Analysing the health impacts of globalised workplaces: A study of outsourced call centers in New Delhi, India

Economic globalisation has been instrumental in creating numerous employment opportunities across the globe. Socio-cultural conditions at globalised workplaces in low-income countries (e.g., India), coupled with unprecedented relatively high incomes, are thought to influence the health and social well being of workers within those workplaces. Outsourced call centers in India represent a scenario where as part of their employment the employees are required to organise their lives in terms of American or European time zones, cultural celebrations and communication styles. A qualitative analysis of information collected from in-depth interviews conducted with 70 call centre employees, 10 employers and five doctors in New Delhi, reveal that such expectations and requirements of the job have a great influence on the daily lives of employees, in turn affecting their health. The health impacts of call centre employment could be broadly categorised under physical and psychological health, respectively. From the analysis it is observed that physical health problems are mainly related to frequent changes in the biological clock of the employees, hampering their eating habits and creating sleeping disorders, which lead to high blood pressure, cardiovascular problems and gynaecological disorder for women. On the other hand, psychological problems are mainly the result of emotional exhaustion caused by work overload; work pressure, including lack of time between calls and performance-related incentives; call monitoring; meeting targets; and having to keep to scripts. Such psychological problems often create tremendous stress for these agents who are not always equipped with the best mechanisms to cope. Hence, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of the role of call centers - active agents in the process of globalisation - influencing health of the employees. This is of particular importance because of the large number of countries undergoing similar experiences and the large proportion of workers employed at such sites.