Through work, man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology. Above all, he must unceasingly elevate the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family.
Work means any human activity, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any activity that can and must be recognised as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which people are capable and to which they are predisposed.
The (CCMA) in UK was disappointed with the poor management in some call centres. Meanwhile, a report by the Industrial Society of UK suggested a link between badly run call centres and mental health problems. The report, New Work, New Stress, indicated that the obsession with efficiency and productivity resulted in reduced control for employees, a significant factor in mental health problems.
Among the worst examples of practices at call centres are workers having to put their hand up to go to the toilet; being restricted to a certain number of seconds per call and being subjected to disciplinary action if the time is exceeded by one second; excessive monitoring, with supervisors listening in at random; excessive surveillance; long shifts without adequate breaks; and workers being treated like slave labour.
A professional researcher in England reports that the hi-tech software used by most modern call centres allows supervisors to directly compare call length and amount per hour. Although this is a useful management tool, it is used by supervisors on the floor of the call centre to discuss which staff are better than others.
This is discussed openly and meant to induce competitiveness, but in reality often leads to undue competition, which makes people more stressed when they deal with customers. Supervisors can also specify particular call takers and transfer calls straight to them, rather than let the system distribute calls fairly.
In many centres there is a poor structure whereby the management (who are mostly competent and well respected) put pressure on the supervisors to increase performance. These supervisors are not professionals; all they do is increase the pressure on the call takers.
This increases the stress on the call takers who underperform. This underperformance is picked up by the managers who again pile on the pressure. This cycle of pressure leads to unhappiness at all levels and is the cause of high turnover.
In order to motivate others it is important to set a goal for them. All human progress - inventions large and small, medical discoveries, engineering triumphs and business successes - were all visualised first before being acted upon and becoming reality.
And this could happen because there was an inner drive to invent, create and achieve. This inner drive is motivation.
An individual determined to achieve maximum success learns the principle that progress is made one step at a time. A house is built one brick at a time. Championships are won one game at a time. A store grows bigger one customer at a time. The fact is that every big achievement is a series of smaller achievements. And this is true motivation - the drive to accomplish every small task which leads to the biggest possible success.
Mr Farrugia is a full member of the Institute of Professional Managers of the UK and a member of the Malta Institute of Management and the Human Capital Institute of the US.