This document discusses signs of stress in customer-facing roles and actions managers can take. It identifies 21 potential signs of stress employees may exhibit, such as increased absence or errors. The document recommends managers start conversations, ensure breaks are taken, conduct stress assessments, build resilience, and examine stressful customer interactions. Managers are encouraged to provide support through employee wellness policies and prevention interventions to promote emotional well-being.

1. Including the 21 Tell-Tale Stress Signs
Improving CX Emotional Well-being

2. You want your teams to reach new performance targets. AND deliver great customer
experiences, acquire new customers while retaining your existing ones.
And sometimes the dreaded stress word creeps in and things just don’t go as planned.
In a very challenging, intensive and fairly repetitive CX role, real life issues to do with
home, health and happiness can sometimes take over and become ‘larger than life’, or
perhaps someone has a genuine life issue taking place.
The CX employee can be the most vulnerable to stress caused by the customer, the
workplace or life events (and sometimes all 3!) which can, if not supported properly, lead to
stress and potential mental health (MH) issues.
Footnote:
CX High Performance are not mental health experts, nor make any claim to be. This document is intended to give very practical
advice.
If you / your colleagues or team are experiencing stress and/ or mental health issues (which is highly likely at some point) it is
vital you involve your senior leaders/HR colleagues.
At the end of this document there is information on where you can get further advice and help.
The S word
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3. Two key questions…
What do you managers need to look out for?
What do managers need to do?
In nearly every team there are people who need ‘Extra’ – as a leader the job is to SPOT ISSUES
EARLY ON, prevent further issues in the workplace and provide ‘Extra’.
Remember you can never get it right 100% of the time – but please do have to try.
Prevention
and early
intervention
is vital
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4. The signs of possible stress
issues in CX organisations and
what managers can do
Mental Health is an important part of everyday life in the contact centre, in the branch or
retail store - in every customer facing role.
Key Contributing Factors
According to the HSE there are some main issues where working in Contact Centres can
contribute more to stress (especially a 50+ seat centre):
• High workload and increased workloads
• Unclear on roles
• Employees cannot make full use of their skills
• Staff have conflicting role demands
• Performance is often or rarely managed
• Work environment
According to the CIPD ‘mental
health issues have a significant
impact on employee well-being and
are a major cause of long-term
cabsence from work.
Employers are encouraged to
promote good mental health
practices and provide support for
those employees who are
struggling with mental health
problems such as anxiety and
depression'.
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5. Checklist: 21 Tell-Tale Stress Signs to Look Out For
1 Increased absence
2 Increased customer complaints
3 Increased colleague complaints
4 Reduction in contact quality
5 Increased error rates
6 Alcohol / substance abuse
7 Change in performance – often a decline
8 Arriving late / leaving early
9 Irritability
10 Concentration levels change
11 Loss of self confidence
12 Loss of sense of humour
13 More introvert or extrovert
14 More colds / run down
15 Tired at work
16 Personal appearance changes
17 Weight loss or gain
18 Home issues being overly discussed at work
19 Work life balance shifts
20 Reduced engagement & team working
21 Social media comments
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6. 9 Actions a manager can take to
improve Emotional Well-being
1 Start a conversation – a cup of tea always helps
2 Check that regular breaks are happening
3 Do a 'stress checker' amongst your frontline teams and their managers
4 Understand that stress is both a physical, environmental and biological issue
5 Learn how to build resilience in your teams
6 Communicate - build a buddy scheme peer to peer, let people know what’s available
7 Check the environment is still healthy, well-lit and clean
8 Examine the type of customer contacts which cause most stress and seek either to:
• Reskill – and upskill for better contact management
• Re-distribute to a specialist team
• Change work flow procedure / protocols to outside-in not inside-out thinking
• Check the root cause and ‘eliminate’ these where possible
continued on next page
Check-in
If you see one or two of
these signs it may or may
not be a stress or MH
issue, however it is
undoubtedly worth a
check-in with the person
and a discussion with the
manager.
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7. 9. Performance
Some areas to consider regarding performance are:
• Are you fairly measuring productivity and/or performance?
• Are your business goals, job descriptions and key performance indicators aligned to purpose?
• Do people actually know what success looks like?
• Can people have control of their work and results?
• Is the culture 'command and control' or 'engaged and empowered'?
• How do you track and feedback performance to teams and individuals?
• How is success rewarded – is it for the top or mid base of employees?
• Are people fully skilled and equipped to deliver?
• How are your Team Mangers engaging and connecting with their staff?
• Include a mental health policy as part of your wellbeing strategy, with prevention interventions.
2 things to do
today
1. SKIP a level and check
in with your team
2. EXTRA - start thinking
about the ‘Extra’ you
can provide - a team
booster, motivation
session, team tea
might be a start point
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8. Prevention and early intervention is best.
Provide support to CX Managers, teams & individuals.
Remember it is important to act.

9. Sources of information and references
• CIPD https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/culture/well-being/mental-health-factsheet
• Mental Health Foundation: Managing Mental Health in the Workplace
• Mental Health Network and NHS Confederation factsheet
• ACAS http://www.acas.org.uk
• Health & Safety Executive: Psychosocial risk factors in call centres
• Heads together.co.uk https://www.headstogether.org.uk/the-conversation-2/together-in-action/
• Mental Health Foundation https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics
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and their leaders, across 100+ organisations, on every continent achieve their success.
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