OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AND ITS PERCEIVED NEGATIVE IMPACT ON THE HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE OF THE EMPLOYEES OF A BANKING CALL CENTER

Abstract

Professional stress is a challenge for many companies that want to keep their employees within the organization on one hand and to ensure their performance through a comfortable working environment on the other. This study investigated and evaluated the perceptions of 14 male employees (French and Romanian speakers) working in the same banking call center in Timisoara regarding the causes and effects of work-related stress. The applicability of this study is to develop possible strategies and practices for controlling and reducing work-related stress in order to decrease the high staff turnover. The elaboration of this research is based on the concepts of occupational stress, its effects on the perceived emotional and physical health of the employees but also on their performance and motivation at work. To carry out this qualitative research, we used a semi-structured interview guide written in both Romanian and French, since half of the interviewees are Romanians, and the other half are North Africans from Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. The main topics on which the interview guide questions were developed are the following: personal and professional experience, working schedule, work rate, performance, motivation, mental and physical health and how all the aforementioned contribute to professional mobility. The research results show that the employees performance and motivation at work are indeed affected by the perceived occupational stress, but it is not the main reason why they consider changing the current job. For most of the interviewed employees, the individual life goals, ambitions, and future projections are the ones influencing them to look for another job position after gaining the desired experience within the call centers.