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Emotional Labor in the Workplace

Table of Contents

Introduction
Emotional Labor: Psychological Stress in the Workplace
Interviews
Summary and Conclusion
References

Introduction

Emotional labor is a term that describes the labor when a person is required to perform unpaid, frequently unseen work in order to maintain the happiness of others. Workers are explicitly expected to control their emotions when interacting with clients, coworkers, and managers. In addition to the suppression of emotions that are felt but not expressed, this also includes analysis and decision-making in relation to the expression of emotion, whether or not it is truly felt. Emotional labor is done in an effort to evoke in the customer or client a certain emotion that will enable the business or organization to prosper (Nahavandi et al., 2013). This paper aims to research the concept of emotional labor and discuss interviews taken with nurses, teachers and professors, and postal workers.

Emotional Labor: Psychological Stress in the Workplace

The majority of managers, supervisors, and employers are aware that their staff members are people with emotions. As such, they want employees to manage grief, depression, and anguish in a healthy way while carrying out their organizational obligations (Hocschild, 2008). Many employees jobs include managing emotions since it results in the profit and productivity of an organization. The control of emotions to induce the desired mental state in others is referred to by Hocschild (2008) as emotional work (80). For instance, a teacher manages both good and negative emotions to inspire students. A nurse efficiently manages difficult patients and provides for them. In comparison to sixty years before, more employees in a range of occupational disciplines are required to control their emotions regarding an employers demands as certain economies transition from a manufacturing to a service-based economy. The seminal work of Hochschild (2008) separated emotional labor into surface acting and deep acting. Employees demonstrate surface act when they show the emotions necessary for the job without genuinely changing how they feel. Employees can adjust their internal emotions to conform to organizational norms through a process known as deep acting, which results in more organic and sincere emotional presentations.

Although the underlying mechanisms are different, both often aim to display happy emotions since it is thought that doing so will affect customers perceptions and financial results. Research has shown, however, that surface behaving is more detrimental to employee health (Emotional Labor, 2022). According to Erickson and Ritter (2001), women should have this detrimental impact on their well-being more frequently than men do. This is because managing agitation is the type of emotional labor most likely to be linked to heightened feelings of burnout and inauthenticity. They discover that suppressing agitation leads to burnout and inauthenticity and that inauthenticity is most obvious in nonpeople who are most agitated. However, there is no gender difference in these effects.

An employees interpersonal ties with their coworkers may suffer as a result of the psychological toll that emotional labor takes. Workers may experience stress as a result of their coworkers pressure to uphold the workplace norms due to their productivity if the job is monotonous or unfulfilling. Employees sleep patterns may be impacted by the psychological toll of emotional work (Erickson and Ritter, 2001). Doing things at night has become less common since the shift demands arriving at work early in the morning. The day has been lost for sleeping and the night has been lost for working while the graveyard shift is in effect. On the days when the sleep pattern is irregular, the employee begins to have hallucinations. The idea of continually being awake at work makes them anxious, so they would not nap during their lunch break. Even on the workers days off, the tension persists constantly (Grandey & Melloy, 2017). They wake up and go to bed at the same time as they would if they were getting ready for work. Choosing work above family has a psychological cost in the workplace as well. Military personnel, crew members of cruise ships, or pilots may be in positions that have an impact on this cost, in addition to the average worker.

In addition, the expense of time and money spent learning for a career is another psychological cost of emotional labor. One searches for their ideal career while attending classes, giving back to the community, volunteering, doing an externship, doing fieldwork, and other activities (Emotional Labor, 2022). Many people experience emotional labor as a result of the delusion of the ideal employment prospect in their field of study, which makes the employee doubt his or her career choice (Emotional Labor, 2022). Others have found that despite their best efforts and years of study, their field of choice has been saturated, forcing them to settle for employment in a completely other profession. Many employees motivation to pursue further education has been eroded by the emotional labor element at work.

Interviews

There were nineteen representatives of emotionally demanding professions to acquire fresh information for the research into the sector of emotional labor. These included nurses, professors and professors, and postal workers. They were first questioned about how satisfied they were with their careers and the surroundings at work. The teachers and professors reported being the most satisfied on a scale of 1 to 10. Each interviewee is expected to conduct herself professionally and frequently experiences emotional stress as a result of these expectations. For example, the nurses were supposed to treat each patient with respect and be willing to assist them. Nurses should be kind and assist the patient, even if the patient is uncooperative or uneducated.

The interviews have shown how those working in the care and service industries frequently perform emotional labor. In order to effectively interact with people, they must always be upbeat, sociable, smiling, and upbeat, regardless of how they truly feel within. Stress, melancholy, and ultimately discontent with ones employment are caused by this imbalance between ones inner state and the image that is expected of them. Consequently, it is vital to manage the emotional weight, and if the corporation loves its employees and genuinely cares about its reputation, managers should offer training to everyone who is performing emotional labor. Moreover, tt is inferred from the interviewees responses that they like to communicate positively. Choosing not to work at all or responding in a way that is appropriate for the position one has. to place clear restrictions on their behavior. When someone wishes to provide another individual with helpful information, the emotional labor process starts.

Summary and Conclusion

In the workplace, emotional labor takes the form of policies and procedures that are put in place for the sake of keeping consumers happy. They emphasize the need for workers to control their emotions and refrain from expressing them to others. Employees who are unable to control their emotions at work will experience stress and depression as well as decreased productivity. Emotional labor has a detrimental impact on an organizations ability to grow owing to staff turnover and discontent, in addition to having a psychological impact on the workers who experience it.

It is not common practice to pay more for doing more emotionally demanding work. In a traditional work environment, the wage is based on cognitive needs. Moreover, the solution to the issue of emotional loads is mostly up to the staff themselves and is not a concern of the organization. Therefore, it is important to include the knowledge of people who have developed coping mechanisms for additional emotional work. The overarching finding of emotional labor is that it should be regarded as self-directed in the workplace until it is shown to be unwise. Despite the fact that the phrase emotional labor is often connected with a straightforward process, conflicting opinions regarding it are comprehensible. We must consider the complexity of emotions and the potential benefits of a functional approach. Organizational effectiveness should be the goal to maintain control over these feelings.

To mitigate the negative effects of emotional labor, coping strategies are recommended. Coping mechanisms can be categorized as either emotion- or problem-focused. Avoidance, minimization, and separating positive values from bad ones are all emotionally centered techniques. They cause a change in how an interaction is conducted. These techniques include doing physical activity to divert attention from the issue, such as drinking, seeking emotional support, or even yelling at someone. Other problem-focused coping techniques include lowering ego involvement or picking up new techniques and abilities. Feeling respected, cared for, and a part of a communication network has been highlighted as being particularly crucial in the avoidance of burnout. It gives the employees a sense of being confined in a psychologically safe atmosphere where they belong and can express themselves freely, especially outside of work. Service professionals need to control their emotions so they can be pleasant to consumers and, as a result, deliver valuable results for their organization.

References

Erickson, R. J., and Ritter, C. (2001). Emotional labor, burnout, and inauthenticity: Does gender matter? Social Psychology Quarterly, 146-163.

Emotional labor. (2022). In Wikipedia. Web.

Grandey, A. A., & Melloy, R. C. (2017). The state of the heart: Emotional labor as emotion regulation reviewed and revised. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22(3), 407.

Hochschild, A. (2008). Feeling around the world. Contexts, 7(2) 80.

Nahavandi, A., Denhardt, R. B., Denhardt, J. V., & Aristigueta, M. P. (2013). Organizational behavior. SAGE Publications.

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