Creating Thriving Contact Centres

Creating thriving contact centres

Danielle Clark from SuperFriend explains how the Wellbeing on Call program promotes better mental health and wellbeing for contact centre staff

There are simple and effective ways to improve contact centre worker mental health and wellbeing, according to the results of a recently completed pilot program, Wellbeing on Call. Due to the unique challenges faced by contact centres, such as repetitive work and intensive performance monitoring, Australia's 250,000 contact centre workers are at a higher risk of poor mental wellbeing compared with workers in other industries.

Wellbeing on Call was designed to promote mental health and wellbeing in contact centres, and achieved a range of positive outcomes including improved wellbeing, reduced absenteeism, and greater leadership confidence.

The program was funded through a grant awarded to workplace mental health organisation SuperFriend, via WorkSafe's WorkWell Mental Health Improvement Fund. Five contact centres participated in the program: UniSuper, Sunsuper, Link Group, MLC Life Insurance and Concentrix. It was overseen and delivered by SuperFriend, with assistance from The Strengths Lab and Pracademia.

The program in detail

Two groups from each contact centre were involved in the program, a participating group and a control group. Each of the groups included team members and team leaders. Employees in HR-based roles also formed part of the participating groups. This approach allowed SuperFriend to measure tangible outcomes for participants against a baseline. Wellbeing on Call embraced and applied the principles of co-design, meaning those receiving the interventions were involved in helping create them. Co-design is shown to have several benefits, including more efficient decision making, ideas that are relevant to those receiving them, and increased support for the interventions.

“Australia’s 250,000 contact centre workers are at a higher risk of poor mental wellbeing”

Program interventions included:

Mental health and wellbeing workshops Team 'psychological capital' and strengths-based workshops and coaching calls Networking sessions, and Webinars on mentally healthy workplaces and job design

These focussed on five key themes identified through the co-design process: leadership support, resilience, training and resources, performance, and culture and values.