Work Relationships

Journal of Management Studies 39:4 June 2002
0022-2380
WORK RELATIONSHIPS IN TELEPHONE CALL CENTRES:

UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AND EMPLOYEE
WITHDRAWAL
S D
King’s College, University of London
R I
Simon Fraser University
J W
Royal Holloway, University of London

This paper examines the nature of employment and the conditions of work in five
telephone call centres in the telecommunications industry in Australia. Call centre
work typically requires high levels of sustained interpersonal interaction with cus-
tomers which can lead to burnout and employee withdrawal. Customer service
staff can also become targets of customer hostility and abuse. In addition, this
form of work tends to involve extensive employee monitoring and surveillance with
little job discretion or variety of tasks. The paper draws upon survey data from
480 telephone service operators to identify the factors that are associated with
emotional exhaustion and the frequency of absence amongst the employees. A
modelling of the data using LISREL VIII revealed that a number of job and work-
setting variables affected the level of emotional exhaustion of employees. These
included interactions with the customer, a high workload and a lack of variety of
work tasks. Moreover, higher rates of absence were associated with emotional
exhaustion.

The growth of employment in telephone call centres has been widely recorded
(Belt et al., 1999; Kinnie et al., 2000; Taylor and Bain, 1999). Three per cent of
the working population in the United States are currently located in this form of
employment and it has been estimated that up to 1.3 per cent of the European
Address for reprints: Stephen Deery, The Management Centre, King’s College, University of London,
Franklin-Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 8WA (stephen.deery@kcl.ac.uk).
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
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workforce will be employed in call centres by the year 2002 (Datamonitor, 1998).
In Australia employment is said to be expanding at a rate of 20 per cent per annum
(Barker, 1998). This job growth reflects a more general shift in economic activity
in most Western countries from goods production to service provision. Service
work now accounts for more than 70 per cent of employment in most advanced
economies (Frenkel et al., 1999).
Many of these newly created service jobs involve face-to-face or voice-to-voice
interactions with customers (Macdonald and Sirianni, 1996). They include activ-
ities as diverse as selling financial products and answering queries about bank
charges to assisting clients with insurance claims and waiting on tables. Invariably
this work requires a high degree of personal contact with the public and the per-
formance of what has been termed ‘emotional labour’ (Hochschild, 1979). During
service transactions, employees are expected to display emotions that comply with
certain norms or standards of the organization which are designed to create a
desired ‘state of mind’ in the customer. In voice-to-voice service work this has been
characterized as ‘smiling down the telephone’ (Belt et al., 1999). According to
Erickson and Wharton (1997, p. 188) employees are expected to ‘appear happy,
nice and glad to serve the customer’ in spite of any private misgivings or any dif-
ferent feelings they may have. Indeed, a key feature of interactive service work is
the presentation of emotions that are specified by the organization and embodied
in the rules of employment (Morris and Feldman, 1997). Gordon (1989) has
described this as the commoditization of emotions.
Concern has been expressed about the possible negative effects of this form of
work on the psychological well-being of employees. Hochschild (1979, 1983) has
claimed that job-related burnout is one of the most likely outcomes of the per-
formance of emotional labour. She believed that staff who were employed in jobs
with sustained customer contact and few opportunities to vary the nature of their
displayed feelings risked high levels of stress. Morris and Feldman (1997) also con-
sidered that frequent interpersonal interactions with clients of an emotionally
intense nature could be expected to lead to emotional exhaustion. However, there
have been very few quantitative attempts to examine the socio-psychological effects
of emotional labour on frontline service workers. Although case study research has
yielded important insights into the nature of emotion work it has not provided the
opportunity for researchers to isolate the particular work or job-related factors that
might be associated with emotional exhaustion. Wharton’s (1993) research is the
most notable exception. In her pioneering study of frontline service work she found
that jobs involving emotional labour did not have uniformly negative consequences
and that the incidence of emotional exhaustion was influenced by a range of work-
related factors. These included job autonomy, opportunities for self-monitoring,
length of tenure and working hours. This study, however, was restricted to banking
and to health care and given the heterogeneity of front line service work it was
quite possible as Wharton (1993, p. 238) acknowledged that different sets of factors
may explain emotional exhaustion amongst different types of employees. Fur-
thermore, the study did not explore the consequences of emotional exhaustion
(viz. absenteeism or turnover).
The purpose of our research is to build upon this work, firstly, by identifying
the factors that lead to feelings of emotional exhaustion amongst telephone cus-
tomer service operators, and secondly, by analysing the effects of emotional
exhaustion on employee absence. The paper examines the way in which the job
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002
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and the work environment affect the incidence of emotional exhaustion and
employee withdrawal. It also draws attention to the role of social support systems
within the organization as well as to the effect of personal and demographic vari-
ables. In the following section we examine the nature of call centre work and the
way in which employees’ emotions are regulated and managed. We then discuss
the concept of emotional exhaustion and outline the factors that are expected to
affect its incidence and lead to higher levels of employee absence. The paper then
provides information on the research setting, the sample and the measures used in
the study. Finally, we detail the empirical results and discuss the significance of the
findings.
     

Call centres engage staff to work interactively with customers on either inbound
or outbound calls on activities such as sales and telemarketing, product and service
information, and customer queries and complaints. These employees perform an
important role in the management of customer relationships. The manner in
which they display their feelings towards customers has a critical effect on the
quality of service transactions (Ashforth and Humphrey, 1993, p. 88). Customers’
perceptions of quality service are significantly affected by the nature of the inter-
action with front line staff (Peccei and Rosenthal, 1997). Indeed, the quality of the
interaction is often the service provided (Leidner, 1996). The behaviour of the
employee is therefore central to the success of the service transaction.
As a consequence, service sector organizations have sought to specify the
way in which employees ‘present themselves’ to their customers. Requirements
that staff display certain forms of behaviour which conform to organizationally
established norms are now common in most areas of interactive service work
(Macdonald and Sirianni, 1996). This has led to particularly invasive forms
of workplace control. Computer technology has become a critical component of
workplace management in telephone call centres (Batt, 1999). It can be used to
monitor the speed of work, regulate the level of downtime, and assess the quality
of the interaction between the service provider and the customer. Furthermore,
employees are often required to follow a tightly scripted dialogue with customers
and conform to highly detailed instructions. The close monitoring of words and
manners and the limited variation that employees are often allowed in service
interactions has meant that call centre workers have lost a large measure of control
over their self-presentation to customers. This has left them with little flexibility in
negotiating their interactions with customers (Wharton, 1996).
Indeed the involvement of the customer as a third party in the work process
brings added complexity to the employer–employee relationship. In some cases the
customer can be enlisted by management to supervise jointly the employee. Not
only can they be solicited to provide feedback on the quality of the service that is
being delivered, they may unilaterally lodge complaints about the service provider.
Furthermore, as Leidner (1996, p. 40) notes, the customer can ‘reinforce man-
agement’s control efforts, reprimanding workers for dawdling or behaving rudely
. . . and complaining to workers’ superiors when service . . . [does] not meet their
expectations’. Fuller and Smith (1996, p. 84) believe that the introduction of
the customer as a mechanism of control has resulted in employees gaining ‘an
474 . , .   . 
additional boss’. Moreover, this has occurred in a context of rising customer expec-
tations about service quality which have often been highly primed by the organi-
zations themselves (Ashforth and Humphrey, 1993). It has been noted that
customers are now more able to discern the difference between genuine ‘quality
service’ and ‘’feigned quality service’ (Taylor, 1998, p. 87).
The customer can also bring other tensions to the work environment. They may
be abusive and irritating and their demands may be unreasonable. Indeed as
Macdonald and Sirianni (1996, p. 17) point out for some employees, ‘their daily
work experience is often one of a series of minor complaints assuming major
proportions for the customer’. In order to manage these situations and protect
themselves from abuse or ill treatment, employees are often encouraged to sup-
press their true feelings and emotionally detach themselves from hostile or diffi-
cult customers (Frenkel et al., 1998; Hochschild, 1979). However, this disjuncture
between what employees might feel towards their customers and what they are
expected to display may prove difficult to resolve and may cause considerable
anxiety (Wharton, 1993). Another source of possible stress for employees relates
to the tension between management’s goals of customer satisfaction and customer
throughput. Research into telephone service work indicates that while manage-
ment often seeks to achieve both high customer service quality and high customer
processing levels it is output targets that invariably take precedence over service
quality (Kinnie et al., 1999). Although employees are often monitored for service
quality there is normally greater pressure placed on productivity. In most telephone
call centres there are constant efforts to increase the number of calls taken per
employee and reduce both customer call time and wrap-up time (Taylor, 1998;
Taylor and Bain, 1999). These contradictory but asymmetrical pressures both
create role conflict for employees and impede their ability to provide high quality
service (Knights and McCabe, 1998). They can also lead to emotional exhaustion
( Jackson et al., 1986).
 
Emotional exhaustion is widely regarded as the core component of job burnout
( Jackson et al., 1986; Maslach, 1982). It is characterized by feelings of tiredness
and fatigue, a lack of energy and the depletion of an individual’s emotional
resources (Moore, 2000). Emotional exhaustion is considered to be the first stage
of the burnout process (Gaines and Jermier, 1983). Indeed, Jackson et al. (1986,
p. 630) define burnout as a ‘state of emotional exhaustion caused by excessive psy-
chological and emotional demands made on people helping people’. The burnout
syndrome is seen as a distinctive type of stress resulting from working conditions
that feature high levels of interpersonal contact (Cordes and Dougherty, 1993).
Leiter and Maslach (1988) have suggested that human service providers cope with
emotional exhaustion by depersonalizing their relationship with others which in
turn undermines their accomplishments and results in negative evaluations of their
work. This is seen to be a common phenomenon in helping and caring professions
and in customer-service occupations where the strain of frequent and often intense
contact with people can result in anxiety and frustration and feelings of being used
up and worn out (Maslach and Jackson, 1981; Perlman and Hartman, 1982).

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There are a number of factors that affect the incidence of emotional exhaus-
tion. The research has tended to indicate that situational rather than person (or
individual-difference) factors are the key predictors (Moore, 2000). These princi-
pally relate to the nature of the work demands placed upon individuals. Amongst
the most important of these factors are workload, role overload, work pressure and
role conflict (Cordes and Dougherty, 1993; Lee and Ashforth, 1996). High work-
load, in particular, has consistently been linked to emotional exhaustion in a range
of studies ( Jackson et al., 1986; Maslach and Pines, 1977). Furthermore, where
individuals feel that they lack the training and skills to deal satisfactorily with the
requirements of their job (role overload) they are more likely to experience emo-
tional exhaustion (Maslach and Pines, 1977). In addition, role conflict (the extent
to which incompatible expectations are communicated to the employee) has
been widely identified as a determinant of emotional exhaustion (Schwab and
Iwanicki, 1982; Jackson et al., 1986; Leiter and Maslach, 1988). The availability
of resources in an organization to help individuals cope with the work demands
can also affect the incidence of emotional exhaustion (Lee and Ashforth, 1996).
Organizational resources, such as supervisory and coworker support, as well as
opportunities for job enhancement can act as important buffers to stress (Cordes
and Dougherty, 1993).
There has been little empirical research into the behavioural consequences of
emotional exhaustion. However, there is some evidence that workers will seek to
alleviate emotional exhaustion by withdrawing either temporarily or permanently
from the work situation (Gaines and Jermier, 1983; Moore, 2000). Emotional
exhaustion has been linked to turnover amongst teachers ( Jackson et al., 1986)
and to absenteeism amongst nurses (Firth and Britton, 1989) and telephone reser-
vation agents (Saxton et al., 1991). In the context of this literature on the nature
of emotional exhaustion and its antecedents and outcomes we will now turn to an
elaboration of our explanatory model.
     

 
There are a number of variables that could be expected to affect the level of emo-
tional exhaustion of telephone service operators in a call centre environment. We
have grouped these variables into four clusters: firstly, those pertaining to the
nature of the job and to the work setting; secondly, those relating to social support
in the organization; thirdly, those pertaining to personal dispositions and assess-
ments; and finally, demographic variables, such as age, gender and employment
status. Furthermore, we have hypothesized that certain personal and demographic
variables in addition to emotional exhaustion would affect the frequency of
employee withdrawal. The variables are defined in Table I while the hypothesized
relationships are presented in a diagrammatic form in Figure 1.
The first set of explanatory variables relate to the nature of the job and to the
setting in which the employees work. It is widely recognized that the interaction
between the service provider and the customer or client is a critical determinant
of emotional exhaustion (Maslach, 1982; Maslach and Jackson, 1981, 1984).
There have been suggestions that service sector organizations have raised the

476 . , .   . 
Table I. Definition of variables
Variable Definition and source of measure used
Frequency of The number of one and two day absences that an employee took over a
employee withdrawal 12 month period. Supplied to employee from personnel records
Emotional exhaustion Extent to which an individual feels emotionally drained from their work
(Wharton, 1993)
Customer interactions Degree to which employees believe that customers have become more
abusive and demanding over the phone (formulated by researchers)
Scripted Extent to which individuals do not like speaking in a scripted way to
conversational rules customers (formulated by researchers)
Emotional expressivity Extent to which employees find it difficult to conceal their real emotions
from customers (King et al., 1994)
Management focus on Degree to which senior management is perceived as focusing on quantity
quantity rather than quality of calls (formulated by researchers)
Workload Extent to which pace of work is regarded as excessive (Caplan et al.,
1975)
Role overload Extent to which employee lacks the necessary skills to deal with the
requirements of their job (Caplan et al., 1975)
Routinization Degree to which job involves repetitive tasks (Price and Mueller, 1986)
Monitoring Degree to which employee does not accept the level and form of
monitoring (formulated by researchers)
Promotional Extent to which promotional opportunities are available in the
opportunity organization (Price and Mueller, 1986)
Number of calls Number of calls taken on average per day by employee
Average length of calls Average length of calls taken by employee
Management of Extent to which employee feels unfairly pressured to minimize wrap-up
wrap-up time time (formulated by researchers)
Team member Degree to which team members provide help and support on the job
support (House, 1981)
Team leader support Degree to which team leader provides help and support with job-related
problems (House, 1981)
Positive affectivity Degree to which an individual holds a positive disposition towards life
and work (Agho et al., 1992)
Physical health Extent to which individual believes general physical health is good
(Cyphert, 1990)
Age Age in years
Female Dichotomous variable, coded females ‘1’, males ‘0’
Full time Dichotomous variable, coded full time ‘1’, part time ‘0’
Education Recoded levels of education as years of education, calculated on the
basis of the mid-point of that education level
Tenure Years of service with employing organization
baseline expectations of customers about the level and quality of service delivery
they can expect to receive (Ashforth and Humphrey, 1993; Noon and Blyton,
1997). The incidence of customer abuse (or phone rage) is said to have increased
sharply due to these higher expectations. A recent study of service sector compa-
nies found that the primary reason for this abusive behaviour was an apparent
   477
Job and work-setting variables

Customer interactions (+)
Scripted conversational rules (+)
Emotional expressivity (+)
Management focus on quantity (+)
Workload (+)
Role overload (+) Emotional
Routinization (+) exhaustion
Monitoring (+)
Promotional opportunity (–)
Number of calls (+)
Average length of calls (–)
Management of wrap-up time (+)
Social support variables

Team member support (–)
Team leader support (–)
(+)
Personal variables
(–) Frequency of
Positive affectivity (–)
Physical health(–) (–) employee
withdrawal
Demographic variables (–)
Age (–)
(+)
Female (+/–)
Education (–) (–)
Full-time (+) (+)
Tenure (–) (–)
Figure 1. Hypothesized model of frequency of employee withdrawal
‘insincere tone of voice from the person handling the query’ (The Guardian, 1997).
We sought to understand whether the potential strain of the interaction between
the service provider and the customer would be affected by perceptions of the
behaviour of the customer. Hence, we expected that employees who believed
that customers had become more difficult to satisfy and considered that they
were receiving more abusive customer calls would experience greater emotional
exhaustion.
It was noted earlier that telephone service operators are normally required to
follow a tightly scripted dialogue with customers. Although scripts may serve a pro-
tective function for employees by allowing them to work within organizationally
sanctioned limits with customers, they can also inhibit their autonomy and ability
to provide more customized service. Moreover, they can restrict the employees’
latitude to personalize the organization’s display rules (Morris and Feldman, 1997).
Thus we expected that employees who disliked speaking to customers in a scripted
fashion would experience higher levels of emotional exhaustion. The next vari-
able in this cluster is emotional expressivity. We noted earlier that a necessary
requirement of interactive service work was the creation of a particular emotional
climate between the employee and the customer and that such ‘manufactured’
climate may bear little relationship to the employee’s real feelings. This can create
tensions between the employee’s inner feelings and the requirements of outward
display (Fineman, 1995). Emotional expressivity refers to the difficulty that
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employees experience in containing their true feelings or emotions when servicing
their customers. Wharton (1996) has noted that workers who find it difficult to
distance themselves from their clients or customers may be more at risk from job
stress. We hypothesized that employees who had a greater tendency to express their
real feelings to customers would be more likely to suffer emotional exhaustion.
Call centre research has highlighted the contradictory messages conveyed to
employees about the importance of quality service to customers (Kinnie et al.,
1999; Knights and McCabe, 1998). Despite the rhetoric of service quality, man-
agement appears to place a greater emphasis on the quantity of calls (Frenkel
et al., 1999). This is often at the expense of the service rendered to the customer.
Where employees experience incompatible or incongruent demands their contin-
ued attempts to meet those demands can result in frustration and emotional dis-
tress ( Jackson et al., 1986). In our study we hypothesised that if employees believed
that management was not customer focused, and was more concerned with the
quantity rather than the quality of calls, they would experience higher levels of
emotional exhaustion.
The existence of a high workload is perhaps the most consistent predictor of
emotional exhaustion (Lee and Ashforth, 1996). Consequently, we expected that
emotional exhaustion would be higher amongst those employees who perceived
that they had too much work to perform in the time available. Role overload can
also contribute to feelings of emotional exhaustion (Cordes and Dougherty, 1993).
Therefore, if employees considered that they lacked the necessary skills and com-
petencies to deal with the requirements of the job we hypothesized that they would
be more likely to experience a greater sense of fatigue and tiredness. A distinctive
feature of call centre work is said to be the repetitive nature of the tasks which are
performed (Kinnie et al., 1999; Taylor and Bain, 1999). Thus we expected to find
higher levels of emotional exhaustion amongst those employees who viewed their
jobs as routinised and lacking in task variety (Wharton, 1996). The extensive use
of performance monitoring is another characteristic of interactive service work.
Wharton (1993) found that a lack of opportunities for self-monitoring increased
the likelihood of emotional exhaustion. We expected to find that employees who
disliked the continuous monitoring of their performance would experience higher
emotional exhaustion. The demands of interactive service work may be viewed as
less stressful when employees are provided with opportunities for career advance-
ment and development. Gaines and Jermier (1983) found that promotion oppor-
tunity was the most powerful predictor of emotional exhaustion amongst officers
and support personnel in the police service. Promotional and career development
opportunities tend to be quite limited in call centres because of their flat organi-
zational structures (Belt et al., 1999). However, we would hypothesize that per-
ceptions of promotional opportunity would be associated with lower levels of
emotional exhaustion.
The next two variables refer to the average number of calls taken per day by
each customer service operator and the average time spent on each call. We
expected that there would be a positive association between emotional exhaustion
and the number of calls taken by employees. The frequency of interpersonal inter-
actions has been shown to affect the level of emotional exhaustion (Maslach, 1982).
On the other hand, where employees spent longer on the telephone with each
customer we predicted that they would experience less exhaustion. In these cir-
cumstances service providers would have greater opportunities to build a rapport
   479
with customers thereby making the interaction more rewarding and pleasant. The
final variable relates to the management of wrap-up time. Call centres invariably
seek to maximize the time that employees spend on the telephone or are available
to take customer calls (Taylor and Bain, 1999). Frequently, there is considerable
pressure on employees to reduce the time that they spend ‘wrapping up’ customer
service details after the call has been completed. This can lead to feelings of anxiety
and frustration (Kinnie et al., 1999). We hypothesized that those employees who
believed that management was unfairly seeking to minimize wrap-up time would
be more likely to suffer from emotional exhaustion.
Social support from co-workers and supervisors can help buffer stress and enable
employees to manage their job-related problems (Leiter and Maslach, 1988). In
many telephone call centres teams have been created to encourage a sense of col-
lective identity (Taylor, 1998; Taylor and Bain, 1999). They also provide a basis
for social activity although there is evidence that teams can be used by manage-
ment to exert normative pressure on individuals to perform to desired team output
target levels (Knights and McCabe, 1998, pp. 178–81). Team leaders often act as
the first line of management control in call centres. They can enforce the organi-
zation’s rules on customer throughput and service standards and take disciplinary
action against employees (Frenkel et al., 1998). On the other hand, some team
leaders can help reduce organizational pressures on team members; they can listen
to, and sometimes solve employees’ problems, and generally ease some of the ten-
sions of call centre work. Moreover, team leaders may not always enforce the orga-
nization’s rules or follow its prescriptions. In this context we would hypothesize
that where employees felt that they received support from their team members and
from their team leader they would experience less emotional exhaustion. This is
consistent with the extant literature (Lee and Ashforth, 1996).
Finally, we can turn to the personal and demographic variables. It has been
suggested that certain personality types are more likely to fit the requirements of
customer service work. Outgoing or extravert individuals are said to be better
suited to this form of interactive work because of their more sociable personali-
ties (Rafaeli and Sutton, 1987). Field research studies in call centres indicate that
managers do seek to employ more outgoing or sociable employees who enjoy
interacting with people (Belt et al., 1999; Kinnie et al., 1999). We would expect
therefore that individuals with higher positive affectivity – those who hold a more
positive view of work and life in general – would experience lower levels of stress.
Employees who believe that their physical health is good could also be expected
to be less at risk of emotional exhaustion. We would also expect that older employ-
ees and those with greater tenure would be less likely to experience emotional
exhaustion. Older employees are more mature and more capable of managing the
possibly more difficult relationships with customers. A number of studies have
identified an inverse relationship between age and emotional exhaustion (Maslach
and Jackson, 1984; Schwab and Iwanicki, 1982). Similarly, employees with longer
tenure in the job will be more experienced in interactive service work. It would
appear that employees are most vulnerable to emotional exhaustion during the
first few years on the job (Gaines and Jermier, 1983; Saxton et al., 1991).
Women are said to be preferred by management for call centre employment
for a variety of reasons. It has been suggested that they are more sociable and
empathetic and therefore have better communication skills than men (Belt et al.,
1999). Women are also said to be more intuitive and tolerant and have stronger
480 . , .   . 
teamworking skills. This would suggest that women will suffer less negative effects
from interactive service work than men. On the other hand, Hochschild (1983)
has suggested that women may be more at risk from emotional exhaustion because
they are less protected than men from poor treatment of their feelings on the job.
In this context, Macdonald and Sirianni (1996, p. 15) believe that ‘women are
expected to be more nurturing and empathetic than men and to tolerate more
offensive behavior from customers’. There has been little research into the effect
of gender on emotional exhaustion. In one of the few studies in this area, Wharton
(1993) found no evidence to indicate that gender was associated with greater levels
of emotional fatigue among workers performing emotional labour. Consequently
we are not confident about predicting a relationship between gender and emo-
tional exhaustion. Individuals with higher levels of education could be expected
to be less vulnerable to stress because of their greater ability to master the tasks
and manage the work. Finally we expected that employees who worked full time
would be at greater risk of suffering greater emotional exhaustion than those who
worked part time. The strain of frontline service work is clearly more evident
amongst employees who work longer and more continuous hours (Wharton, 1993).
Emotional exhaustion can have important physical and behavioural conse-
quences and can trigger a number of coping strategies (Gaines and Jermier, 1983;
Maslach and Jackson, 1981). The most common amongst service providers is with-
drawal either by way of depersonalization or an intention to quit the organization
(Lee and Ashforth, 1996). There is also some evidence that it may be associated
with absenteeism (Firth and Britton, 1989; Saxton et al., 1991). The body of
research in this area, however, is very limited (Cordes and Dougherty, 1993). In
our study we expected to find a positive association between emotional exhaustion
and the frequency of employee absence. We postulated that employees would see
absenteeism as a temporary form of escape from a work situation that was viewed
as stressful and unpleasant (Hackett, 1989; Moore, 2000). In this context, Brooke
(1986) has characterized absenteeism as a pain reductive response to an often
uncongenial work situation.
The variables of positive affectivity, physical health, age, female, education, full
time and tenure were expected to have a direct effect on the frequency of absence.
They have been included as control variables because previous research findings
indicate that they are likely to be associated with absence behaviour. Individuals
who are positively disposed towards work and life and who display a sense of well-
being could be expected to have lower levels of absenteeism (Porter and Steers,
1973). Furthermore, those employees who believe that their general health is good
could be expected to record lower absence rates (Harrison and Martocchio, 1998).
Research indicates that older employees and those with higher levels of education
and job tenure are less likely to be absent from work while full time employees and
females are more likely to experience higher levels of absence (Rhodes and Steers,
1990).

Research Setting
The research study was conducted in a network of telephone call centres in a large
telecommunications company in Australia. The company sells, installs and main-
   481
tains telephones for both domestic and commercial users. The employees are
referred to as customer service representatives (CSRs) and all are involved in a
range of activities that includes customer enquiries about telephone installations
and re-connections, queries about accounts and payment extensions and com-
plaints about disconnections and telephone faults. The employees are also engaged
in selling new products and services to both domestic and commercial customers.
The majority of the staff are female and occupy full time positions. Moreover, the
workforce is unionized.
The centres have a very flat hierarchy comprised of three layers: centre
manager, team leaders and customer service representative. The employees work
in teams of between 10 and 14 members. Team members are expected to assist
each other by sharing their experience and knowledge, particularly in areas of
product and systems information, and team leaders are held accountable for their
team’s adherence to standards including call handling time, down time and wrap-
up time as well as customer complaints about service quality. In addition, team
leaders are expected to ensure that the staff are fully aware of new products and
systems changes and are required to counsel individuals on behavioural issues such
as tardiness and absenteeism. Team meetings are held fortnightly. New employees
undergo a ten-week full time training programme and the organization provides
additional support to employees for a period of up to six months by which time
full competency is generally achieved.
Employees are continuously monitored on the number of calls taken, the
average handling time per call and the average wrap-up time per call. In addition,
their non-availability for customer service (viz. tea breaks and toilet stops) is cal-
culated. Staff are also expected to follow a tight script in their conversations with
customers which includes a fixed format for the introduction and closure of the
interaction. They are required, for example, to follow a documented work process
which has five discrete tasks. These are designated as: greet and build rapport with
the customer; fact find; provide solutions; close conversation; and follow (or wrap)
up. It was expected that, on average, these tasks would be completed in 600
seconds. However, the centres drew their customers from different geographical
regions of the country with a varied mix of domestic and commercial customers.
This influenced the nature and character of the calls received and the speed with
which the service could be delivered. In turn, this affected the ability of the cus-
tomer service representatives to achieve their time-based service standards.
Sample
The study involved a survey of customer service representatives in five call centre
locations in Melbourne and Sydney in 1998. The questionnaire was constructed
after site visits and extensive discussions with focus groups of employees and meet-
ings with shop stewards, team leaders and call centre managers. The survey was
endorsed by both the company and the union which had coverage over the staff.
Questionnaires were sent to all 614 employees in the five centres. Each call centre
allocated employees time off during working hours to complete the questionnaire.
Staff were also encouraged to add comments to the questionnaire concerning their
views about employment arrangements and working conditions in the organiza-
tion. The survey yielded 537 completed questionnaires (480 from the customer
service representatives and 47 from the team leaders) which represented an overall
88 per cent response rate. Following the removal of the 47 team leaders the sample
482 . , .   . 
Table II. Means, standard deviations, correlations and reliabilities
Determinants Number Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

of items
1. Frequency of 1 6.63 6.12 –

employee
withdrawal
2. Emotional 5 3.64 0.95 0.07 0.90
exhaustion
3. Customer 4 3.54 0.88 0.02 0.40 0.79
interactions
4. Scripted 1 4.28 0.80 -0.02 0.16 0.16 –
conversational
rules
5. Emotional 4 2.31 0.67 0.07 -0.08 -0.01 -0.05 0.67
expressivity
6. Management 2 3.90 0.97 0.10 0.36 0.19 0.21 -0.12 0.65
focus on
quantity
7. Workload 3 4.05 0.76 0.01 0.50 0.22 0.09 -0.15 0.20 0.78
8. Role overload 1 3.83 1.14 0.01 0.32 0.22 0.09 -0.06 0.16 0.30 –
9. Routinization 3 3.21 1.01 0.06 0.24 0.12 0.14 0.00 0.21 0.07 0.09
10. Monitoring 3 3.08 0.83 0.13 0.30 0.14 0.12 -0.11 0.22 0.19 0.12
11. Promotional 4 2.43 0.87 0.04 -0.35 -0.15 -0.17 0.05 -0.31 -0.14 -0.09
opportunity
12. Number of 1 39.73 15.04 -0.03 -0.07 0.04 0.07 0.05 -0.07 0.00 -0.05
calls
13. Average length 1 352.87 191.91 -0.01 0.03 0.03 -0.03 -0.02 0.10 0.05 0.10
of calls
14. Management of 1 3.51 1.05 0.16 0.30 0.08 0.05 -0.10 0.17 0.25 0.10
wrap-up time
15. Team member 3 3.86 0.82 -0.07 -0.02 -0.01 0.01 -0.01 -0.07 0.02 -0.02
support
16. Team leader 3 3.41 1.03 0.00 -0.31 -0.06 -0.09 0.02 -0.23 -0.08 -0.08
support
17. Positive 3 3.64 0.74 -0.04 -0.12 -0.04 0.07 -0.07 -0.05 0.00 -0.03
affectivity
18. Physical health 3 3.57 0.75 -0.26 -0.26 -0.04 0.04 0.00 -0.15 -0.12 0.01
19. Age 1 35.45 1.33 -0.16 0.01 -0.07 -0.09 -0.03 -0.08 -0.03 0.12
20. Female 1 0.69 0.46 0.07 0.10 0.11 -0.05 0.11 -0.01 0.06 0.01
21. Education 1 11.90 1.67 -0.05 -0.09 -0.02 0.00 0.02 -0.05 -0.02 -0.07
22. Full-time 1 0.85 0.36 0.13 0.05 0.14 0.05 -0.05 0.07 0.02 -0.08
23. Tenure 1 7.42 6.62 -0.11 0.12 0.09 -0.16 -0.02 0.01 -0.06 0.05
Reliabilities are reported along the diagonal.

Correlations above 0.08 are significant at p < 0.05, one-tailed test.
was reduced to 480 respondents, 69 per cent of whom were females and 85 per
cent full time staff. The average age of the respondents was 35 years and the
average tenure was 7.4 years. Education levels were high with 22 per cent of the
respondents holding a university degree or diploma. The average level of educa-
tion was 11.9 year (see Table II).
Measurement
All items in the questionnaire, with the exception of the demographic details, and
information on the number of calls taken and the average length of calls were
measured on a five-point Likert type scale (5 = strongly agree, 1 = strongly dis-
agree). The reliability of all the multiple item scales was computed by estimating
Cronbach’s alpha (1951). These reliability measures are shown along the diagonal
in Table II. The dependent variable, frequency of employee withdrawal, was measured
   483
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
0.77
0.22 0.64
-0.36 -0.28 0.76
0.09 -0.07 0.02 –
-0.06 0.04 -0.01 -0.36 –
0.19 0.33 -0.24 -0.09 0.06 –
-0.15 -0.12 0.17 -0.04 0.02 -0.14 0.89
-0.27 -0.23 0.27 -0.01 0.02 -0.20 0.19 0.89
-0.11 -0.03 0.10 0.12 -0.11 -0.07 0.13 0.01 0.73
-0.11 -0.14 0.17 0.03 -0.03 -0.18 0.09 0.08 0.29 0.71
-0.23 0.09 -0.05 -0.06 0.08 -0.02 -0.05 0.08 0.02 0.13 –
-0.03 -0.07 0.07 -0.02 -0.08 -0.04 0.12 -0.02 -0.07 -0.04 -0.06 –
0.03 -0.06 -0.01 0.05 0.03 -0.07 -0.02 0.04 0.10 -0.01 -0.07 -0.08 –
0.03 0.10 -0.11 0.08 0.00 0.07 -0.12 -0.05 0.03 -0.10 -0.08 -0.19 0.08 –
-0.10 0.14 -0.12 -0.09 0.09 0.01 -0.07 0.03 -0.05 0.03 0.49 -0.11 -0.18 0.04 –
as the number of one and two day absences the employee had taken on sick leave
in the previous 12 months. Each respondent was supplied with this information
by the organization from their personnel records. The frequency of one and two
day absences is generally regarded as the most reliable measure of discretionary
or voluntary absence (Chadwick-Jones et al., 1982; Rhodes and Steers, 1990).
The intervening variable of emotional exhaustion refers to employees’ feelings of
being ‘burned out’ or ‘used up’ at the end of the workday. It was measured by a
five-item scale taken from Wharton (1993) and included questions such as ‘I feel
emotionally drained from my work’ and ‘I feel burned out from my work’. Cus-
tomer interactions was assessed by four items developed by the authors which included
‘customers have become increasingly demanding over the phone’ and ‘I now have
more abusive customer calls than I used to have’. The variable scripted conversational
rules was operationalized by one item, ‘I don’t like speaking in a scripted way to
484 . , .   . 
customers’. Emotional expressivity measured the extent to which employees found it
difficult to conceal their real emotions from customers. It was assessed by four
items including ‘I can’t hide the way I’m feeling when talking to customers’ and
was adapted from Kring et al. (1994). Management focus on quantity was assessed by
the following two items developed by the authors: ‘I feel senior management are
not customer service focused’ and ‘I believe senior management are more con-
cerned about the quantity rather than the quality of calls’.
Workload sought to assess respondents’ attitudes to the pace of their work (Caplan
et al., 1975) and included items such as ‘My job requires me to work very fast’ and
‘My job leaves me with very little time to get everything done’. Role overload was
assessed by the item ‘I am required to learn too many different things in my job’
(Caplan et al., 1975). The scale of routinization was measured by Price and Mueller
(1986), while monitoring was a three-item scale developed by the authors, including
questions such as ‘I accept that my performance should be continuously moni-
tored’ (reverse coded). Promotional opportunities was measured using Price and
Mueller’s (1981, 1986) scale. The number of calls and the average length of calls were
measured respectively by the following questions: ‘How many calls do you take on
an average per day?’ and ‘What is the average length of calls you take?’ Manage-
ment of wrap-up time was operationalized by two items developed by the authors
which included ‘I feel unduly pressured by management to minimize my wrap-up
time’. Team member support was a three-item scale which used questions such as ‘My
team members are willing to listen to my job-related problems’ and ‘My team
members are helpful to me in getting the job done’ and was modified from House
(1981). Team leader support was assessed by three items including ‘My team leader
can be relied on when things get difficult at work’ and ‘My team leader is very
concerned about the welfare of those under him/her’ and was adapted from
House (1981). The positive affectivity scale was adapted from Agho et al. (1992) and
measured the degree to which an individual held a positive disposition towards life
and work: ‘I lead a very interesting life’ and ‘I usually find ways to liven up my
day’. Physical health was a three-item measure modified from Cyphert (1990) and
included questions such as ‘Since working at [the company] my health has been
excellent’. The control variables of age, female, education full time and tenure
were single items (viz. age: years, female = 1, male = 0; education: years, full time
= 1, part time = 0; tenure: years).
Analysis
Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) VIII was employed to estimate the hypoth-
esized model. As LISREL has a structural equation model and a measurement
model (Jöreskog and Sörbom, 1996a) we are both able to undertake a confirma-
tory factor analysis and estimate more complex path models. LISREL has several
advantages over other techniques such as multiple regression. These include cor-
recting for attenuation in random measurement error of manifest variables (e.g.
questionnaire items), the generation of statistical measures of goodness-of-fit and
explained variance (R-square) of the model, and the ability to decompose path
models into significant direct, indirect, and total effects ( Jöreskog and Sörbom,
1996a).
The two main statistical problems associated with using the frequency of one
and two day absences as a measure of employee withdrawal are skewness and
truncation (Hammer and Landau, 1981; Price and Mueller, 1986). In addressing
   485
these problems, we first ‘censored’ (transform via normal scores) the frequency
of employee withdrawal using the program of PRELIS ( Jöreskog and Sörbom,
1996b). Following the screening of all data (e.g. continuous, censored and ordinal
variables), the PRELIS correlation matrix was then used as the input to LISREL.
In the analysis we also controlled for call centre location by creating five dummy
variables.
Anderson and Gerbing (1988) advocate that the measurement model should be
assessed independently and before that of the structural model. This comprises
testing the measurement model (with multiple items for emotional exhaustion, cus-
tomer interactions, emotional expressivity, management focus on quantity, work-
load, routinization, monitoring, promotional opportunity, team member support,
team leader support, positive affectivity, and physical health) for convergent valid-
ity (i.e. the degree of association between measures of a construct) and for dis-
criminant validity (i.e. the degree to which measures of constructs are distinct). In
testing for convergent validity we initially estimated the null model (i.e. all indica-
tors are independent and uncorrelated), then the one-factor (i.e. all indicators form
a single factor), and finally the hypothesized model (Gerbing and Anderson, 1993).
The hypothesized model was found to fit the data significantly better than both
the null (Dc2 (105) = 10111.84, p < 0.001) and one factor (Dc2 (65) = 6554.93, p <
0.001) models. This affirmed the convergent validity of the model. Furthermore,
due to the significantly better incremental fit of the competing models, the prob-
ability of common method variance is minimized (i.e. inflating the relationship
between constructs) (Korsgaard and Robertson, 1995; Podsakoff and Organ,
1986).
In terms of the discriminant validity, the difference between one model which
allowed the correlations between the constructs (with multiple indicators) to be
constrained to unity (i.e. perfectly correlated) and another model which allowed
the correlations between the constructs to be free was computed. This was carried
out for one pair of constructs at a time. In testing the personal variables of posi-
tive affectivity and physical health, for example, the c2 difference test between the
two models was c d2 (1) = 217.05, ( p < 0.001). This confirmed the discriminant
validity of the constructs, as did all other tests between variables. The measure-
ment model (c 2 (675) = 3726.04, p < 0.001) demonstrated a goodness-of-fit (GFI)
of 0.90, a normed comparative fit index (CFI) (Bentler, 1990) of 0.91, and a root
mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) (Browne and Cudeck, 1993) of
0.07. As the goodness-of-fit indices indicated an acceptable fit of the model it was
appropriate to estimate the structural model. The results of the structural model
are contained in the following section.

Multivariate Data
The multivariate results for the hypothesized model are presented in Table III.[1]
The first column of the table provides the statistical relationships between the four
groups of independent variables and the intervening variable, emotional exh-
austion. The second column contains the regression results for the frequency of
employee withdrawal.[2] It can be seen that a number of the job and work-setting
variables had a significant effect on the emotional exhaustion of employees. These
486 . , .   . 
Table III. LISREL (standardized coefficients) results for emotional
exhaustion and frequency of employee withdrawal
Determinants Emotional Frequency of

exhaustion employee
withdrawal

Customer interactions 0.20***
Scripted conversational rules 0.09*
Emotional expressivity 0.01
Management focus on quantity 0.16***
Workload 0.47***
Role overload 0.08*
Routinization 0.16***
Monitoring 0.01
Promotional opportunity -0.16***
Number of calls -0.03
Average length of calls -0.12**
Management of wrap-up time 0.13**
Team member support 0.07
Team leader support -0.21***
Personal variables
Positive affectivity -0.09* 0.08*
Physical health -0.21*** -0.15**
Demographic variables
Age 0.03 -0.05
Female 0.09 0.22***
Education -0.06 -0.16***
Full-time 0.05 0.32***
Tenure 0.18*** -0.10*
Intervening variable
Emotional exhaustion 0.11*
R2 0.72 0.23
N = 480.
* p < 0.05, one-tail test.
** p < 0.01, one-tail test.
*** p < 0.001, one-tail test.
were customer interactions (b = 0.20), scripted conversational rules (b = 0.09), man-

agement focus on quantity (b = 0.16), workload (b = 0.47), role overload (b = 0.08),
routinization (b = 0.16), promotional opportunity (b = -0.16), the average length
of calls (b = -0.12) and the management of wrap-up time (b = 0.13). Team leader
support (b = -0.21) also had a statistically significant impact. In addition, the per-
sonal variables of positive affectivity (b = -0.09) and physical health (b = -0.21)
as well as the demographic variable of job tenure (b = 0.18) significantly affected
the likelihood of employees experiencing emotional exhaustion. The variables in
the model explained 72 per cent of the variance in emotional exhaustion.
These results indicate that call centre employees in our study were significantly
more likely to suffer from emotional exhaustion when they believed that customers
   487
had become more abusive and demanding, when they disliked speaking in a
scripted manner and when they felt that management was both focusing on the
quantity of calls taken – rather than the quality of the service – and were unduly
pressurizing the staff to minimize their wrap-up time. In addition, employees, who
on average spent more time per call with customers were less likely to experience
emotional exhaustion. On the other hand, when the job was seen as repetitive,
when employees believed that they lacked the necessary skills to deal with the
requirements of the job and when the workload was viewed as excessive, employ-
ees were significantly more likely to suffer higher levels of emotional exhaustion.
Perceptions of limited promotional opportunities had a similar effect. The support
and help of team leaders with job-related problems was associated with lower
emotional exhaustion. Turning to the personal variables we see that employees
who held a positive disposition towards life and work and those who believed that
their general physical health was good were significantly less likely to experience
emotional exhaustion. By way of contrast, those employees with longer tenure
were more likely to feel emotionally drained by their work.
An examination of the determinants of employee withdrawal reveals that emo-
tional exhaustion (b = 0.11) had a positive impact as predicted. Those employees
who felt emotionally strained by their work were more likely to take a larger
number of one and two day absences from work. In addition, the frequency of
employee withdrawal was positively related to positive affectivity (b = 0.08) and
negatively related to perceptions of physical health (b = -0.15). Employees who
displayed higher levels of positive affectivity were prone to greater withdrawal
behaviour while those with good physical health experienced fewer absences. Four
demographic variables also had a significant impact. These were female (b = 0.22),
education (b = -0.16), full time (b = 0.32) and job tenure (b = -0.10). This indi-
cated that females had significantly higher rates of one and two day absences as
did full time workers. In contrast, those employees with higher educational levels
and those employees with greater tenure recorded fewer instances of one and two
day absences. Twenty-three per cent of variance in the frequency of employee
withdrawal was explained by the variables in the model.
Path Analysis
A simplified model of the frequency of employee withdrawal is presented in Figure
2 (GFI = 0.95, CFI = 0.96; RMSEA = 0.07).[3] This model only retains those vari-
ables which were significantly related to emotional exhaustion and the frequency
of employee withdrawal (see Brooke and Price (1989) for a review of this strat-
egy).[4] Path analysis enables us to examine the mediating role of emotional exhaus-
tion for certain variables (indirect effects) and the direct effects of other variables
on the frequency of employee withdrawal. It also allows us to determine whether
the overall total (direct and indirect) effects are significant (Alwin and Hauser,
1975).
Table IV contains the decomposed direct, indirect and total effects of the
determinants on the frequency of employee withdrawal. It can be seen that five
variables had significant total effects on the frequency of employee withdrawal in
addition to the intervening and control variables. These were customer inter-
actions (0.03), management focus on quantity (0.02), workload (0.05), promotional
opportunity (-0.02), and team leader support (-0.02). It should also be noted that
positive affectivity (0.07) and physical health (-0.17) were also significant.[5] This
488 . , .   . 

Customer interactions (.23)
Scripted conversational rules (.08)
Management focus on quantity (.16)
Workload (.47)
Role overload (.08) .53
Routinization (.13)
Promotional opportunity (–.15)
Average length of calls (–.11) Emotional
Management of wrap-up time (.13) exhaustion

Team leader support (–.20)
(.11) .87
Personal variables
(.08) Frequency of
Positive affectivity (–.10)
Physical health(–.20) (–.15) employee
withdrawal
Demographic variables (.24)

Female
(–.17)
Education
Full-time (.33)
Tenure (.18) (–.12)
Figure 2. Simplified model of frequency of employee withdrawal
indicates that these variables had an indirect effect on employee absence through
their impact on emotional exhaustion. Thus employees who believed that cus-
tomers had become more abusive and demanding and those who considered that
management placed a greater emphasis on the quantity of calls rather than the
quality of the service were significantly more likely to have higher levels of absence.
This was also the case for employees who perceived their workload as excessive
and for those who held a positive disposition towards work and life. On the other
hand, employees who considered that their team leader was supportive and those
who believed that promotional opportunities were available in the organization
experienced significantly lower rates of absenteeism. Individuals who felt that their
physical health was good were also significantly less likely to be absent.

These findings support much of the qualitative case study and ethnographic
research which has emphasized the generally negative effects of interactive service
work on the emotional well-being of call centre employees. Bain and Taylor (1999,
p. 2) captured the essential characteristics of this work when they observed: ‘For
many employed in the sector, the daily experience is patently of repetitive, inten-
sive and frequently stressful work, based upon Taylorist principles, which can result
in employee “burnout” ’. In our study we sought to identify the specific factors in
the work environment which were associated with the main component of
   489
Table IV. Decomposed direct, indirect and total effects of determinants on frequency of employee
withdrawal
Determinants Direct effects on Indirect effects Total effects on

frequency of employee via emotional frequency of employee
withdrawal exhaustion withdrawal

Customer interactions 0.03* 0.03*
Scripted conversational rules 0.01 0.01
Management focus on quantity 0.02* 0.02*
Workload 0.05* 0.05*
Role overload 0.01 0.01
Routinization 0.01 0.01
Promotional opportunity -0.02* -0.02*
Average length of calls -0.01 -0.01
Management of wrap-up time 0.01 0.01
Team leader support -0.02* -0.02*
Personal variables
Positive affectivity 0.08* -0.01 0.07*
Physical health -0.15*** -0.02* -0.17***
Demographic variables
Female 0.24*** 0.24***
Education -0.17*** -0.17***
Full-time 0.33*** 0.33***
Tenure -0.12** 0.02* -0.14**
Intervening variable
Emotional exhaustion 0.11* – 0.11*
* p < 0.05, one-tail test.

** p < 0.01, one-tail test.
*** p < 0.001, one-tail test.
burnout: emotional exhaustion. We focused initially on the effects of the

employee–customer relationship on emotional exhaustion. As the paper noted
earlier, customers can be a source of considerable job satisfaction as well as a cause
of great anxiety and stress (Macdonald and Sirianni, 1996). Our study identified
the negative effects of both abusive and difficult customers and scripted customer
service interactions on employee well-being. When customers are rude or aggres-
sive and when employees are required to adhere to quite rigid rules on self-
presentation it can cause emotional distress.
In the call centre that was the focus of our analysis service providers were
actively discouraged from arguing with the customer and were expected to be
polite and maintain a calm demeanour in all circumstances. Like Leidner’s (1996)
fast food service workers, the call centre employees were ‘readily available targets’
for abuse. Invariably they were the subject of customer irritation when they were
neither the cause of the problem nor in a position to remedy the customer’s com-
plaint. Service operators frequently had to confront customers who were hostile
about telephone accounts that were incorrect or higher than expected; telephones
that were disconnected because of non-payment of bills; slow installation of tele-
phone equipment; and computer difficulties and systems failures that sometimes
490 . , .   . 
impeded the location of relevant customer data or information. These experiences
can particularly be stressful for employees if they are restricted from exercising
autonomy in their dealings with customers. The critical difficulty with employer-
regulated emotion management, as Wharton (1996, p. 93) has noted ‘is that it
eliminates or substantially limits individuals’ control over their emotion manage-
ment efforts’. Workers who have little flexibility in negotiating their relationships
with customers can be expected to suffer more negative consequences from the
performance of emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983).
It is generally in the interests of call centre organizations, of course, to stan-
dardize the presentations and language of employees and to simplify the service
interaction. This reduces the time spent on the telephone with each customer and
leads to a greater throughput of calls (Taylor and Bain, 1999). In this context it is
interesting to note that those respondents in our study who disliked speaking in a
scripted way were more likely to believe that management was focusing dispro-
portionately on the quantity rather than the quality of calls. This is demonstrated
by the significant correlation of 0.21 between the two variables (see Table II).
Indeed, where management was seen as focusing on the throughput of calls, rather
than the quality of the service, and where employees felt that management was
placing unfair pressure on them to minimize their wrap-up time, there was a
greater probability that employees would experience emotional exhaustion (see
Table III). This emphasis on speed and customer throughput created considerable
anxiety in the call centre. Comments from two respondents clarify the contra-
dictory pressures that the employees faced:
The emphasis on wrap-time affects me greatly, as at times I feel like I have done
an excellent job and have been complimented by the customer for the effort put
in, only to be told that my wrap-time is bad. This destroys any job satisfaction
for me.
There are at least two to three calls per week that require a lot of time and
patience for a solution – these customers are often at their wits end . . . I believe
in customer service and I dislike being punished for attempting to fulfil the
obligation of service to customers.
It is noteworthy that those employees who spent longer with customers on each
call experienced lower levels of emotional exhaustion (see Table III). There were
a number of job-related aspects of the call centre work that were associated with
higher levels of emotional strain. When the service operator’s job involved more
repetitive tasks and when the operator believed that their workload was excessive
and required them to work ‘very fast’ there was a significantly higher probability
of emotional exhaustion. This was consistent with our expectations (Hochschild,
1983). Indeed the majority of respondents believed that they were required to work
at an excessive pace (see Table II, workload mean = 4.05; standard deviation =
0.76). One call centre operator summed up her/his feelings about the pace at
which they worked ‘At present staff . . . feel they are nothing but battery hens’. Not
unexpectedly, perceptions of promotional opportunities had an important effect
on emotional well-being (Gaines and Jermier, 1983). When employees considered
that their career opportunities were limited in the company, they were more likely
to experience emotional exhaustion. In this context one employee stated ‘. . . [the
   491
company] doesn’t care about the employee – the only thing that counts is the
customer’.
There was evidence, however, that when first line management demonstrated a
concern for staff welfare it made a difference to the emotional well-being of
employees. Where team leaders were seen as willing to listen to the work-related
problems of their staff and showed an ability to assist and support them, the level
of emotional exhaustion amongst team members was significantly lower. Strong
social support from supervisors has been identified in other studies as an impor-
tant resource which can reduce emotional strain (Lee and Ashforth, 1996). It is
noteworthy that those employees who believed that their team leader provided this
support were more likely to consider that promotional opportunities were avail-
able in the organization (r = 0.27, p < 0.05) (see Table II). Moreover, they were less
likely to object to the level and form of monitoring (r = -0.23, p < 0.05) or to feel
that they were being unfairly pressured to minimize their wrap-up time (r = -0.20,
p < 0.05). In addition, team leader support was negatively associated with the per-
ception that management was focusing on the quantity rather than the quality of
calls (r = -0.23, p < 0.05). This suggests that team leaders or first line supervisors
may not only vary in terms of their managerial style but may not act uniformly
or with the same vigour in enforcing the organization’s rules or service standards.
It is possible that those team leaders who were viewed as supportive were more
likely to identity promotional opportunities for their team members and to place
more emphasis on customer service quality. They may also have been less zealous
in their monitoring activities and less likely to exert pressure on their staff to reduce
wrap-up time.
The study predictably identified the important effect of positive affectivity and
physical health on emotional exhaustion (Rafaeli and Sutton, 1987). Individuals
who held a positive disposition towards life and work and those who believed that
their general physical health was good were significantly less likely to experience
emotional exhaustion. Of the demographic variables, only job tenure had a sig-
nificant effect on emotional exhaustion. This suggested that the longer that the
employee was exposed to this form of front-line service work, the greater were the
negative emotional consequences they faced. We had hypothesized an inverse rela-
tionship between tenure and emotional exhaustion on the basis that longer serving
employees would develop greater competence and expertise in managing cus-
tomers and would have a wider range of support (resources) in the workplace
(Cordes and Dougherty, 1993). Clearly this was not supported by the statistical
findings. Indeed, it would seem that a greater exposure to this form of work is
associated with a higher level of emotional strain. Contrary to our expectations,
the variables of age, education and employment status had no effect on emotional
exhaustion. This was also the case for gender. We were unable to detect any sta-
tistical differences between men and women. This was consistent with Wharton’s
(1993) findings.
Finally, our study found that emotional exhaustion was positively associated with
employee withdrawal. This confirmed the findings of Firth and Britton (1989) and
Saxton et al. (1991). Customer service representatives who experienced higher
levels of exhaustion were significantly more likely to take one and two day
absences. Furthermore, employee withdrawal was associated with perceptions of
more demanding and abusive customers, a managerial focus on quantity and a
high workload (see Table IV). This suggests that the work environment had
492 . , .   . 
negative emotional consequences for employees, as well as imposing quite signifi-
cant costs upon the organization itself. Within this context the dysfunctional effects
of absenteeism on organizational performance have been well documented
(Rhodes and Steers, 1990). In terms of organizational design it is relevant to point
out that our study found that both team leader support and perceived opportuni-
ties for promotion were associated with lower levels of absence.
Employee withdrawal was also affected by the control variables in the model.
As expected, perceptions of good physical health, gender, education, employment
status and tenure had the predicted relationships with absence (see Table IV). The
only variable in this group that did not perform as predicted was positive affec-
tivity. The results showed that employees with higher levels of positive affectivity
were more likely to have a pattern of short term absences (0.07). The explanation
for this may lie in those individuals’ work expectations. Although employees with
high positive affectivity may be less prone to burnout, it has been suggested that
they may hold higher expectations about the intrinsic rewards they seek to obtain
from work (Heubeck et al., 1998). The non-fulfilment of these needs may lead to
greater absenteeism. This finding raises some doubt about the efficacy of select-
ing employees on the basis of personality traits, such as extraversion (Rafaeli and
Sutton, 1987). It has been suggested elsewhere that one of the most effective ways
of managing emotion work may be through the recruitment of employees with
expressive dispositions – such as positive affectivity – that match the required work
tasks of the organization (Morris and Feldman, 1997). Our findings are not con-
sistent with this strategy. More significantly, however, this recruitment approach
ignores the quite considerable importance of environmental conditions that have
been shown to be associated with emotional distress and absence from work.

The objective of this paper was to identify the factors that led to emotional exhaus-
tion and withdrawal amongst employees in a telephone call centre environment.
In doing so, it sought to add to the small, but growing, body of qualitative case
study literature which has examined the distinctive features of work and employ-
ment in this sector. The research isolated a number of important factors which
affected the emotional well-being of employees and their related propensity to
attend work. Of most relevance were those that pertained to the organizational
management of the labour process and to the employees’ interaction with the
customer.
Emotional exhaustion is the first stage of the burnout process and provides a
critical point for managerial intervention (Gaines and Jermier, 1983). Our findings
indicated that both the content and the context of the work were important sources
of job stress and consequently appropriate sites for policy making. Management
initiatives that could address factors associated with emotional exhaustion would
inevitably lead to an improvement in employee attendance. Such policy develop-
ments might include the provision of relief time for staff to recover from ‘cus-
tomer abuse’; less routinized jobs and a greater variety of work tasks; opportunities
to depart from the organization’s scripted conversational rules and interact more
‘naturally’ with customers, and more emphasis on service quality. The research
findings also suggest that it would be helpful to encourage a more supportive and
   493
self-reliant management style amongst team leaders and to make available more
extensive career opportunities for staff within call centres or more probably the
wider organization.
The study found that the speed and pace of work was a particularly significant
factor in the depletion of emotional resources. Should organizations fail to address
the determinants of emotional exhaustion it is likely that employees may adopt a
strategy of withdrawal as a mechanism of coping with the work environment. This
could involve work absences and a more depersonalized approach to customers.
Such an outcome is inconsistent with both rising customer expectations about
service quality and the standards now being specified by organizations for service
performance.

[1] As we hypothesize the direction of relationships between variables, one-tail tests are
employed in the analysis. One-tail tests are a common convention in the management
literature and have been deployed in a wide range of studies (e.g., Sanders and
Carpenter, 1998; Simons et al., 1999; Westphal, 1999). We would however like to ack-
nowledge the comments of one of our referees who pointed out that one-tail tests can
raise problems where the relationship is in the opposite direction from that predicted.
[2] Although not shown in Table III, we do control for call centre differences by the inclu-
sion of the appropriate dummy variables.
[3] The residual variance ( 1 - R 2 ) for emotional exhaustion and frequency of employee
withdrawal are displayed.
[4] Brooke and Price (1989) note that the deletion of the non-significant determinants
from the simplified model allows researchers to test whether there are any substantial
effects on the coefficients of the significant determinants or on the variance explained.
The robustness of the simplified model was affirmed as all the paths were statistically
significant (with some small changes in the magnitude of the coefficients) and similar
variance was explained.
[5] The SAS program developed by MacCallum et al. (1996) was employed to calculate
the statistical power of our model. This comprised inputing the null and alternative
values of the RMSEA (e0 and ea) (see Browne and Cudeck (1993) for discussion of (e0
and ea), the a level, degrees of freedom and sample size. As the power estimate
exceeded Cohen’s (1988) recommended criterion of 0.80, the model was considered
to have sufficient power to detect meaningful parameter estimates.
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Journal of Management Studies 39:4 June 2002

WORK RELATIONSHIPS IN TELEPHONE CALL CENTRES:

King’s College, University of London

Simon Fraser University

Royal Holloway, University of London

     

© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002

     

© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002

Variable Definition and source of measure used

Job and work-setting variables

Social support variables

Figure 1. Hypothesized model of frequency of employee withdrawal

Determinants Number Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Frequency of 1 6.63 6.12 –

Reliabilities are reported along the diagonal.

0.09 -0.07 0.02 –

-0.06 0.04 -0.01 -0.36 –

0.19 0.33 -0.24 -0.09 0.06 –

-0.15 -0.12 0.17 -0.04 0.02 -0.14 0.89

-0.27 -0.23 0.27 -0.01 0.02 -0.20 0.19 0.89

-0.11 -0.03 0.10 0.12 -0.11 -0.07 0.13 0.01 0.73

Determinants Emotional Frequency of

Job and work-setting variables

were customer interactions (b = 0.20), scripted conversational rules (b = 0.09), man-

Job and work-setting variables

Social support variables

Demographic variables (.24)

Figure 2. Simplified model of frequency of employee withdrawal

Determinants Direct effects on Indirect effects Total effects on

Job and work-setting variables

* p < 0.05, one-tail test.

burnout: emotional exhaustion. We focused initially on the effects of the

© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002

© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002

© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002

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