Emotional Labor and Turnover Intentions Of Voice Call Center Agents in Metro Manila

Abstract

With the emergence, growth and significant contribution of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) and the call center industry in the Philippines, increasing attention is being given to call center agents. Being a new and sought after profession compounded with the high job demands brought about by global competition along with the work conditions intrinsic to the job, make the call center work one of the most challenging, demanding and stressful occupation. One of the important aspects and a source of stress of a call center work is the involved emotional labor or the management of emotions which is employed by agents to display appropriate expressions for smooth transactions and to achieve organizational goals. With researches substantiating the detrimental outcomes of emotional labor to the health and well-being of the agents coupled with the high attrition rate in the call center industry, there is a need to study the emotional labor element of the call center occupation in relation to the agents’ turnover intentions or intention to quit. This descriptive and correlational research explored the emotional labor and turnover intentions of call center agents and examines the association of the two variables along with socio-demographic factors (age, gender, education, civil status, income, years working in current call center company and years as call center agent) using the survey or questionnaire as main data gathering tool. Results were drawn from one hundred twenty (125) call center agents (voice) working in Metro Manila using frequency, percentage, mean, Pearson's correlation coefficient and One-Way Anova. Generally, significant findings are: Call center agents engages in emotional labor during call transactions with clients, 1. mostly expressing positive emotions while suppressing negative emotions. Call center agents are experiencing moderate emotional labor and moderate 2. turnover intentions. Call center agents who are unmarried, female, 26-35 years old, college level, with 3. family income of P15,001-35,000, working as agent for 1-3 years and in their present call center company for 1-3 years are more prone to higher emotional labor. Further, call center agents who are unmarried, female, 26-35 years old, college 4. level, with family income of P15,001-35,000, working as agent for 1-3 years and in their present call center company for 1-3 years are also more prone to turnover intentions. There is a significant positive correlation between emotional labor and turnover 5. intentions among the call center agents. As agents engages in more emotional labor, turnover intentions also increases. Other conclusions or observations based on the results are: 6. Agents see their call center job as a good job but a temporary one - they do a. not see themselves or plan to be in it in the long run (as call center agent) but they do have career advancement aspirations. b. Movement/Poaching of call center agents is prevalent. The high pay and benefits seems to be the motivator for agents to stay in their job however, it is also the reason why they resign and change companies - transferring to a company with better compensation and benefits. Some of the recommendations include the recognition of emotional labor as a separate and distinct skill and ability to be included as criteria in recruitment, promotion, awards and other human resource activities along with development planning (training) and should be properly compensated and rewarded; the need to review job description and duties and responsibilities of the service industry specifically, call center agents along with their compensation package so as to include emotional labor; review of customer service orientation - to offer quality service rather than prioritizing quantity; interventions for emotional labor should also be implemented to decrease turnover and its outcomes; and suggested further research in terms of scope, methodology and focus.