27(2), 7-11.
Paillé, P. (2011). Stressful Work, Citizenship Behaviour and Intention to Leave the Organization in a High Turnover Environment: Examining the Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction. Journal Of Management Research, 3(1), 1-14.
Pierre, X., & Tremblay, D. (2011). Levels of Involvement and Retention of Agents in Call Centres: Improving Well-Being of Employees for Better Socioeconomic Performance. Journal Of Management Policy & Practice, 12(5), 53-71.