UK employees who have worked from home fully or part-time in the last 12 months say it has increased their level of anxiety about dealing with phone calls with customers, according to new research.
More than four in 10 employees who have switched to working from an office, to working remotely, say the isolation has caused them to be more anxious about handling customer calls.
And younger workers – or those with less experience – are feeling the biggest brint of this increase in anxiety.
More than half of employees aged 18-34 say they’ve experienced increasing levels of phone anxiety since switching to remote working, or working from home, at least part-time.
The results are part of an independent study commissioned by telephone answering service provider Face For Business, which surveyed the views of 1,000 UK office employees
No Support Drives Increase in Anxiety When Working From Home (WFH)
The biggest reason for the increase in phone anxiety among those working from home, is the lack of immediate support available from a colleague or manager.
12% of respondents cited this as their biggest source of anxiety when dealing with calls from home.
Another 10% said they were most concerned that they wouldn’t be able to help a customer who called and they wouldn’t know what to do, and 11% said they feared facing a confrontational customer if they couldn’t help the customer immediately, or pass them onto someone.
Again, these fears are greater among younger workers, who claim they haven’t been properly equipped by their employers to deal with customer calls, and don’t have the support when working from home.
One in five workers aged 18-34 said they were most concerned about confrontations on the phone.
Employees Need More Support When WFH
Commenting on the findings of the new research, Andy MacGregor, managing director of Face For Business said: “There’s no doubt working from home has had significant benefits for both employers and employees, but having employees working remotely doesn’t release a business from providing support, if anything it means more support should be offered.
“What our research has found is that this support is severely lacking and, as a result, employees are feeling more anxious about tasks like call answering because they feel isolated.
“Businesses need to do better in investing in this support and for employees working from home, whether it’s training or using external resources to provide support to employees, something needs to be done.”