Factors causing stress: A study of Indian Call Centres

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the process of contracting out services to a third party vender either domestically or offshore. The purpose is to rationalise cost by getting rid of non core components of business. Over the last one decade, the BPO organisations in India have witnessed high growth as fierce competition among Multinational organisations to reduce cost has prompted them to shift their non core operations to low cost and high quality destinations like India. Call centres fall under the general umbrella of business process outsourcing.Stress is an unavoidable part of an individual's working life. Various studies conducted on Indian call centre organisations have highlighted the prevalence of high occupational stress. Call centre employees work long shifts, often during night, thus, becoming easy victims of various psycho-physiological ailments. For present study, convenience sampling was used to collect information from three different organisations in National Capital Region in India. Personal interviews were conducted to identify the various factors causing occupational stress among employees of call centre organisations. The major factors identified are monitoring of employees, angry customers, changing identity, performance metrics, and night shift