Is Stress in Contact Centers Inevitable?

It is broadly acknowledged that contact center employees are subject to high levels of stress. In this profession, there is a distinction between back-office and front-office employees. In addition, employees may perform duties in various companies with different characteristics (i.e., human resources practices, job characteristics, social support, work–personal life relationship, among others). Thus, this study focuses on the analysis of the contact centers’ (CC) psychosocial work environment and employees’ levels of stress and well-being, seeking to understand whether they change due to the specific nature of the duties they perform and the characteristics of the company. This study involved 1440 participants from 15 companies. The results indicate that front-office and back-office duties influence the perception of some job characteristics and their environment and, consequently, the stress and well-being of these employees. Furthermore, the exhaustion and general well-being of employees are seemingly independent of the duties performed and common to all companies. However, the job characteristics, psychosocial environment and employees’ levels of cynicism, work engagement and general stress were found to change according to the company in which they worked, thus highlighting the need for action in the psychosocial environment of these work duties.

Gender inequalities in the workplace: the effects of organizational structures, processes, practices, and decision makers' sexism

Gender inequality in organizations is a complex phenomenon that can be seen in organizational structures, processes, and practices. For women, some of the most harmful gender inequalities are enacted within human resources (HRs) practices. This is because HR practices (i.e., policies, decision-making, and their enactment) affect the hiring, training, pay, and promotion of women. We propose a model of gender discrimination in HR that emphasizes the reciprocal nature of gender inequalities within organizations. We suggest that gender discrimination in HR-related decision-making and in the enactment of HR practices stems from gender inequalities in broader organizational structures, processes, and practices. This includes leadership, structure, strategy, culture, organizational climate, as well as HR policies. In addition, organizational decision makers' levels of sexism can affect their likelihood of making gender biased HR-related decisions and/or behaving in a sexist manner while enacting HR practices. Importantly, institutional discrimination in organizational structures, processes, and practices play a pre-eminent role because not only do they affect HR practices, they also provide a socializing context for organizational decision makers' levels of hostile and benevolent sexism. Although we portray gender inequality as a self-reinforcing system that can perpetuate discrimination, important levers for reducing discrimination are identified.