ABSTRACT:

Context: India has been the leading destination for the IT and BPO industries in the last decade and in 2005 IT and BPO industries in India employed about 700,000 people directly and about 2.5 million indirectly.

Objective: The main objective was to identify the physical and psychological health problems faced by the call handlers and to know the existing working practices in these call centres.

Design, setting and participants: An eight-part study tool covering various topics was used in the call centres situated in Bangalore, which agreed to be a part of the study. In all, 176 call handlers participated in the study.

Results: Majority of the respondents were in the age group of 21-30 yrs and were males. 119 (67.6%) had less than a year of experience working in the call centres. 94 (54.3%) respondents had rotation shift duties and 144 (81.8%) worked on an average for 8-12 hrs per day. 50% of the respondents had some problems related to their vocal health, 22 (12.5%) complained of problems related to their ears and 126 (71.6%) of the respondents had musculoskeletal pain and the commonest region being the neck and the back.Unmarried respondents were found to be significantly more under stress when compared to married respondents. Working in call centre had interfered with the call handler’s interaction with family members and social life.

Conclusions: To arrive at more concrete conclusions and recommendations and to enforce legislations governing call centres, which is challenging.

Keywords: Call centre, call handlers, health problems.

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