A report has revealed that call & contact centres account for over 1 million jobs in the United Kingdom, and that number is due to grow by over 100,000 more by the end of 2012. Too Many of you those numbers may not come as a surprise, a large amount of people have spent time working in a call centre.

Unfortunately despite the positive effect on society and the economy many people inside and outside of the call centre industry have a negative perception of the profession, with many people seeing it more as a stop gap rather than a career? How many times have you received a called when you’ve just got back from work and uttered those 4 terrible words “Get a proper job”.

Working in a contact centre is by no means an easy feat, most call centre jobs are highly target driven environments with stress being a major side effect. As with any other job out there who you work with and who you work for is one of the biggest deciders of how much you enjoy your job. How many times have you held a job that may not be the most exciting thing in the world to do but is still enjoyable simply because of the people you work with.

Top tips for working in a contact centre

Continual professional development- Whatever sector you’re in it’s always a good idea to ensure that you are at the forefront of your industry. The knock on effect of this is that your extra training will make you a more valuable member of staff opening up more options for you in your current role as well as others.

Do you have career progression options – Sometimes simply having something to work towards can massively increase your job satisfaction, for example would you enjoy going to the gym as much if you didn’t have the target of losing weight.

Keep up a PMA (Positive mental attitude) – Sometimes the nature of call centre work can be repetitive, that’s why it’s a good idea to ensure your feeling positive. A simple tip for maintain a PMA is whenever your feeling a little low take a few minutes out and jot down everything good in your life, it may be an academic achievement or your children’s names, whatever it takes by the time you’ve written 10 things the silver lining would of returned to your cloud.

Just not happy Try and define what is causing you unhappiness, is it a particular staff member, do you feel like your not getting paid enough or is there another role within the contact centre that you feel will suit you more. From the perspective of the business its much easier to resolve whatever problem a staff member has rather than hire a new member of staff which would incur additional cost. Retraining for another role in the business may be a viable option that keeps everyone happy. Looking for work in a less stressful environment like a telephone answering service may be another good option as you would be mainly answering calls for other businesses which may be less stressful than target driven telesales.

If you simply just hate the job its best to start looking for another one immediately, being this unhappy will only have a negative effect on your performance which in turn could affect your references should you choose to leave. Plus if you looking for a new job it may distract you from your unhappiness therefore making your day to day life more enjoyable.