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Stress and Resilience of Employees with Customer Contact During COVID

Statista reported that only 3.8% of those who worked from home in the U.S. as of September 2020 were ages 16-24 (7). The whopping 96.2% were 25 and older. With all the discussion of work-at-home during COVID and its effects on performance, satisfaction and office culture, we sometimes forget that students often worked in face-to-face jobs during the pandemic. Restaurants and retail stores bore the brunt of fear, anger, food shortages, and cut hours with no option to work from home. If these workers didn't lose their jobs, they were in stores and restaurants, interacting with customers and experiencing a very different type of stress.

In their 2021 study, McKinsey & Company's 'overall-physical-proximity' score rated retail stores and banks 3rd after only personal services and healthcare, at a 76 out of 100 (1). Restaurants and hotels were ranked next highest, at 75 of 100. (As a comparison, outdoor maintenance scored a 54 and teaching scored a 68.)

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that in restaurants and other in-person service occupations, the risk of transmission is high, and many are still not properly protected (2). This contributes to longer-term effects of the work-at-home shift. The labor market will likely suffer due to the lack of business travel and more automation in areas such as food service (1). This will likely add to the stress and strain of workers with customer contact. A study of 1,073 U.S. workers in January 2020 showed that 43% were very or extremely concerned about being able to 'make ends meet' and in having a job or income (3).

Harvard Business Review found in a 2020 study that companies experienced more than twice as many 'difficult' customer service calls in just two weeks (6). In one company, customer service calls related to the financial difficulties of the customer increased 2.5 times in one week. Furthermore, these increased problems lessen the possibility of turning a call into a sale or additional products, and of passing a call along to another person in the hierarchy or specialist. Managers can be frustrated and revert to relying only on metrics, when they should be considering training or encouraging collaborative support among reps.

An important capability in times such as these is resilience, for both the manager and employee, which is a personal characteristic that enables individuals to respond positively and to adapt in adverse circumstances (4, 5). Resilience is positively associated with job engagement, so it benefits far beyond COVID times. Best of all, managers can encourage building of resilience by giving them resources. In COVID, this may be time at home with supportive family or friends, safe working conditions, supervision that makes them feel they can speak up if concerned or be protected from difficult customers.

Topics

Service Workers, Customer Contact, COVID, Stress, Strain, Resilience

Student Discussion/Assignments

Ask students to compile a report that trains managers how to support employees during COVID or (post-COVD) in high customer contact jobs. The assignment could be for a presentation, full report, short training, or discussion of opinions and personal experiences. It also could be research using surveys and data.
Give students a resilience self-assessment such as the one linked below the sources. Ask them to fill it out, debrief with their agreement/disagreement with results, and what they might do to improve weaknesses. Ask in what areas improving those weaknesses would help most?

Sources