3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Quality of work life and career change among online technical advisors(2008-09-26T11:32:21Z) Parshotam, AnushaThere is currently a phenomenon of young people changing jobs in our country. This research looks at the reasons why mechanics leave the workshop environment to pursue a career as a technical advisor in the call centre. The technical advisors all make the transition at a particular stage in their lives and this will be looked at in terms of Super’s (1980) developmental theory, with a particular focus on the stage of establishment. The dissertation takes the reader on a journey through the lives of five technical advisors at a particular organisation, and compares and contrasts the two work environments and the quality of work life associated with both. The study will also focus on stress that they experience while making the transition from mechanic to technical advisor and how this impacts on their work and personal lives. The study was exploratory in nature and was investigated through the qualitative method of interviewing.Item Work design, anxiety and depression: A call centre case study(2008-05-23T08:40:26Z) Mphuthi, Faith LeratoThis research study explores the possible relationships that may exist between the work design, level of anxiety and depression in South African call centres. By investigating the work design of a call centre and exploring its relationship to anxiety and depression will help to achieve this. Variables that will be looked at in this research study are work design, anxiety and depression. Our sample comprised of call centre agents. The agents were came from one inbound and one outbound call centre. It was then realized during the analysis of the data that there is no significant difference between the two call centres therefore the two samples were merged into one sample thus increasing our sample size to a total of 56 respondents. Pearson correlation analysis revealed that significant positive correlations exist between all the variables, work design, level of anxiety and depression. It was also proven that the higher the JCI score the lower the anxiety and depression levels. Additional correlation tests were conducted to see whether there is a relationship that exists between JCI subscales, anxiety and depression. Results showed that not all of the sub-scales of the JCI show a significant correlation with Anxiety and Depression. Only Autonomy and Feedback to some degree correlate with Anxiety (r = 0.38; p = 0.004 and r = 0.26; p = 0.053). Variety and Authority correlated significantly and positively with Depression (r=0.38; p = 0.004; and r = 0.32; p = 0.017). These results indicate good support for this research study, illustrating that the manner in which work is designed will have an effect in the anxiety and depression levels experienced by the employees.Item Identifying medical call centre stress: an evaluation of psychological and physical wellbeing(2006-11-16T09:18:37Z) Lutrin, JosieThe current research focuses on stress within the medical call centre environment and the way in which organisational factors may impact on the psychological and physical well being of employees in such a context. The rationale of the study occurs as a relative lack of current research in this area, particulary within the South African context. Furthermore, the study aimed to combine previous research conducted in call centres with other studies carried out on emergency medical service personnel, in order to generate distinctive findings for the unique environment of the emergency medical call centre. The study was quantitative in nature and was based on the transactional model of stress. The participants were selected non-randomly from an accessible of convenience and elements of both purposive and convenience sampling procedures were used. One hundred and fifty questionnaires were distributed within the three medical call centres and 78 were completed and returned. The findings indicate that medical call employees experience stress from environmental aspects such as support from outside of work, organisational factors, feelings of being undervalued, support at work and the nature of the work itself. Additionally, findings indicated that the stress factors of support outside of work, organisational characteristics, being undervalued and support at work had and impact on the psychological and physical wellbeing of employees and increased absenteeism and their desire to leave the organisation. Results also indicated that the stress related to the nature of the work itself was not significant and decreased as tenure within the medical call centre increased. Having identified aspects of medical call centre stress and the way in which these factors impact on the psychological and physical wellbeing of employees, the implications this work were discussed both theoretically and practically. Limitations of the study were acknowledged and further research directions were suggested.