Work-related stress hazards up at Australia Post Customer Contact Centre
Work-related stress is up at Post’s Southern Customer Contact Centre in Pinewood, Vic and this is having negative effects on workers at the centre.
A survey conducted by the CWU Vic branch late last year has found that many workers are suffering from stress and that the causes of this stress stem from a wide range of work circumstances including, little control over work or work methods or how they can cope with its demands and pressures, little support from supervisors, poor communication within the workplace, inadequate processes to deal with issues, lack of training, insufficient breaks from screen-based work and job insecurity.
Symptoms of work-related stress reported by contact centre workers included a drop in motivation, depression and anxiety. Obviously work-related stress is a health and safety hazard. In fact, stress is the second most common cause of workplace compensation claims in Australia, after manual handling.
Under WHS law Post is required to provide and maintain a healthy and safe working environment, and systems of work to eliminate or control risks to the psychological health of employees and contractors. We have put a number of recommendations for change to Post management to address the work-related stress hazards that have been identified at the contact centre.
