Motivation at Job Entry, Reward and Well-Being in Call-Centre Operators

Introduction: Since few people usually access a job in call-centres being highly motivated about their choice, in this study we aimed to evaluate whether the impact of initial motivation to seek employment in a call-centre on psychological well-being and thinking of leaving the job, changes according to conditions of effort-reward imbalance. Participants and measures: 474 Italian call-centre operators reported their initial motivation to accept the job and this was labelled as “casual – instrumental” or “intrinsic”. The Siegrist’s Effort/Reward Imbalance questionnaire was used to assess work stress deriving from a lack of rewards at the workplace. One item measured “thinking of leaving the job”. The General Health Questionnaire was used to assess “psychological well-being”. A multivariate linear regression analysis was conducted adjusting for sex, age, education, presence of children and working hours. Results: As a whole, only 11,4% of operators entered the job being “intrinsically” motivated. Of these, 8,9% suffered from an effort/ reward imbalance condition which was also reported by 29,3% among those with no such “intrinsic” motivation. Adjusted regression analysis showed that workers with an intrinsic motivation to work in a call-centre at entry had higher “psychological well-being” and lower “thinking of leaving the job” (betas 0.10, 0.12; p<.01). The adverse effects of motivation at job entry on both “psychological well-being” and “thinking of leaving the job” were higher among those reporting an effort/reward imbalance condition (betas 0.16, 0.22 p<.001). Conclusions: These results suggest that, irrespective of initial motivation to work in a call-centre, adequate rewards (in terms of esteem, career and pay) provided by an organization to balance efforts spent, may favour psychological health and the will to stay in the job. This may be attributed to the fact that when external conditions can foster personal growth, employees may shift their job attitudes towards a more “intrinsic” motivation.