Flexible work in call centres: Working hours, work-life conflict & health Philip Bohle * , Harold Willaby, Michael Quinlan, Maria McNamara Work and Health Research Team, Ageing, Work and Health Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, PO Box 170, Lidcombe NSW 1825, Australia article info Article history: Received 1 February 2010 Accepted 15 June 2010 Keywords: Working hours Flexible employment Work intensity Work-life conflict Health Call centres abstract Call-centre workers encounter major psychosocial pressures, including high work intensity and unde- sirable working hours. Little is known, however, about whether these pressures vary with employment status and how they affect work-life conflict and health. Questionnaire data were collected from 179 telephone operators in Sydney, Australia, of whom 124 (69.3%) were female and 54 (30.2%) were male. Ninety-three (52%) were permanent full-time workers, 37 (20.7%) were permanent part-time, and 49 (27.4%) were casual employees. Hypothesised structural relationships between employment status, working hours and work organisation, work-life conflict and health were tested using partial least squares modelling in PLS (Chin, 1998). The final model demonstrated satisfactory fit. It supported important elements of the hypothesised structure, although four of the proposed paths failed to reach significance and the fit was enhanced by adding a path. The final model indicated that casual workers reported more variable working hours which were relatively weakly associated with greater dissatis- faction with hours. The interaction of schedule control and variability of hours also predicted dissatis- faction with hours. Conversely, permanent workers reported greater work intensity, which was associated with both lower work schedule control and greater work-life conflict. Greater work-life conflict was associated with more fatigue and psychological symptoms. Labour market factors and the undesirability of longer hours in a stressful, high-intensity work environment appear to have contributed to the results. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Call centres employ large numbers of service workers in both developed and developing countries (Norman et al., 2008; Nadeem, 2009). Over the past decade a growing body of research has investigated working conditions and employment in call centres (Russell, 2008). Many studies have found call-centre work to be physically and emotionally intensive with performance pressure, close surveillance and limited autonomy (Taylor et al., 2003; Barnes, 2006; Gavhead and Toomingas, 2007; Toomingas and Gavhead, 2008). This combination of high work intensity and low autonomy raises concerns about working hours in call centres and the control that workers exert over work schedules. Flexible employment, which frequently entails irregular hours, is common in the industry and is likely to be associated with higher levels of work-life conflict. Many call centres operate in highly competitive markets, making labour productivity a central concern and encouraging practices that have been labelled ‘time-theft’ (Stevens and Lavin, 2007). The intensity of work, combined with the restrictions imposed on rest breaks, has called into question the appropriateness of long shifts, and even the desirability of shorter seven- or eight-hour shifts (Taylor and Bain, 1999; Bain and Taylor, 2000; Bain et al., 2002). Taylor and Bain (1999 p. 111) noted that preference of some employers for permanent part-time staff reflected ‘the inherently stressful nature of the job and the desirability of shift patterns which correspond to the peaks of customer demand in the late afternoons, evenings or weekends’. However, while constraining working hours in this way may have the benefit of limiting exposure in a highly demanding work environment, the concentration of work at socially undesirable times may heighten work-life conflict, even for part-time workers. In any case, the available evidence does suggest that the negative impact of high work intensity in call centres will increase as working hours increase. There is evidence that many call-centre workers have limited control over their work schedules. A French study of predomi- nantly full-time call handlers found that only 17.7 per cent reported that they could choose their working hours (Croidieu et al., 2008). Psychosocial constraints were more frequent amongst part-time call handlers, especially those who had not chosen their work schedule (Croidieu et al., 2008). A small Irish study of both permanent and temporary workers also noted an * Corresponding author. E-mail address: philip.bohle@sydney.edu.au (P. Bohle). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Ergonomics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apergo 0003-6870/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2010.06.007 Applied Ergonomics 42 (2011) 219e224