Plantronics warns european contact centres of noise at work legislation
Awareness levels of the regulation at 50% at time of implementation; Up to 16% of contact centre’s thought to exceed lower action level noise requirements
October 9 2006 – Headset manufacturer Plantronics today warned that contact centre employees may be at risk and unaware of a new EU directive that was implemented into country law early in 2006, stating that call centres need to control daily personal noise exposure to not more than 85dB(A), and ideally below 80dB(A). With awareness the key to the success of meeting legislation requirements, Datamonitor‘s ‘Spending priorities in small call centres’ analysis has shown that 91% of call centres were not aware of the legislation in 2005 and 50% were still unaware at the time of implementation.
Office workers have complained that that noise levels at work disrupt their concentration, and around a third feel that their ability to make work calls is compromised by workplace noise, according to a study by Plantronics. Excessive noise at work can be associated with an increase in work-related stress[1]. Contact centre workers spend the majority of their working day on the phone and are at the greatest risk from excessive noise exposure via the headset . They can also be at risk from a range of sudden loud sounds- from malicious callers, fax tones to ‘feedback howl’.
According to Plantronics testing of almost 500 agents at 61 contact centre sites across EMEA[2] 16.1% currently exceed the new lower action level of 80dB(A). Datamonitor expects the number of call centres in EMEA to reach 45,000 by 2008. The new directive requires each contact centre to perform their own risk assessment and implement appropriate and proportionate measures.
Plantronics, provides testing and tools to automatically manage noise exposure via the headset. The Plantronics VistaPlus™ DM15 digital adapter ensures daily personal noise exposure is monitored and automatically controlled to aid compliance with the legislation. Constantly on guard, the SoundGuard® DIGITAL signal processing included in VistaPlus also identifies and suppresses sudden loud sounds, to avoid user discomfort.
[1] Research on work-related stress”commissioned by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (May 2000)
[2] Contact Centre sites were in England, Scotland, Ireland, Netherlands, Italy and France
