Contact centers are known for their high-pressure environments, making them some of the busiest work environments in the industry. In such demanding settings, leaders need to focus on more than just getting the job done—they also need to pay attention to their team’s well-being.
With constant customer interactions and tight deadlines, stress levels can be high, and employee burnout is a real concern. The solution? Mindful leadership. It should be practiced to help leaders lead with understanding, create a supportive work environment, and prioritize mental health.
Let’s explore ways to implement mindful leadership by incorporating mindfulness practices that create a more supportive contact center environment.
Less Stress, More Success: A Mental Health-Friendly Workplace
Research shows that 92 percent of call center agents deal with high levels of stress.¹ And the financial impact is steep: American companies lose between $4,000 and $21,000 per employee per year in missed workdays and reduced productivity due to burnout.²
This is a big concern for contact centers when it comes to mental health at work. The best solution is to build a culture of wellness, starting with ourselves and our loved ones and then extending to our work teams, communities, and organizations.
Here are ways to practice mindful leadership to create a mental health-friendly workplace in your business.
Read More: 4 Ways to Create a Culture That Supports Call Center Agents’ Mental Health
Encourage Mindfulness Practices Throughout the Company
Taking calls all day to resolve customer issues can be draining on your agents’ mental health. The constant pressure, emotional demands, and multitasking create high-stress levels. As a manager, you can support them by promoting mindfulness at work.
Mindfulness is about focusing on the present moment and tuning out distractions. A simple mindful exercise can be as easy as taking a one-minute, open-eye breathing break at their desk. Deep breathing also helps calm us down by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which quiets the mind and helps us feel more connected to our bodies.
Be mindful of the media you watch and read.
Call center agents already handle much stress from their daily interactions with customers. Scrolling through a feed full of negativity can add to their emotional burden, making it harder to unwind and maintain a positive mindset.
Instead of mindlessly scrolling, encourage agents to follow people and content that uplift and support them. If they notice certain posts or accounts increase their stress or anxiety, mindfulness can support better stress management by helping them recognize and regulate those feelings.
To support this, you could start by sharing daily content that promotes positivity and relaxation, such as inspirational quotes, funny memes, or articles on wellbeing. This way, agents can engage with media that helps them manage the stress they already face from their daily work.
Taking a mindful approach to meeting deadlines.
Deadlines in a call center can be a great source of stress for your team, with agents often balancing multiple tasks and performance targets. As a manager, you can help their mental well-being by encouraging mindfulness techniques to handle these deadlines.
If agents face tight deadlines for handling customer inquiries, encourage them to break down their tasks into smaller, manageable steps. Support them by encouraging a focus on one task or call at a time rather than trying to handle everything all at once. You can also implement short, mindful breaks where they can step away from work or briefly meditate to reset their focus.
Help Leaders and Managers Become More Aware and Focused
When you prioritize employee well-being, leaders put their team first and empower each person to do their best.
Read More: The Leader’s Guide to Turning Around a Toxic Workplace
Leadership with wellness first.
A “wellness first” approach to management is a positive and impactful strategy for call centers. It helps leaders and managers stay aware of and empathetic towards their team’s mental health.
Promoting wellness values and building trust and transparency within a call center helps leaders quickly notice when agents deal with stress or difficulties. When you create an environment where employee wellness is a priority, it becomes easier for agents to share their struggles and seek help.
This open and supportive atmosphere allows managers to step in with timely and appropriate support, addressing issues before they become major problems.
Leadership that values social connections.
In a call center, it’s tough to build a strong company culture without social interactions. Leaders and managers who connect with their teams create strong relationships by organizing fun activities like lunches and happy hours, which helps build a good working bond outside of regular tasks.
They’re friendly, fun, and great at communicating. These leaders set a positive example and help make the workplace more enjoyable and supportive for everyone.
Empathetic leadership.
Empathetic leadership means more than just understanding your team’s challenges. It involves genuinely putting yourself in their shoes and wanting each agent to succeed.
If you notice that one agent is struggling with high call volumes, you can arrange a one-on-one meeting to understand their concerns and challenges. You can also check in with the agent, ask about their workload, and provide support, such as extra coaching, temporarily reducing call volume, or giving flexible work arrangements.
Read More: Empathy is a Verb: 9 Tips for Emotional Support in the Workplace
Practice what you preach.
Share your strategies and habits for maintaining mental wellness to show your team how you handle stress and balance work and personal life. For example, log off after work hours and fully disconnect during personal time off. Let them know how you set boundaries to ensure work doesn’t overflow into your personal time, and share how taking these steps helps you maintain your mental health.
Leading by example can encourage your team to adopt similar habits and extend this positive influence throughout the organization.
Assess and Improve Workplace Mental Health Initiatives
You can’t manage what you don’t measure. To keep your corporate wellness programs effective, it’s important to conduct employee surveys and wellness assessments regularly. These surveys help you see how well your programs work and determine what needs improvement.
Leveraging digital tools can significantly enhance your ability to assess and improve mental health initiatives. Here are some examples:
- Employee feedback platforms: Tools like Officevibe or TINYpulse allow for anonymous, real-time feedback from employees, helping you quickly identify areas of stress or concern.
- Wellness apps: Applications such as Headspace for Work or Calm for Business can be provided to employees, with usage data giving insights into stress levels and engagement with mindfulness practices.
- Data analytics software: Platforms like Tableau or Power BI can help you visualize and analyze wellness data, breaking it down by department, location, or demographic group. This granular view allows you to identify trends and tailor your wellness initiatives accordingly.
- Workforce management systems: Advanced WFM solutions can help optimize schedules to reduce stress, considering factors like shift preferences and work-life balance.
With these digital tools, you can examine wellness data in detail, breaking it down by department, location, or age group. This lets you see where different groups might need more support or where improvements can be made.
For example, if data shows that agents on night shifts are more stressed, you could offer them the option to switch to a different shift or work part-time if it is particularly challenging. Also, implementing a rotating shift schedule can help spread night shifts evenly among the team, reducing the impact on any single group of agents.
Lead with empathy and make mental health a cornerstone of your company culture with Salem Solutions
Bring in the right team to focus on mental health awareness at your company. With Salem Solutions handling your staffing needs, you can have peace of mind knowing we’re finding the best candidates, freeing you to focus on building a supportive and caring workplace.
Listen to your team, model a healthy work-life balance, and create supportive environments. Contact us now, and let’s start prioritizing mental wellness in your workplace.
References
- Gitnux. Call Center Stress Statistics: Overwhelming Reports of High Strain. 2024, gitnux.org/call-center-stress-statistics/.
- Martinez, Marie F., et al. “The Health and Economic Burden of Employee Burnout to U.S. Employers.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Feb. 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2025.01.011.
