Personality traits and resilience as predictors of job stress and burnout among call centre employees

[摘要] English: Research has shown that staff members of call centres are experiencing highlevels of job stress due to the demands of their jobs. Employees frequently haveno control over their work environment and external factors that affect theirperformance and job satisfaction. They could, however, develop and utilizeinternal resources, like specific personality factors that can enable them tomanage their job stress more effectively. The aims of the study was to determinethe levels of job stress and burnout of staff members of a call centre and toidentify specific personality factors that could be valid predictors of the ability ofemployees of a call centre to manage job stress and burnout effectively. Severalstudies have focused on the relationship between personality, job stress andburnout, but the Big Five personality traits and resilience as predictors of jobstress and burnout have not received adequate attention. Non-probabilitysampling and specifically accidental sampling was used in a call centre inBloemfontein, South Africa. The call centre involved is an out-bound, debtcollecting call centre, with clients in South Africa and neighbouring states. A totalof 187 employees in the call centre were involved in the study. The respondentswere mainly black, female, single, South Sotho, between 21 and 25 years of age,acquired a grade 12 qualification and have served for less than one year. Themeasuring instruments that were used, include the International Personality ItemPool, the Resilience Scale, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Human ServicesSurvey) and the Experience of Work and Life Circumstances Questionnaire.Multiple stepwise regression analysis was used as statistical technique toprocess the data. Respondents exhibited a high level of job stress, an averagelevel of emotional exhaustion, a high level of depersonalization and a low level ofpersonal accomplishment. A significant linear relationship was found between job stress and specific Big Five personality factors, namely emotional stabilityand openness to experience. A significant linear relationship was also identifiedbetween conscientiousness and specific dimensions of burnout, namelyemotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Resilience and more specifically acceptance of self and life was also found to be a valid predictor ofdepersonalization, a dimension of burnout. Conscientiousness, agreeablenessand resilience were found to be valid predictors of the personal accomplishmentdimension of burnout. Future research in this regard should be done with a morerepresentative sample of call centres in South Africa in order to generalize theresults to call centres in general. The personality factors that have beenidentified in this study as valid predictors of the effective management of jobstress and burnout could be used for purposes of selection and training in callcentres.

[发布机构] University of the Free State