Call centre employee's reasons for variation in objective productivity during a cognitive ergonomics intervention

Abstract

Call centre employees experience of mental game playing during work breaks were recorded in this study. The qualitative study involving two focus group discussions at different call centres, with 6 employees in one focus group and 9 in the second, stated employee's reasons for variations in the key performance metric by which they were being evaluated. In this case the key performance metric was the average speed of answer. In a previous study, where the mental games were introduced as an intervention during work breaks, the participants were asked to provide feedback on variations in productivity during a 4-week intervention study. Volunteer sampling was utilized, and the information was categorized into codes. Similar codes were grouped into themes. It was found that players are efficient in the middle of the week either because daily routine settles middle of the week or because employees try to average their metrics related to time. They also thought that productivity increased towards the end of the intervention because of games being accepted in the routine by that time, because the focus shifted from fun to work towards the end or because the employees knew they were being evaluated. According to participants, the non-players were more efficient than the players because games served as a bad distraction for the players and that players were considering games as something to do rather than an actual break. As a conclusion, it felt important to improve on the timings and frequency of the games played during work before it can be considered an effective intervention.