Most companies simply hire a healthcare professional, sometimes a regular nurse and sometimes a doctor paid on a retainer’s basis in order to comply to the Occupational Safety and Health provisions of the labor code.  However, it must be noted that those health workers working for occupational safety should not be ordinary physicians or ordinary nurses. They should be health care professionals who specialize in “Industrial and Occupational Medicine” , which is also mandated by law.

In the call center industry, Industrial and Occupational Medicine health workers focus on certain health issues that especially pertain to the industry.   At the moment, there are three major medical needs that call center employees often face that Occupational health workers in the industry must focus to. First is the need for health workers to focus on sleep medicine, which  is mainly attributable to the night shiftwork of employees.  The changing work schedules of employees post health risks as it results to irregular sleeping habits of employees.  For instance, research studies show that females with erratic sleeping habits are susceptible to breast cancer.  For the rest of the employees, erratic schedules can result to sleep deprivation which makes an individual anemic, one’s immune system weaker and vulnerable to different illnesses and diseases.

The second medical need that occupational health workers must address is the call center is posture.  Call center employees or agents spend at least 8 hours of their time sitting in front of their computers in delivering their service.   Thus, they must taught about ergonomics through which agents learn different healthy and safe postures, the exertion of the biggest pertinent muscle for conducting any work activity and the performance of the proper joints in the head, trunk and upper limb to certain work activities.

Finally, counseling against verbal abuse is another medical or psychological need of call center employees. Call center agents are susceptible to abuse and insults from customers, who in most instances are complainants and are not in their friendly disposition whenever they call.   The verbal abuse that call center employees get practically on daily basis could have a repercussive effect on their psyches in the long run, which occupational healthcare workers should be able to address.