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By Sonya Rabbitte, 25 March 2002 17:00

NEWS Three quarters of call centre managers say they are satisfied with their jobs even though they work long hours and aren't well paid. A report out today found that 75 per cent of call centre managers are happy in their jobs, while 16 per cent claim to be 'very satisfied'. But the perception of call centres as the modern-day equivalent of the sweatshop remains. The survey, conducted by call centre software provider Noetica, found that managers work long hours and are set tough targets. Ninety-four per cent said they were behind their desks by 09.00, and a quarter claimed to arrive in work early on a regular basis. Eighty-eight per cent work over 40 hours a week, while close to 20 per cent said they work 50 to 60 hours per week. Keith Symondson, commercial director with Noetica, said he was slightly surprised that so many call centre managers claimed to be content at work. "It could be that call centre managers see this as more of a career than call centre agents. Yes they are working long hours but it is not so much the actual hours, it's how they feel when they're in there, and it would seem that call centre managers are quite a motivated bunch," he said. While call centres are regarded as highly automated workplaces, one third of respondents said they were stumped by their IT systems. The same amount said they spend most of their time manually preparing reports. Forty-eight per cent said they spend most of their time in meetings, with some managers claiming to spend up to 30 hours a week in meetings. But when it came to compensation for the long hours, just two per cent of respondents cited salary as a positive factor. Call centre mangers were more likely to regard their colleagues and the variety of the job as benefits. Just a handful of respondents cited job autonomy, customer satisfaction and personnel development as positive factors. A TUC report released last year claimed that UK call centre workers were paid up to 40 per cent less than the national average wage. Not surprisingly, the same report found that staff turnover was double the national average.