Health and safety in contact centres
Contact centres are a central or distributed contact point in an organisation designed to act as the primary entry point for customer contacts.
Examples of contact centre workplaces include:
- telemarketing centres and telemarketing workers
- help desks
- service desks
- contact centres
- market research activities
- charities engaging in fundraising activities
- disaster relief operations
- emergency operations
- workers engaged to perform contact centre work from home
- workplaces where the primary role of workers is to respond to telephone and electronic requests from clients
- geographically distributed contact centres.
What are the risks?
Contact centre owners and operators have a responsibility to manage the health and safety risks (PDF, 0.65 MB) in the workplace.
Health and safety risks include:
- manual tasks
- psychosocial issues
- occupational stress
- workplace bullying
- violence and client aggression
- fatigue
- visual fatigue
- vocal fatigue
- noise
- sedentary work.
Who is responsible for managing the risks?
Contact centre owners and operators have a responsibility to manage the risks common in contact centres to meet their duties under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (the WHS Act).
Workers employed within contact centre workplaces have a responsibility to follow the safe work procedures set down by their employer.
Consultation between workers and employers is an essential part in managing risks in contact centres. If there is a health and safety issue at a contact centre, all relevant parties must follow the issue resolution process set out in the WHS Act and Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (the WHS Regulation).