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Stress is the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure placed on themfrom extraordinary demands, constraints, or opportunities. It is related to
demand or resources means what the individual desire and for which the
outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and employment .it mean when the
demand is greater than resources means if we have the need of more work but
we cant complete the due to lacking of time.
Stress is an increasing problem in an
organization for example, most people are says that they are suffering with stressdue to greater workloads and having to work longer hours because of downsizing
of their company. Mostly people suffered stress due to the unstability of their job,
by the survey report we got information about stress it mean employees are
complaint about the stress created in trying to balance work and family
responsibilities.
As well as mentioned above stress is associated with demands and resources.
Demands are responsibilities, pressure, obligations, and even uncertainties
individuals face in workplace. Resources are things within an individuals control
that can be used the resolve of demands.
CONCEPT:-
STRESS the term is introduced by
HANS SELYE in 1936 he views stress as the non specifically induced changes
within a biological system. It is non specific because any adaptation to a problem
faced by the body , irrespective of the nature of the problem , is included
Ivancevich and Matteson define stress as an adaptive response , mediated by
individual characteristics and or psychological process , that is consequence of
any external action , situation, or event that places special physical and
as an adaptive response to an external factor that results in physical,
psychological, or behavioral deviations in an individual.
By some example we can understand stress in better way. Where as the demandof working long hour leads to stress. Because, due to working load they dont
spend sufficient time at home and they are unable to fulfill the demand of their
family person.
CAUSES OF STRESS:-
There may be various conditions in which people may feel stress. Condition that
tend to cause major stress are called stressors. Although even a single stressor
may cause major stress like death of near one, usually stressor combine to pressan individual in a variety of ways until stress develops .
The various stressors can be grouped into four categories:
Individual stressors: there are many stressors at the level of individual which
may be generated in the context of organizational life or his personal life.
Fifty-seven per cent of workers in the corporate sector in India reported an
increase in stress over the last two years, a survey has said.
Of over 11,000 corporate across 13 countries, 58 per cent companies worldwide
experienced an appreciable rise in their workplace stress over the last two years,
according to a survey by workplace solutions provider Regus plc.
The survey asked more than 11,000 respondents about their experience in theworkplace during tough economic times. It found that Indian workers experienced
a slightly lower rise in stress than their international counterparts, with 57 per
cent reporting that their levels of stress have grown higher or much higher
over the past two years.
The most significant stress hike in the countries surveyed occurred in China, with
86 per cent reporting an increase in stress. The lowest increase in stress was felt
in the Netherlands, with 47 per cent reporting a rise.
A Regus statement said a study by the Indian Council for Research on
International Economic Relations found that Indias rapid economic expansion has
boosted corporate profits and employee incomes, but has also sparked a surge in
workplace stress and lifestyle diseases that few Indian companies have addressed.
The survey said 45 per cent of Indian workers are particularly stressed by the
increased focus on profitability that has arisen during the recession. In fact, this
particular pressure is stressing out Indian employees more than workers in any of
the other countries surveyed. Another factor responsible for increasing workplace
stress is the pressure to maintain excellent customer service: 33 per cent
identified this as a major stress-causing factor. Company size has also had an
influence on the level of stress increase experienced in recent years.
It found that workers in mid-sized Indian companies (50-249 employees) have
experienced a greater rise in workplace stress: 61 per cent of employees in mid-
Any average employee works for 11-12 hours per day-the number goes up to 14
in case of companies that encourage overtime. The plight of the operational
heads is worse-they regularly clock 17-18 hours per day working their shift
besides staying back for customer conference calls.
WORK TIMING:
work timing is the second biggest factor of stress for HCL BPO employees and all
BPO industry, in fact, feel that this is the root cause for most of the malaises
afflicting Indian call centers. It is indeed an irony that the raison d'être for the
success of the industry is also turning out to be its Achilles Heel. But, since, no
doubt, the geographical time difference with the US and the UK gives Indian
industry one of its biggest advantages, a possible solution to the problem isunlikely to be found in the near future. Even the endorsement from 38.6% of the
respondents seems to be somewhat tempered by the fact that many of the
respondents were either senior non-call floor people, or those in the day shift.
While pure-play call centers like Transworks and EXL Services were most severely
afflicted, barring eFunds and iSeva to some extent, no one in the survey seems to
have tackled the issue with any measure of success.
WORK LOAD:
Some would argue that even IT services employees are burdened with
tremendous workload, so why are BPO employees complaining? The real story
lies elsewhere. True, even IT services employees work for long and odd hours, but
these are interspersed with smoke breaks, coffee breaks or plain chatting with
colleagues. Unfortunately, this is not the case in call centers, where sometimes
agents do not even get toilet breaks. Sounds draconian? But that is the business
driven reality for the Indian call center industry. Absolute freshers get a little
respite, since the first few months on the job involves a lot of training time. Likeon several other factors, eFunds is in the least affected category, either they are
close to devising a mechanism to take care of the most common stresses, or the
attrition rate is so high that most of these factors are not accounted for .
No surprises here-it is a commonly accepted fact that the monotony of the same
kind of work in call centers can indeed be very stressful. 37.1% of the respondentsre-iterate the same in the survey. The male freshers seem to the group
particularly affected. Again, solutions are not readily available, though measures
like hiring retired personnel or housewives might be of some succor, since these
groups with more experience tend to get frustrated the least. Some others have
also devised innovative measures, like periodic job rotation, though not much can
be expected out of these in a pure call center environment. That explains why,
even in eFunds, the company least affected with this affliction, more than 14%
complained about the stress caused by the repetitive nature of the job. It is a bit
surprising to see Motif'son the most affected list, especially given that it is locatedin a smaller town like Ahmedabad. Received wisdom, that small town employees
in places with limited scope do not easily get tired even of repetitive jobs, stands
questioned.
INSUFFICINT HOLIDAYS:
While this was not amongst the top 10 causes of stress in last year's survey, this
year more than 36% of the respondents complained about it. Not too surprising,considering that most of these employees have to work on all Indian calendar
holidays. True, they enjoy holidays like July 4th and Thanksgiving, but that is scant
solace for working 12-14 hour shifts even during the festive seasons. Of all the
companies surveyed, only eFunds seems to have escaped the brunt of this
problem. To add to the woes, many companies dangle the bait of additional
incentives for working on holidays-it is initially attractive to the freshers, but as
This is particularly galling for the first timers-working in an environment where
every single action needs to conform to a performance measuring metrics. This
looks unlikely to go away soon, since most call centers are keen on differentstandards certifications. It's no fad, but, instead, an absolute business necessity
for most companies to follow these quantifiable business metrics to attract
customers. However, not many are keen to look at the effect this has on their
employees. More than 36% point to it as one of their major grouses-the only
silver lining here is that, with experience, the stress level goes down, and more
importantly, working on such quantifiable performance parameters helps these
people later in their careers. Companies like Sykes and Transworks, which have
been going for a number of certifications this year, seem to be the most affected.
HEALTH ISSUES:
Last year, when 23% pointed to health hazards as a cause of stress, we compared
the call center industry with coal miners. This time the number has gone up to
34.5%-maybe it's time to classify call centers as an extremely hazardous job. We
have also detailed the call center related ailments separately. Not surprisingly,
people in senior managerial positions with five plus years of experience are less
affected with these illnesses. That's perhaps because they maintain a moreregular work schedule and timing. Companies like 24/7 and ICICI OneSource,
which have grown spectacularly in a short frame of time last year, seem to be
most seriously affected.
TRAVEL TIME:
Most call centers are located on the outskirts of cities, and therefore most
employees spend a long time traveling to and from their offices. Again, this is
unique to the Indian industry and cannot be easily wished away. Most Indian call
centers require large manpower influxes in order to scale up and grow, and to
support such huge workforces, they need lots of real estate. And exorbitant land
prices inside cities necessitate their movement to the outskirts. Therefore, it is
not surprising that companies like Motif, located in a smaller city like Ahmedabad,
are least affected by this factor.
CALL VOLUME/NUMBER OF CALL:
the overall workload is quite high, call volume in itself is proving to be a major
cause for stress, afflicting 26.8% of our respondents. In most call centers, there is
hardly any respite between two calls-not only is this disconcerting, but in the case
of one abusive call immediately following another, it can be psychologically
disturbing too. In addition, most agents accept these calls under an assumed
identity: constantly maintaining a false image amidst an influx of calls afflicts all
agents both experienced ones as well as first timers.
OVERTIME:
Though most companies encourage overtime with incentives, for most of the
respondents (25%), this is one stress they inflict upon themselves. Especially the
first timers, who, with the goal of making more money, willingly do overtimes, butonce they are into it, the stress factor starts showing up. Overtime, in concert
with long working hours and travel time, is turning out to be a potent
combination, causing call center-related stresses. Not surprisingly, companies like
eFunds, which have high capacity utilization, seem to be not at all affected by the
overtime issue, according to our survey.
EAR PROBLEM:
Employees are suffering with ear problems because they have got target to attain
maximum call and their working time is approximately 11 to 12 hours . so due to
this reason they are busy on every time on to attain the call and this is running as
By the above graph we can understand easily the major causes for the stress
increasment at HCL BPO is insufficient holidays , means employees are didnt got
holidays during festive season, due to this the stress increases among the
employees. And second causes is long working hour it mean call center executives
approximately 12 hours every day while in other industry mostly working hour is 8
to 10 hours and in working period they got hardly five to ten minutes it is so
stressfull. And another problem is health issues in which employees are suffered
lots of health related problem and reason behind it long night shift due to thisreason employees are suffering with stress.
Another big factor is call volumes/number of calls because, call center executive
are under pressure to keep the call volumes high as well as keep call times low.
And employees are got break hardely five minutes and they have to attain the
maximum call in a day. So, it is also a big factor for increasement of stress among
employees.
Overtime is also a factor of stress because most freshers are do overtime formore money. However the motivation of theirs tends to wear off after sometime
and stress take over.and Pressure to Perform on Metrics
is also the big reason because, Call center executives are usually faced with
contradictions. Organizational rhetoric in inbound calls centers in concerned with
customer satisfaction (quality service). Yet these goals are juxtaposed with an
ongoing pressure to keep call times down and call volumes up. This is guided by
the logic of delivering quality on service while routinizing, centralizing, reducing
costs and prescribing standards. Efforts to attain the desired balance between the
quantity and quality of calls remains a perennial challenge.
Inbound call centers typically have targets for call durations; wrap time and daily
call volume. Outbound call centers often also have sales or completion targets,
which are closely monitored and pay could be partially linked to sales targets.
BPO analysts argue that targets are a significant source of stress for the workers.
4. Facilitate role enlargement, role linkage and role enrichment to manage role
isolation, self-role distance and role erosion.
5. Adequate role clarification to be made whenever necessary to eliminate role
ambiguity.
6. Introduce more job oriented training programs, which improve employees skill
and their confidence to work effectively.
7. Do concentrate on career planning to manage role stagnation.
8. Encourage open channel of communication to deal work related stress.
9. Let the employee clear about hard work related reward and smart work related
reward.
10. Adequate resources i.e., material, technical and human, should be extended
to make employee feel safe and secure to perform their work effectively.
11. Undertake stress audit at all levels in the organization to identify stress area
improving conditions of job and alleviating job stress.
12. Ensure justified use of grievance handling procedures to win trust and
confidence of employees and reduce their anxiety and tension related to job
related problems.
13. Encourage involvement of leaders and personnel at various levels in all phases
of strategic interventions to ensure successful and long-standing interventions.
14. Formulate HRD interventions and individual stress alleviation program.15. Introduce 'Pranayam' (Brain Stilling and control of Vital Force) as a holistic
managerial strategy to deal with occupational strategy.
16. Provide counseling on work related and personnel problems and support from
a team of welfare health and counseling staff.
17. Attractive system of reward and recognition of good work.
18. Ensure an organizational climate with career planning and career growth to
ensure further the retention of talented employees.
19. Extent the counseling practices at employee family level including dependentsand relatives.
20. Effective follow up should be made to different leave category absentee
employees.
21. Organization should organize regular check up and those found suffering from
very high stress should be subjected to stress management process.