Job Demands and Burnout – The Moderating Effect of Psychological Capital amongst Call Centre Employees in Windhoek, Namibia

The call centre industry has been growing each year. Growth in the industry puts pressure on call centre employees as the job becomes highly demanding and their tasks increase. Introducing the positive aspects of psychological capital allows for someone to better deal with the daily challenges of a highly demanding job. The relationship between job demands and psychological capital is lacking in literature as it has not been extensively studied. The paper explores the moderating effect of psychological capital on the relationship between burnout and job demand amongst a selection of call centre employees in Windhoek, Namibia. Questionnaires were distributed to call centre employees and n=156 employees participated in the study. Results showed that job demand was significantly negatively correlated to burnout (r= -1.79; p= 0.028); Psychological Capital (PsyCap) was significantly positively related to job demands (r= 0.425; p= 0.000); psychological capital and burnout (r= 0.013; p= 0.873) did not yield a significant difference; the linear regression model yielded a significant level of F statistics (F= 2.888; df= 2; P=.046; R=0.39.). The researchers recommend that organisations and human resource managers invest in these intangible resources in order to enhance employee coping mechanisms to counter burnout in highly demanding occupations.


Introduction
Rapid globalisation has created immense pressure on organisations to be more efficient while keeping costs at a minimum; this has resulted in a rise in employee expectations (Rothmann and Joubert 2007). As employees give more in terms of time, effort, skills, and flexibility; job security, career opportunities and lifetime employment are diminishing (Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter 2001). This heeds a call for researchers to increase scientific enquiry based on job demands and burnout to be empirically tested within a developed world context. The call centre environment is characterised by high pressure (Molino et al. 2016;Dhanpat, Modau, Lugisani, Mabojane and Phiri 2018) where staff are highly monitored and overly standardised, and many lack incentives; which all combine to increase the prevalence of burnout (Dhanpat et al. 2015). High job demands are the main factor leading to fatigue, exhaustion and later burnout, especially amongst service professionals as their jobs are centred on absolute client satisfaction (Olusa 2015).
Call centre employees have no individualism on the job, they have to meet strong requirements and suppress negative emotions caused by unfriendly or angry customers as well as follow stringent procedures, and this may cause burnout due to being dehumanised (Molino et al. 2016). Bakker and Costa (2014) proffer that employees with high job demands can become burnt-out when their accumulated tiredness results in a self-undermining attitude which leads to disruptive behaviour such as high conflict in the work place. Job demand complexity impairs employees' work health and is positively related to burnout (Nahrgang, Morgeson and Hoffmann 2011). Increases in job demands (i.e., overload, emotional demand, and work-home interference) predicts burnout (Schaufeli, Bakker and Van Rhenen 2009) and which affects work engagement, and subsequent absenteeism due to sickness. Job demands consist of workload, resources, organisational support, job security, and opportunity for advancement. Work pressure and emotional demands are the most important antecedents of the exhaustion component of burnout, which later relates to disengagement (Bakker, Demerouti, and Verbeke 2004). Aspects of job demands such as task difficulty, confusion, rapid decision making and cognitive overload are enormous job stressors (Kar and Suar 2014). In shift work, as observed by Winwood, Winefield and Lushington (2006), there is a high occurrence of work-related fatigue that develops into burnout. This arises because as shifts increase, the level of job demands increase which effect a person's balance between work and private life. Exhaustion is a result of an excessive workload with little time to execute the tasks set (Maslach et al. 2001).
Introducing the positive aspects of psychological capital (PsyCap) allows for someone to better deal with the daily challenges of a high job demand. PsyCap is a construct of positive psychology that was penned by Luthans, Avolio, Avey, and Norman (2007). It is a relatively new addition to positive psychology and has extant literature in the Namibian context. It refers to the positive outlook of an individual about his/her job and organisation; it emphasises strengths and virtues as opposed to weaknesses (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000). It has four main components: hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience (Luthans et al. 2007). Sithole (2005) states that call centres are one of the fastest growing service industries in South Africa. In Namibia, information on the industry and academic literature is scarce to non-existent on industrial psychology variables, and the researchers should heed the call to expand on the literature. Literature on burnout in high demanding occupations in Namibia exists amongst nurses and police officers; (Pieters and Hasheela 2018;Pieters and Van Heerden 2018), and on PsyCap (Amunkete and Rothmann 2015) in state-owned organisations.
Taking into consideration that there is little to no research based on the Namibian population, especially on the call centre environment, there is a need to expand the literature to the Namibian context for relevance within Namibia. There are numerous challenges in the workplace amongst the call centre employees regarding burnout and their high job demands. The study explores how a call centre can improve its service delivery and general health and wellness of its employees by taking into account job demands, burnout and how introducing psychological capital will positively affect it.

Literature Review
In today's work settings, to effectively manage human resources the focus on a positive standpoint is essential (Bitmiş and Ergeneli 2015). The concept of psychological capital is acknowledged as the individual qualities supporting the employee's competency (Kaplan and Bickes 2013). There are four aspects: resilience, self-efficacy, hope, and optimism, which explain the concept of psychological capital (Kaplan and Bickes 2013;Luthans et al. 2007). The dimensions of PsyCap works in the following ways: • Hope is a multidimensional construct that is made up of an individual's willpower, which is one's determination to achieve set goals and a way of power which is the way in which one is able to formulate contingency plans in order to achieve a goal even when faced with adversity (Snyder et al. 1991). An employee who has a high level of hope is able to persevere because they have the motivation to ensure success even in difficult times and are less likely to burnout (Yousaf, Yang and Sanders 2015). • Optimism is a construct especially in positive psychology. It is a construct that is seen as dynamic and can be developed and learned by individuals (Avey, Wernsing and Luthans 2008). Rothmann and Essenko (2007) contend that optimism has a direct effect on exhaustion and cynicism which are two main components of burnout. Optimism forms a vital part of a call centre employee's resource capacities as this optimistic take on their work allows them to overcome challenging situations and potentially meet their work goals effectively (Medlin and Faulk 2011). • Resilience is the ability of an individual to manipulate an environment so as to successfully protect oneself from negative or adverse events. Resilience allows for one to move on after experiencing an adversity in the workplace. Research has shown that resilient workers are better equipped to bounce back after a difficult situation and are less likely to experience burnout (Luthans, Avey, Avolio, Norman and Combs 2006). • Self-efficacy is defined as an individual's ability to mobilise motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action necessary to accomplish set tasks or goals (Stajkovic and Luthans 1998). The way an individual perceives and interprets events has a heavy influence on how they deal will challenges and how they similarly deal with stress (Bandura 2000). Rothmann (2003) states that positive psychology constructs such as self-efficacy have a mediating role on occupational stress and burnout.
Psychological capital is a significant aspect in accomplishing the desired organisational goals (Kaplan and Bickes 2013). Employees with high psychological capital have a positive perception towards their job demands, while employees with a low psychological capital have a low perception towards job demands and therefore have an increased possibility to experience burnout due to a high job demand (Bergheim, Nielsen, Mearns and Eid 2015;Fouché 2015). Employees with a high psychological capital have a low rate of burnout which includes exhaustion and cynicism, compared to employees with a low psychological capital -these employees have a high rate of burnout (Laschinger and Fida 2014). Moreover, psychological capital moderates the impact of stress on employees. Psychological and physical tension in employees is experienced due to a high job demand caused by workload demands and a lack of psychological capital in oneself. Psychological capital is vital in ensuring a high rate of personal achievement in performing duties (Kaplan and Bickes 2013). Burnout is said to be one of the major occupational hazards that affect employee wellbeing and productivity, it results in ill health, absenteeism, and high turnover (Schaufeli and Enzmann 1998).
Burnout has also been recognised as a major occupational hazard in client-centred or service jobs, and intervention strategies are constantly being sought in order to alter the effects (Maslach and Leiter 2008). With positive human resource and psychological capacities, job performance and wellbeing can be measured, developed, managed, and improved (Luthans, Avey, and Patera 2008). A positive outlook of an individual about his or her job and organisation; emphasises strengths and virtues as opposed to weaknesses (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000). Bitmis and Ergeneli (2015) investigate how psychological capital influences burnout amongst nurses and revealed that psychological capital affects burnout negatively. Additionally, Demerouti and Bakker (2011) suggest that personal resources such as PsyCap modifies the work environment making burnout less likely to affect employees; therefore, it can be inferred that equipping employees with the agents of PsyCap will in the long run reduce the occurrence of burnout. Research has shown that PsyCap provides the most efficient and successful resource than the different agents individually (Sweetman and Luthans 2010). Employees that have a high self-efficacy are optimistic, resilient and are better equipped to handle stressful situations, therefore limiting the occurrence of burnout. Leiter and Maslach (2009) reinforce that burnout is a psychological syndrome with increased feelings of emotional exhaustion and depleted mental energy which can be controlled or even eliminated by mobilising a person's positive resources as a coping mechanism. It was observed by Cherniss (1993) that the lack of confidence in one's competence greatly promotes the development of burnout. Cordes and Dougherty (1993) declare burnout as the strain of job stress which is as a result of the negative effects of work demands and stressors. Additionally, Luthans et al. (2001) also reiterates the pivotal role PsyCap plays on burnout. It has been a recommendation of most studies in this field that organisations and human resource managers invest in PsyCap in order to reduce the occurrence of burnout amongst employees (Bitmis and Ergeneli 2016).
Call centre agents' work has unpredictable job demands that may negatively affect their commitment and assigned work to the organisation. This disassociation from the organisation may be reversed or controlled by introducing the constructs of psychological capital (Armony and Maglaras 2004). Psychology as a discipline has generally focussed on the negative aspects of humanity, but there has been a shift recently with growing interest in positivity, making psychological capital a growing idea in positive organisational behaviour (Norman, Avey, Nimnicht, and Graber-Pigeon 2010). As psychological capital gains momentum in the field of industrial psychology, it is being researched extensively. Many studies have in fact confirmed that high levels of PsyCap are positively related to employee performance and satisfaction, especially in service-centred organisations (Abbas, Darr and Bouckenooghe 2014;Luthans et al. 2007;Luthans et al. 2008).
Janse van Rensburg and Boonzaier (2013) note an increase in job demands and how this was negatively affecting the call centre agents; introducing different aspects of psychological capital allowed them to better deal with these growing job demands and flourish in their given tasks. There is a growing need to improve or enhance employees' positive psychological states as this is one way of successfully dealing with the growing job demands that may at times become overwhelming (Pillay, Buitendach and Kanengoni, 2014). Additionally, a study conducted by Avey et al. (2008) finds that employees' positive emotions and attitudes set the tone for their performance in the organisation and this can be closely related to their PsyCap. Another study carried out in China shows that PsyCap is closely linked to the performance of the workers as it allows them to cope with what may be deemed difficult situations or high job demands in the workplace.
On the constructs of job demands, literature affirms that a high workload is positively associated with work burnout (Upadyaya, Vartiainen and Salmela-Aro 2016; Wang, Huang and You 2016).
Vander Elst et al. (2016) further note that workload is positively related to burnout when the level of social support is considered. Personal resources are key as they mediate the relationship between job resources and job burnout (Wang et al. 2016). Job demands can be very taxing on employees and usually end up in burnt-out employees who are less productive and have an extremely low level of job satisfaction (Rossing 2014).
Psychological capital has been a mediator between job demands and occupational stressors that result in burnout (Li et al. 2015) amongst employees in service-centred organisations. High job demand environments result in even higher levels of stress that will eventually cause burnout. There are two ways in which this can be dealt with, the first being by decreasing the causes of the stress and the other would be to increase the stamina of employees when faced with stressful situations (Çelik 2018). The first intervention points to reducing job demands, while the second is suggestive of psychological capital as it equips employees with the skills to face and overcome difficult situations. A work environment that places high demands on its employees is likely to harbour a stressful environment in which most employees are burnt-out (Jennings 2008). However, if employees are equipped with the right tools such as those of psychological capital, they are more likely to be able to overcome these feelings of being burnt-out or even better manage their high job demands.
The call centre industry has been growing each year (Gilmore 2001). Growth in the industry puts pressure on call centre employees as the job becomes highly demanding and their tasks increase (Wilk and Moynihan 2005;Zapf et al. 2003). The relationship between job demands and psychological capital is lacking in literature as it has not been extensively studied in Namibia. With a growing interest in how best to achieve satisfied and well-adjusted employees so as to ensure healthy organisational growth, a link between these two variables needs to be explored. This further affirms the importance and need for this study, especially in the Namibian context.
On the basis of the argument above, the following hypotheses are proposed for investigation: H1There is a statistically significant relationship between job demands and burnout H2There is a statistically significant relationship between job demands and psychological capital H3There is a statistically significant relationship between psychological capital and burnout H4 Psychological capital moderates the relationship between job demand and burnout

Methodology
The aim of this research is to investigate whether psychological capital moderates the relationship between job demand and burnout. A field survey using questionnaires was conducted in order to test the hypotheses. The data of this study was collected via questionnaires from 156 call centre employees, who work in Windhoek, Namibia. Survey questionnaires were distributed to 250 call centre employees and a total of 156 questionnaires (62% response rate) were returned. The study participants were from the telecommunication and entertainment sectors in Windhoek. Some of the questionnaires were discarded due to the outliers and missing values, resulting in 156 useable questionnaires in total.
The constructs in this study were developed using measurement scales adopted from prior studies. The study made use of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire that was developed by Luthans, Avolio and Avey (2007). It consists of a total of 24 items that are subdivided into four sections with each section having six items. The response options were measured on a six-point Likert scale that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The reliability of the measure was generally good with a Cronbach alpha of 0.855, which is indicative of an above conventional standard. A 'Job Demands-Resources' questionnaire was then introduced to the participants. This model works using two underlying assumptions; job demands and job resources. Job demands measures the effort of a physical and psychological nature, while job resources refers to those aspects of a job that are related to achievement of goals and that improve skills development Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti and Schaufeli 2007).
The scale consisted of 46 items that cover five areas, being: workload (do you have too much work to do?), resources (does the job offer opportunities for personal growth and development?), organisational support (looks at their relationship with supervisor), job security and opportunity for advancement. Reliability for the constructs were; workload (0.762), resources (0.792), organisational support (0.883), job security (0.720) and opportunity for advancement (0.749). The overall Cronbach alpha was relatively good at 0.845. Lastly, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was presented to the participants. The inventory consists of 16 items and covers questions on exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy. The MBI is used to measure burnout as an occupational stressor (Bakker, Demerouti and Schaufeli 2002). The instrument had a Cronbach alpha of 0.784. The Cronbach alpha rating usually ranges at 0.90 for emotional exhaustion and 0.76 for both depersonalisation and personal achievement. These numbers illustrate that the instrument had good reliability.

Results and Discussion
From Table 1 below; the majority of respondents (63%, n=98) were female, while male respondents made up the remaining 37 per cent of the sample (n=58). The majority of the respondents were aged 26-30 years and accounted for 34 per cent (n= 53) of the sample. A total of 27 per cent (n= 42) were below the age of 25 years while the 31-35-year range accounted for 18 per cent (n= 28) of the sample. An additional13 per cent (n= 21) of the sample comprised of the 36-40-year olds and the remaining 8 per cent (n= 12) was above the age of 41 years. As for years of experience; 45 per cent (n= 71) accounted for those with less than five years of experience, 35 per cent (n= 54) had between five to ten years of experience, while those with 11 to 15 years were 9 per cent (n= 14). Employees within 21 and above years of experience accounted for 6 per cent (n= 9), and the remaining 5 per cent (n= 8) had between 16 and 20 years. The sample consisted of 72 per cent (n= 112) single people while 23 per cent (n= 36) are married, 4 per cent (n= 6) are divorced and 1 per cent (n= 2) widowed.   Opportunity for growth was significantly related to PsyCap (p=0.000; r=0.477**) and significantly negatively correlated to burnout (p=0.000; r= -0.335**). Job security was significantly related to PsyCap (p=0.000; r=0.612 ** ) and had a negative relationship, although not significant (p=0.742; r=-0.027). Organisation support was significantly related to PsyCap (p=0.000; r=0.673 ** ) and significantly negatively correlated to burnout (p=0.008; r=-0.212**). Resource was significantly related to PsyCap (p=0.000; r=0.703**) and significantly negatively correlated to burnout (p=0.008; r=-0.193**). Workload was significantly related to PsyCap (p=0.000; r=0.450 ** ) and significantly correlated to burnout (p=0.029; r=0.177**). The overall correlation shows that job demands is significantly negatively correlated to burnout (r=-1.79; p=0.028). Also, PsyCap is significantly positively related to job demands (r=0.425; p=0.000). However, there was no relationship between PsyCap and burnout (r= 0.013; p= 0.873).   Table 3 above entails a linear regression analysis of psychological capital as a moderator on the relationship between job demand and burnout was conducted. The overall R2=0.39 indicates that there is 39 per cent resultant model which explains the variation on the dependent variable. The value 2.981 shows the variance inflation factor (VIF) of each independent variable. The standard of statistical testing implies that the variance inflation factor (VIF) less than 10 and tolerance greater than 0.1 showed that a collinear point problem is non-existent between the variables, therefore in the regression model's collinear point problem is non-existent between variables.
Studies on positive psychology constructs in the call centre environment are still in their infancy and in the Namibian context especially because of limited literature texts. Results in Table 4 show beta values of 0.284 and -0.339 and significant figures of 0.046 and 0.018, these values reflect that that psychological capital has no moderating effect on the relationship between job demand and burnout; with these results a null hypothesis can be accepted. This statement can be reinforced by the R2 =0.39 suggesting that there is 39 per cent variance between the variables which work in the favour of no moderating effect from psychological capital on the relationship between job demand and burnout. There is no published literature thus far that confirms nor denies the moderating effect of psychological capital on the relationship between job demand and burnout.
All of the Cronbach's alpha reliabilities were relatively high. The findings indicate that job demand had a significantly negative relationship to burnout with values (r= -1.79; p= 0.028). These findings concur with Karasek (1979) who mentions that job burnout occurs when the employee experiences a high degree of job demand. However, these results contradict Nahrgang et al. (2011) observations that job demands positively relate to burnout. Bakker et al. (2004) investigates how job demands and resources predict burnout among telecom managers, and they found a positive correlation between the two variables. The study shows that an increase in job demands can predict burnout. The call centre environment is highly demanding and employees are heavily monitored. When they are absent from work or leave an organisation, this could arguably be a symptom of 'burnout'. The study seeks to extend ways in which organisations enhance productivity and effectiveness by enhancing employee welfare. Study findings concur with Upadyaya et al. (2016);Vander Elst et al. (2016) affirming that a high workload is positively associated with work burnout.
These findings correlate with literature as a study on call centre agents found that employees that had high levels of PsyCap were better equipped at dealing with job demands than those who scored lower in PsyCap (Rensburg and Boonzaier 2013). In China, nurses recorded a positive relationship between PsyCap and job demands . Pillay et al. (2014) also recommend that there is a growing need to enhance PsyCap in the workplace so that the employees can better deal with high job demands that may be overwhelming without this development of PysCap. Literature indicates that psychological capital is associated with preferred results such as obligation to the organisation as well as coping with the job demands (Larson and Luthans 2006). This implies that if an employee has a high psychological capital, they have the ability to cope with the demands of the job and therefore cannot affect the employee negatively. Positive psychology is introduced as a low-cost mechanism which organisations can invest in to enhance employee welfare and productivity.
The results of the study contradict findings by Bitmis and Ergeneli (2015) who recommend increasing PsyCap in order to curb burnout. Additionally, there is more literature that contradicts the study like that of previous studies that investigated PsyCap's influence on burnout implied that resources such as PsyCap modify the work environment making burnout less likely to affect employees (Demerouti and Bakker 2011). Research has also shown that PsyCap provides the most successful and efficient resource to curb burnout (Sweetman and Luthans 2010). Cherniss (1993) observes that a lack of confidence in ones' competence promotes the development of burnout and the constructs of PsyCap help build this confidence. Job demands are associated with certain physiological benefits such as performance, and psychological disadvantages such as burnout (Bakker, Demerouti and Euwema 2005).
Results show beta values of 0.284 and -0.339 and significant figures of 0.046 and 0.018. These values reflect that psychological capital has no moderating effect on the relationship between job demand and burnout; with these results the null hypothesis is accepted. This statement can be reinforced by the R 2 =0.39 indicating that there is a 39 per cent variance between the variables which work in the favour of no moderating effect from psychological capital on the relationship between job demand and burnout. There is a lack of literature thus far that confirms nor denies the moderating effect of psychological capital on the relationship between job demand and burnout in contexts similar to this study.

Conclusion
The study's findings contribute to the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the call centre environment in Namibia. Researchers' sentiments concur with literature that when the job is demanding, and an employee invests in PsyCap, the effects of burnout are not felt by the employee. Investing in internal resources serve as coping mechanisms in highly stressful environments. Study results reveal that burnout was negatively related to some constructs of job demands. The implications of these negative relationships are: that an increase in resources will decrease the level of the burnout syndrome, an increase in opportunity for growth will decrease the level of the burnout syndrome, an increase in job security will decrease the level of the burnout syndrome, and an increase in organisational support will decrease the level of the burnout syndrome.
From this study, adding PsyCap had a 39 per cent moderating effect on the relationship between job demands and burnout. Although the effect is below 50 per cent, there is a need for more studies in order to validate the study claims. Employers in the call centre environment do not need to be hired for being intellectual, but rather for their ability to display sincerity and concern for the consumer (Chu and Murrmann 2006). It is recommended that call centre agencies should work towards improving the intangible resources of their employees to curb the negative influence of job demands. Whilst PsyCap did not emerge as a moderator in the relationship between job demands and burnout, it was found to be of value to developing support interventions that foster deep acting managing techniques in the call centre environment. This type of motivation can help cope with burnout; a vital feature of burnout is amplified emotional state of emotional exhaustion (Maslach and Jackson 1981). Positive psychology provides the opportunity for employees to interact with others and advocate for healthy lifestyles. Literature affirms that employees with high PsyCap are better adjusted to deal with stress that arises from job demands and other factors in the workplace. Admittedly, some results of the study did not correspond with other literature, but it did show the high job demands and general exhaustion amongst the call centre employees.
The study thus recommends that management look into avenues to ensure the wellbeing of their employees by improving the work requirements (job demands) in order to prevent burnt out employees with constructs such as positive psychology and PsyCap in particular. Burnout inhibits competency development and stunts personal development growth. When the job is demanding and employees invest in PsyCap, the effects of burnout are less harmful to employee wellbeing. Investing in internal resources serves as a coping mechanism for employees. The absence of academic literature within the study context inspired the researchers to explore the relationship between the variables, as Namibian organisations are 'unique'. This as noted by literature that the study environment (call centre) is highly demanding. The researchers propose that when call centre employees display positive emotions to the customers, the outcomes for the organisation are likely to be positive. Thus, the employees must not only be competent and friendly but also productive. Employers are encouraged to invest resources on the right factors which are necessary to promote the general wellbeing of their employees at work.
Relating to the Namibian context, for future studies, the researcher recommends more empirical studies which break down the study constructs i.e. job demand (workload, resources, organisational support, job security, opportunity for advancement) and psychological capital (hope, self-efficacy, optimism and resiliency) in order to explore the effects of the constructs in the specifically Namibian context. More work is required on an in-depth understanding of psychological capital and job demands, how it relates to employees' welfare and how it can be used to improve the employees' performance. Additionally, future studies within the study context must be qualitative so as to acquire experiences which are unique to the Namibian context.