Employee Perception of the Effectiveness of Occupational Stress Management Programmes at the Safaricom Call Centre

Abstract

Occupational stress is manifested in the physiological and emotional responses that occur when employees are unable to cope with the work life imbalances. Work challenges can have positive or negative impact on employee health and safety and flexible work schedules have the potential of improving employee satisfaction and reducing stress. Call centre work has a high level of monitoring, with unpredictable traffic peak of calls. This significantly increases the risk of suffering from stress. Work related stress when well managed can increase productivity of employees and the entire organization. it is also important to realize that the costs of stress can be extremely high hence the need to manage it effectively. This study intended to establish the employee perception of the effectiveness of occupational stress management programmes at the Safaricom Limited call centre. This was a descriptive survey design study. The population was 1459 staff from whom a sample size of 200 employees was selected using stratified sampling design. Primary data was collected using semi structured questionnaires which were selfadministered. The results from the data analysis indicated that occupational stress in the call centre can be effectively managed in various ways. These included allocating employees their preferred shifts, salary increments, fairness in doing the quality assessments and transparency when dealing with promotions.Respondents provided their opinions based on their feelings and this was a major limitation to the study as they would be biased in their answers. It recommended that over time a related study would be be carried out to assess the effectiveness of occupational stress management programmes at Safaricom Limited or in related telecommunication industry to. The study concludes that occupational stress management programmes were very significant in motivating the employees and identifying employee needs. Safaricom management highly valued occupational stress management and worked towards its effective management. occupational stress management was mostly done through coaching and training on emotional management, implementation of work schedules that help improve work life balance and establishment of policies that assist to motivate the employees.