Emotional Labor in the Workplace Emotional labor is a basic job requirement that accompanies physical labor in which case an employee is required to display either fictitious or genuine certain emotions towards customers. To say it differently, emotional labor is a way of manipulating one’s real emotions when discharging their duties in order to achieve an organization’s objectives. Some examples of jobs or professions that involve emotional labors include nurse, waitress, television anchors, actors, police work, sales personnel, and doctors, among others. Although effective emotional labor in business is a good indicator of success, the side effects that come along with it can be disastrous on employee such as workplace stress, fatigue, …show more content…
She adds that emotional labor is rather the proper management of emotions within the place of work in accordance to the expectations set by the employer. Jobs involving emotional labor can be defined as jobs requiring face to face or voice to voice encounters with the customers, requiring an employee to produce certain emotional state in clients or jobs that empower the employer to exercise some measure of control over employees’ emotional activities. This implies that, an employee excuses or suppresses their real feelings at the expense of the clients’ reaction in an attempt to realize organization’s objectives. Arlie argues that through this entire process of work, employees are often estranged from their real feelings in their places of work …show more content…
Vecchio remarks regarding emotional labor stressing that some jobs require the employees to display certain emotions such as positive demeanor when handling clients and customers even if it means fabricating their true feelings. The interviewees admitted having experienced some psychological stress and emotional drainage and fatigue in wearing their “face work.” This means they had to learn proper gestures, affective tones, appearance, facial expression, emotional ‘acting’ and language. In conclusion, it would seem that every job requires some sort of occupational masquerade (Robert P. Vecchio
The situation in which I will be referring to throughout this essay is a family dinner celebrating my brother’s engagement to his fiancé whom my mother approves of but my father does not. The works of Arlie Hochschild on emotional work will be used to analyze the situational context. Arlie Hochschild is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley whose area of interest is in how individuals manage their emotions and perform emotional labor in places that require control over one’s character such as their workplace. Her work suggests the idea that emotion and feeling are social. In this Hochschild (1983) means that there are rules to how we feel in every situation such as birthday parties and trying to stay happy at them or funerals and being expected to express emotions of grief. An individual may engage in emotional work by changing their affective state to match the feeling rules of the situation, Hochschild (1983) refers to this as two concepts: surface acting and deep acting.
Cournoyer (2014) holds that if a social worker is self-aware, then he or she can ensure that one’s personal issues and biases remain personal in a professional setting. I scored high on the self-control measure, which indicates that I can manage my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors such that I can simultaneously acknowledge their existence, understand how they might impact my client, and decide how I should react based on my client’s best interests. However, in situations that are emotionally arousing, it is difficult for me to consider other’s thoughts and feelings because when my emotions are raging a disconnect occurs between my intellect and emotions, which in turn produces a narrowed, one-sided perspective. To counteract this tendency, I will practice relaxation techniques such as deep breathing exercises when working with clients to ensure my focus remains on the
The theory of emotional intelligence is relatively new, however the psychological theory has become prevalent and many entities have adapted the principles of this theory in order to enhance relations within the professional environment as well as increase performance which ultimately lead to a positive place of work. (Allan Chapman 2014)
Starting with exploitation of feelings within the workplace I will begin to dissect Hochschild’s book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling which uses airline attendants as the example. Airlines purposefully hire certain looking girls to appeal to their intended customers a employee described this practice “United wants to appeal to Ma and Pa Kettle. So it wants Caucasian girls-not so beautiful that Ma feels fat, and not so plain that Pa feels unsatisfied.” (97) This clearly shows that intended market that United is playing towards. While this truly makes perfect sense from the
Goleman and Cherniss (2001) postulates that emotional competencies are learned abilities. Social awareness or skill at managing relationships does not guarantee the mastery of the additional learning required to handle a customer adeptly or to resolve a conflict. It only prognosticates that we have the potential to become skilled in these competencies.
Mary Ellen Guy and Meredith Newman’s research article, “Sex Segregation and Emotional Labor,” attempted to figure out if emotional labor had any influence on why women get paid less than men in the workplace. The discussion section of the article states that emotional labor is one of the causes to lower wages for jobs held primarily by women. Jobs that require the emotive work are thought to better fit women because it requires expressions of care and nurturing, and even though those jobs are tremendously important in our society, they are not given enough credit or pay. This source is credible because it is a peer reviewed journal which means that many experts had an influence in the material discussed and in the publishing of the article.
I try not to let things get to me and I try not to let problems I’m having influence my work. This is good so that my personal life doesn’t interfere with my work life. An area where I can grow is that I am very emotional, and I think that can be a problem in my line of work.
From research that has been done by McAllister and McKinnon (2009), Seligman (1991), and Kinman and Grant (2011) it finds that greater attention should be paid to emotional competencies because students may be unprepared for the stress that might come from the job and the emotional
I scored moderate on the LOC, (specifically internal LOC) and EI assessments. When evaluating these two tests I found a relationship between my control of emotions and my fate. These surveys made it apparent that my capability to control my feelings provides a higher internal LOC. As Mohapatra and Gupta’s (2010) study suggests, “Being in charge of one's emotions leads a person to believe that he's in control of his/her life and can attain his/her goals by well directed efforts” (p. 16). At work I run into this correlation every time I am dealing with a customer. When I am socially aware of their emotions, I can micro manage my own emotions accordingly. In succession, this increases my relationship management capability. If I do not maintain a high level of EI at work I see my customers’ dissatisfaction as my fault. Therefore, when taking the fate of my customers’ happiness into my own hands, whether it goes bad or good, depends on my handling of the surrounding emotions. Before this test I had not critically thought about how I handled my emotions in a work setting. This helped me understand the connection between being in c...
Morrison (2007) introduces Emotional Intelligence (EI) as “Being able to motivate one-self and persist in the face of frustration; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s mouth and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope (as stated in Goleman, 1996). In relation to social work practice, EI stresses for social workers to have a working knowledge of emotions; where they derived from and healthy ways to express and manage them. The social worker not only needs to understand these things about their own emotions, they must
The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 41(2), 69-72. Dumbrava, G. (2011). Workplace relations and emotional intelligence. Annals of the University of Petrosani, Economics, 11(3), 85-92. Grubb III, W. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2007).
Emotional Labor (EL) is defined “as managing emotions through surface or deep acting by following organizational display rules in return for a wage.” (Hochschild 1983). Task performance and strategy is increased through EL and it has impact on administration of service.
Managers should know that emotions are contagious if the boss has a smile his employees feel comfortable and free to smile. Whereas, a boss that is displaying anger makes the work place uncomfortable and a hostile environment. Generally, employees are responsible for their own emotional behavior but there are exceptions such as during times of tragedy. For instance, employees in Ferguson, Missouri may have been given time off during the recent riots because they would have understandably been upset by the unrest in the
Halbesleben, J. (2003) Emotional exhaustion and job performance: the medical role of motivation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92 (1), 93-106.
High emotional intelligence can improve work performance and its varied aspects can contribute to work differently. One aspect of emotion...