Also, when employees come back after the center has been closed down, the air is stuffy and the temperature is too hot or too cold and they suffer from discomfort that impedes performance. This makes the likelihood of agents coming down with these injuries greater than in other office occupations, such as secretarial work, according to Hedge. This doesn't occur to the same extent in other white-collar jobs, like secretarial. The work and the stress in call centers is constant. In the call centers I've seen, agents usually don't have the freedom to get up and grab a cup of coffee, walk around, stretch or relax.
Agents often have to raise their hands.
Call centers are more like white-collar assembly lines, with many of the same risks, than professional workplaces. No one knows the extent of workplace injuries in call centers. The principal reason is that there is no readily available data on call centers. Because the call center dangers are not apparent and do not cause immediate injury or death, companies and employees do overlook the very real irritating, painful and debilitating ailments that can hurt them and affect performance. The consequences of these MSDs and environmental problems are all too real to agents and should be to their employers.