HIGHPERFORMANCE in the News

Hoarseplay

Working in a call centre means you’re reliant on your voice.
Paula McGovern explains why it’s so important you look after it.

If you work in a call centre, your voice is pretty much your meal ticket; lose it and you’ll have to say adios to your job. So how can you protect it as much as possible to ensure your vocal cords are not being damaged throughout the long days of endless chatter?

Corporate voice coaching is one option many companies are currently getting excited about. Though we may often take our voice for granted, our vocal cords are muscles that need to be exercised like any others in our body.

Voice coach Poll Moussoulides who is director at Voicecoach.ie and programme director at High Performance, a communication skills training company, likens voice coaching to physical exercise for the body. “You don’t just run a marathon because you can run, so how can people expect to talk on the phone all day just because they can speak?” he says.

“Our voice is our primary communication tool,” he continues. “People often spend plenty of money on software programmes designed to communicate but take for granted the most important tool of all, their voices.”

Voice Up

Moussoulides has done corporate training in voice management with companies such as IBM and O2 as well as RTE and the Department of Finance. “Employers have a responsibility to care for their employees’ voices and it’s actually in their interest. Call centre staff are at the coalface of the company and so should promote the right voice for the company”, he says.

“Company bosses are realising the necessity of ensuring that their frontline teams are promoting the company’s ethos in the most appropriate way”, says Loretto Mara, managing director of High Performance, which gives corporate voice coach training to many Irish call centres including AIB, VHI and PricewaterhouseCoopers. “Voice coaching focuses on helping people to use their voice naturally, being aware of basic voice care and enhancing the natural strengths.”

Moussoulides advises employees who work in call centres to monitor their work environment, check the volume levels on their headsets, try to breathe as correctly as possible, sit comfortably and find the optimal way of using their voices.

Most voice problems stem from incorrect breathing and not speaking at the right pitch for your voice on a regular basis. Sometimes this occurs because people put on a ‘phone voice’ that would be of a different pitch and depth to their own. Smoking and caffeine also affect the vocal chords.

“The best thing call centre workers or anyone who uses their voice a lot can do is warm it up before using it,” says Moussoulides. “After that, it’s a matter of breathing and sitting properly”.

If call centre workers do find themselves in the unfortunate position of having a rasping voice one morning after a particularly hectic night on the shandies, or worse, have lost their voice totally, Moussoulides says they should not use their voices at all and should contact the doctor. This could be a sign of something seriously wrong with the vocal cords. Though many reliant on voice-heavy jobs may be tempted to take a few lozenges and ‘get on with it’, if they have a sore throat, he says this is the worse thing possible. “Lozenges often numb the pain of the sore throat or damaged cord so you can’t judge if you’re doing further damage”, he says.

Calling Card

If you are reliant on your voice for work, follow the tips below.

• Drink plenty of room-temperature water, ice-cold water freezes the vocal cords which means they are not warmed up.
• On cold mornings, breathe in and out through your nose. Not only are you saving yourself from a lot of pollution settling on your vocal cords, you also will not chill them with the icy air.
• Dairy products, chocolate and red wine all put a lining on your throat and vocal area. Avoid these during working hours.
• If you’re a smoker, you have yet another reason to quit as smoking damages your vocal cords and can lead to cancer of the throat.
• If you lose your voice or find it’s breaking or raspy, stop talking. Ironically, easier said than done!

For further information: Loretto Mara

Tel. 01 853 2215 E-mail: loretto@highperformance.ie

Web: www.highperformance.ie

*High Performance Training provides a range of business and administrative solutions, including media/PR, management development, speech writing, voice training, business writing skills, project management, stress elimination, conflict resolution, and people management

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