Resources

This list contains resources for further reading or for use in your call center. It includes all the resources offered throughout the toolkit as well as a few additional items.

General Information about Call Centers and Workplace Stress

• “Stress Management for Public Safety Telecommunicators,” by Cindra Dunaway, PSC Online, APCO International, April 16, 2013.
• “Stress and the 9-1-1 Telecommunicator,” by Antonya English, PSC Online, APCO International, September 3, 2015.
• First Responders' Trauma Intervention and Suicide Prevention. Suicide Prevention Resource Toolkit. Centre for Suicide Prevention, 2015.
• Wiegland, D. (2013) Evaluation of Job Stress and Work-Related Health Concerns at a Telephone Call Center, Health Hazard Evaluation Propgram, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Exposure to Stress, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July, 2008.
• Work Organization and Stress-Related Disorders Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May, 2016.
• Rosen, L. (2014) Keep your brain healthy in a tech-rich environment, Psychology Today.

Resources for Dealing with Interpersonal Problems

• Conflict Resolution Presentation from the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice (free registration is required).
• Bullying Policy from Skagit 911.
• Bullying Policy from Cresa Call Center.
• Checklist adapted from Bullying Risk Factor Checklist, Comcare, Australian Government, 2010.
• Guide for Preventing and Responding to Workplace Bullying, Safe Work Australia, 2013.

Printable Materials on Exercise and Nutrition

These materials were created by the PACE project at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington.

For Individual Employees:

• Take a quiz to learn how effective your exercise program is.
• Learn about the overall benefits of exercise.
• Get tips on effective stretching.
• Make food choices that support physical fitness.
• Find the right type of exercise for any individual.
• Discover popular fitness activities.
• Consider these low-cost workouts.
• Team up with coworkers to get motivated.
• Get fit by taking the stairs.
• Increase activity levels with walking.
• Start the day with a healthy breakfast.
• Get the most nutrition out of snacks.
• Choose healthy options for lunchtime salads
• Get hydrated by drinking plenty of water.
• Know the facts about healthy beverages.
• Eat well by eating with your coworkers.

For Center-Wide Initiatives:

• Start a workplace walking group.
• Encourage employees to train for a 5k walk or run.
• Organize a 10,000 steps challenge with this tracking log.
• Serve healthy food at meetings.
• Eat well at events and parties.
• Offer healthy options in vending machines.

Workplace Wellness Resources

Flu clinic information from New York City's seasonal flu prevention program.

Flu clinic information, printable materials, and a flu prevention toolkit for employers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Resources from federal agencies on noise in call centers and workplace ergonomics.

Materials from the Ergonomics Program of the Occupational Health Services at the University of California-Davis on posture, stretching, and setting up a computer workstation.

Reference List

This list collects many of the research studies and other references that were used in the development of this resource. These works form the evidence base for the practices recommended in the toolkit.

Understanding Workplace Stress

• 1.

• “Stress Management for Public Safety Telecommunicators,” by Cindra Dunaway, PSC Online, APCO International, April 16, 2013.
• “Stress and the 9-1-1 Telecommunicator,” by Antonya English, PSC Online, APCO International, September 3, 2015.

• 2.

• McAllister, M. and McKinnon, J. (2009) The importance of teaching and learning resilience in the health disciplines: A critical review of the literature. Nurse Education Today; 29, 371-379.

• 3.

• Pierce, H. and Lilly, M. (2012) Duty-related trauma exposure in 911 telecommunicators: Considering the Risk for Posttraumatic Stress, Journal of Traumatic Stress 25, 211-215.
• Lilly, M.M. and Allen, C.E. (2015) Psychological inflexibility and psychopathology in 9-1-1 telecommunicators, Journal of Traumatic Stress 28(3), 262-266.

• 4.

• First Responders' Trauma Intervention and Suicide Prevention. Suicide Prevention Resource Toolkit. Centre for Suicide Prevention, 2015.

• Additional References

• Wiegland, D. (2013) Evaluation of Job Stress and Work-Related Health Concerns at a Telephone Call Center, Health Hazard Evaluation Propgram, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Exposure to Stress, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July, 2008.
• Work Organization and Stress-Related Disorders Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May, 2016.

Operations

• 1.

• Arnetz, B. B. (1997) Technological stress: Psycho-physiological aspects of working with modern information technology, Scandinavian Journal of Work Environment and Health (23:S3) 97-103.
• Brod, C., ed. (1984) Technostress: The Human Cost of the Computer Revolution Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• Ragu-Nathan, T.S., Tarafdar, M., Ragu-Nathan, B.S., and Tu, Q. (2008) The consequences of technostress for end users in organizations: Conceptual development and empirical validation, Information Systems Research (19:4) 417-433.
• Tarafdar, M., Bolman-Pullins, E. and Ragu-Nathan, T.S. (2014) Technostress: negative effect on performance and possible mitigations, Information Systems Journal, 25(2): 103-132.

• 2.

• Clark, K. and Kalin, S. (1996) Technostressed out? How to cope in the digital age.,
• Karasek, R. (1979) Job demands, job decision latitude and mental strain: Implications for job redesign, Admin Sci Quart 24 285–308.
• Nelson, D.L. and M.G. Kletke. (1990) Individual adjustment during technological innovation: A research framework, Behav Inform Tech 9(4) 257–271.
• Yaverbaum, G.J. (1988) Critical factors in the user environment: An experimental study of users, organizations, and tasks, MIS Quart 12(1) 75–88.
• Zorn, T.E. (2002) The emotionality of information and communication technology implementation, J Comm Management 7(2) 160–171.

• 3.

• Ash J.S., Stavri P.Z. and Kuperman G.J. (2003) A consensus statement on considerations for a successful CPOE implementation, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 10(3):229–34.

• 4.

• Trinkoff, M. et al (2006) Longitudinal relationship of work hours, mandatory overtime, and on-call to musculoskeletal problems in nurses, American Journal of Industrial Medicine 49 (11) 964–971.
• Lipscomb, J.A. et al (2002) Work-schedule characteristics and reported musculoskeletal disorders of registered nurses, Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 28 (6) 394–401.
• Rajbhandary, S. and Basu, K. (2010) Working conditions of nurses and absenteeism: is there a relationship? An empirical analysis using National Survey of the Work and Health of Nurses, Health Policy, 97 (2-3), 152–159.
• Barker, L.M., and Nussbaum, M.A. (2011) Fatigue, performance and the work environment: A survey of registered nurses, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 67 (6), 1370–1382.
• Stimpfel, A.W., Sloane, D.M., and Aiken, L.H. (2012) The longer the shifts for hospital nurses, the higher the levels of burnout and patient dissatisfaction Health Affairs, 31 (11), 2501–2509.
• Han, K., Trinkoff, A.M., Storr, C.L., and Geiger-Brown, J. (2011) Job stress and work schedules in relation to nurse obesity Journal of Nursing Admnistration, 41 (11), 488–495.
• Portela, L.F., Rotenberg, L., and Waissmann, W. (2005) Health, sleep and lack of time: Relations to domestic and paid work in nurses Revista de Saude Publica, 39 (5), 802–808.
• Karasek, R.A. et al (1988) Job characteristics in relation to the prevalence of myocardial infarction. Amer. J. of Public Health, 78, 910-918.
• Karasek, R. A., and Theorell, T. (1990) Healthy work: Stress, Productivity, and the Reconstruction of Working Life, New York: Basic Books, Inc.

• Additional References

• Kupersmith, J.J. (1992) Technostress and the reference librarian, Reference Services Review 20, 7-14, 50.
• Rogers, E.M. (2003) Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition. New York: Free Press.
• Weil, M. and Rosen, L. (1997) TechnoStress: coping with technology @work @home @play J. Wiley, New York.
• Rosen, L. (2014) Keep your brain healthy in a tech-rich environment, Psychology Today.
• Dunmade, E.O., Adegoke, J.F. and Agboola, A.A. (2014) Assessment of ergonomic hazards and techno-stress among the workers of Obafemi A wolowo Universit y, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria, Australian Journal of Business and Management Research 4(1), 27-34.

Conflict

• 1.

• Harolds, J and Wood, B. (2006) Conflict Management and Resolution. Am Coll Radiol; 3: 200-206.
• Thomas, K. (1976) Conflict and conflict management. In M.D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (889-935). Chicago: Rand McNally.

• 2.

• Thomas, K. (1992) Conflict and negotiation processes in organizations. In M.D. Dunnette and L.M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (651-717). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
• Dornstein (1977) Organizational conflict and role stress among chief executives in state business enterprises. Journal of Occupational Psychology, Dec 5, 253-263.

• 3.

• Valentine, P (2001) A gender perspective on conflict management strategies of nurses. Journal of Nursing Scholarship; 33:1, 69-74.

• 4.

• Brinkert, R. (2010) A literature review of conflict communication causes, costs, benefits and interventions in nursing. Journal of Nursing Management, 18, 145-156.

• 5.

• Tomey Marriner, A. (1995) Strategies for managing conflict. Journal of Multicultural Nursing and Health, 2(1), 6-9.
• Tomey Marriner, A. and Poletti, P. (1991) Strategies for managing conflict. International Nursing Review, 38(4), 118-120.

• 6.

• Sansone R.A., and Sansone L.A. (2015) Workplace bullying: a tale of adverse consequences, Innov Clin Neurosci; 12(1-2):32-7.
• Lessuffleur, T., Chastang, J., Sandret, N., and Niedhammer, I. (2014) Psychosocial factors at work and sickness absence: results from the french national SUMER survey, American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 57:695-708.
• Cleary, M., Hunt, G., and Jorsfall, J. (2010) Identifying and addressing bullying in nursing, Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 31:331-335.
• Randle, J. et al (2007) Reducing workplace bullying in healthcare organizations, Nursing Standard, 21, 22, 49-56.

• 7.

• Checklist adapted from Bullying Risk Factor Checklist, Comcare, Australian Government, 2010.
• Agervold, M. (2009) The significance of organizational factors for the incidence of bullying, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology; 50, 267-276.
• Alterman, T. et al (2013) Job insecurity, work-family imbalance, and hostile work environment: prevelance data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey, American Journal of Industrial Medicine 56:660-669.

• 8.

• Johnson, S. (2015) Creating effective anti-bullying policies, Nursing Management, 39-45.
• Guide for Preventing and Responding to Workplace Bullying, Safe Work Australia, 2013.

• Additional References

• Brinkert, R. (2011) Conflict coaching training for nurse managers: a case study of a two-hospital health system. Journal of Nursing Management, 19, 80-91.
• Filley (1975). Interpersonal conflict resolution. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman and Co.
• Thomas, K and Kilmann, R. (1974) Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode instrument. Tuxedo, NY: XICOM.
• Thomas, K and Kilmann, R. (1977) Developing a forced-choice measure of conflict-handling behavior: The mode instrument. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 37(2), 309-325.
• Quinlan, E. et al (2014) Interventions to reduce bullying in health care organizations: A scoping review, Evidence Synthesis Review 27(1-2) 33-44.
• Mulder, R. et al (2014) Workplace mobbing and bystanders' helping behavior toward victims: The role of gender, perceived responsibility and anticipated stigma by association, International Journal of Psychology 49 No. 4, 304-312.

Promoting Wellness

• 1.

• McCoy, K et al (2014) Health promotion in small business: A systematic review of the factors influencing adoption and effectiveness of worksite wellness programs, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 56 No. 6, 579-587.
• Building a Stronger Evidence Base for Employee Wellness Programs, National Institute for Health Care Management, 2011.
• Task Force on Community Preventive Services (2010), Recommendations for Worksite-Based Interventions to Improve Workers' Health, American Journal of Preventive Medicine 38 (2S):S2332-S236.

• 2.

• Taylor, W.C. et al (2013) Booster breaks in the workplace: participants' perspectives on health-promoting work breaks, Health Educ Res 28(3):414-25.

• 3.

• These materials were written by Sonia Bishop, Briana West, and Beti Thompson, PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in collaboration with Shirley AA. Beresford, PhD, University of Washington, and designed by Clayton Hibbert. Their development was supported through research grant RO1 HL0797941-02 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Shirley AA. Beresford, PhD, Principal Investigator, Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle WA. These materials are currently not available for general distribution.

• 4.

• Flu clinic information adapted from New York City's seasonal flu prevention program.