Factors that influence employee morale of contact centre staff : Eskom Holding SOC LTD South Africa

Abstract

The vital role that staff morale plays in staff performance within organisations cannot be underestimated. The main reason for human and labour development is to improve employees’ conduct in terms of confidence or approach towards the job. Eskom contact centre is an important and integral part of business that frequently handles queries from customers, thereby reducing the waiting time of customers and enhancing call routing. Leadership of Eskom contact centres is deemed to experience a high rate of absenteeism, high level of stress and high turnover rate and intention to leave by most of the employees working in the contact centres. The main objective of the study was to determine factors influence the morale of employees at Eskom contact centre in South Africa. This study further aimed to achieve the following objectives: to examine the effects of Eskom workforce performance management systems that influence the levels of motivation and morale of contact centre employees, to evaluate the impact of intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing the morale on physical and psychological performance outcomes, and to assess the relationship between the moral behavior among the Eskom contact centre employees and the perceived employees physical and psychological performance reactions and attitudes. Statistical methods such as descriptive statistics, multiple regression, logistic regression and factor analysis were used to analyse the data collected from thirty-five (35) employees at Eskom contact centre. The main findings reveal that the most important intrinsic factors which influences job satisfaction at Eskom contact centre were acceptable pay level and employee recognition while the extrinsic factors include: reasonable work and responsibilities, positive role of supervisor, work pressures, work tension, job frustration, low service level, customer time management, high responsibility, work overload and heavy call overload. The managerial implication encompasses some recommendations that can assist management to decide on the factors that will enhance Eskom’s operations.