Call Centers Advised to Stop Sharing Headsets to Prevent the Spread of Coronavirus

A business process outsourcing (BPO) employees group in Manila, Philippines, has advised the companies, call centers to be specific, to put a ban on the sharing of wired or wireless headsets in order to prevent the spread of Coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) in the organization. 

President of BPO Industry Employees Network (BIEN) Mylene Cabalona said that so far, they have been receiving the news of sharing of wireless and wired headsets in a number of call centers among the workers. Even though the employee's body has been requesting the call centers not to promote the sharing of the headsets for a long time now, the practice is still underway, and it is not likely to be stopped any time sooner. The president of BIEN said that during these crucial times, the sharing of such devices should be stopped immediately, according to a press release. She also demanded the government to implement the ban at the earliest in order to make sure that the virus is not being transferred. She said that the demand is according to the health standards and is being advised to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. 

Mylene said that three out of ten diseases being experienced by the BPO industry employees are of respiratory nature. With such statistics, the BPO industry workers are highly vulnerable to get caught by the virus; thus, the ban on sharing of headsets is the need of the hour. The call center workers are also likely to have less or zero sleeping hours in the night; thus, their immune systems are already weak and cannot fight the virus at their best, said Mylene. 

She said that though the number of cases registered is quite lower in the Philippines, the BPO industry cannot risk continuing working like this. The call centers are advised to put the health of their worker at first, and the workers are not supposed to be exposed to the virus just because of the carelessness of the company, she added. 

According to the Philippines Department of Health, until Wednesday, the number of registered Coronavirus cases in the country is 49.