Work design, anxiety and depression: A call centre case study

Abstract

This 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.