The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published a major study of call centre working. HSE’s report, “Psychosocial Risk Factors in Call Centres: An Evaluation of Work Design and Well-Being”, supports the view that psychosocial issues are a major contributory factor to poor mental health among call centre employees.
The research indicates that working as a call handler is more stressful than working in other jobs, although not all staff are affected equally, or by the same factors. The research recognised that working in some call centre environments – such as telecommunications and IT business sectors – more directly affected their well-being. Other contributing factors included:
- larger call centres (employing 50 or more staff);
- those on permanent contracts;
- those following strict scripts; and
- those staff who had their performance measured.

[Read the report]