I. ABSTRACT

One of the most dynamic and fastest growing sectors in the Philippines is the call center
industry. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies rely entirely on their people, so it is
one of the industries that really craves employee motivation. By the nature of work in this
industry, stress becomes inherent to the call center agents and coping to stress of the agents
became the subject of some research. April Evarbia (2019) noted that many third-party
organizations struggle to find and keep the right people for the job due to their specific work
culture, which is why motivating call center agents become a vital part of the business.
Therefore, the study aims to determine the factors affecting motivation among call center
agents and how agents cope with stress. The researchers used the sequential explanatory mixed
methods design. The population group used in this study includes call center agents from
different BPO companies, with a total of 114 respondents for the quantitative study and 5
participants for qualitative study. In general, the majority of call center agents were female, the
age range was from 21 to 30 years old, and they were all motivated. The results showed that
there is no significant difference between motivational factors when grouped according to the
profile of the respondents. On the other hand, work schedule is the main stressor of the call
center agents. Participants have a positive and negative way of coping mechanism. The
researchers were able to come up with a positive result as well as recommending possible
research such as; encouraging better and more frequent communications between team leaders
and agents and offering a lot of opportunities for employees to increase their skill-sets and to
master their respective positions.