Essay Example on Exploring Emotional Labour: Understanding Its Dynamics & Impact

Introduction

Emotion is a term that implies the feeling of individual experience as a result of the mental reaction. The reaction could be due to fear, anger, excitement, or any disturbance. The intense sense experienced from those kinds of responses is usually aimed at a sole object. It is, in most cases, accompanied by body behavioural and psychological changes (Kleinginna, P.R., and Kleinginna, A.M. 1981, p. 345). The main objectives of the study are to explore the term emotional labour to identify its various definitions, recognise and provide an overview of organizations where the term most find its applicability, and also to give the impact of organizational use of emotional labour.

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Emotional Labour

According to Arlie Hochschild, a sociology professor from America, emotional labour refers to the process in which employees manage their expressions and feelings for them to meet the job's emotional requirements (Hochschild 1990, p. 120). Hochschild classified emotional labor into three categories: bodily, expressive, and cognitive. Bodily emotional labour is when a worker tries to regulate and change their physical symptoms to generate the required emotion. Expressive emotional labour is when an individual makes an effort of changing their inner feelings by monitoring their gestures (Hochschild 1990, p.117). For instance, when one's motive is to be happy, they may try smiling. Cognitive, emotional labor refers to when an individual seeks to change their thoughts, images, or ideas to improve their feelings.

However, according to Grandey Fisk and Steiner (2005, p. 893), faking and suppressing emotional labor is a sign of job strain, which, according to them, can only be minimized by an individual when they control their behaviors while in the job. Having emotional regulation in a job keeps the employees at ease, and the result is dissatisfaction feeling in the job. According to the Collins dictionary, emotional labor is a concept in most workplaces that requires all workers to utilize and manage their interpersonal skills while addressing the customers. According to David, Boniwell, and Ayers (2014, p. 8), "the effort it takes to keep your professional game face on when what you're doing is not concordant with how you feel" is what emotional labor implies.

Organizations Likely to use of Emotional Labor

Organizations with service workers mostly utilize emotional labour. The service workers get expected to perform in a particular manner for them to give quality output. Management of an organization provides some regulations in which all workers get expected to follow. Service workers, like in the case of customer service, are expected to welcome a client with respect and a smile and talk to them politely (Larson and Yao 2005, p. 1101). They usually operate with the saying that "the customer is always right," thus, avoids arguing with the customer even when they are wrong or aggressive.

Organizations that have workers dealing with children need to make use of emotional labour too. Children are delicate to deal with, and thus, an individual dealing with them should be able to control and manage their temper. An individual dealing with children should be able to suppress their emotions to manage and control their feelings. Organizations dealing with food like in a restaurant is another place to apply emotional labour. Taking an overview of workers like wait staff who interact one-on-one with clients, these skills are vital. Customers may, in some cases, talk rudely, abuse, and mistreat the wait staff to an extent where they may feel like responding to the customers harshly, but the emotional labour requires them to stay calm and friendly always. However, as much as they may get annoyed, their facial expression should always be welcoming and with a smile. Thus, with this kind of an environment, these workers tend to utilize the emotional labour concept in all aspects.

Healthcare organizations also utilize the use of emotional labour. Patients require to be shown empathy and treated with a lot of care (Larson and Yao 2005, p. 1110). For a medical specialist to deliver quality services to patients, interpersonal skills like empathy should get utilized. Even when a patient is rude to them, they should maintain good relation with them. A physician, despite their personality, while dealing with patients, should make sure they give the right gestures like be hospitable and calm to provide a suitable environment for the patients. How they treat and deliver information to the patients should be in a reasonable manner to avoid scaring the patients (Larson and Yao 2005, p. 1150). Police organizations, too, utilize emotional labor. Police are people who deal with criminals of all sorts, and they may get pushed to express their sympathy, anger, or other feelings depending on the type of crime. They are then required to manage and control their bodily and facial emotions. Managing them only means they are capable of dealing with pressures associated with their business. Other organizations include governmental organizations mostly at the local level and bill collectors who have to act in a certain way while dealing with citizens. Bill collectors should control their anger while dealing with debtors (Larson and Yao, 2005, p. 1100).

Positive and Negative Effects of Using Emotional Labor in Organizations

Positive

Emotional labor improves trust between customers and employees. Customers buy from an organization based on the quality of goods and services they get offered. When customers get welcomed with a smile and treated in the right manner, they will feel happy and want to come back once more. When employees of an organization like those that offer services to clients employ the use of emotional labour, customers tend to trust their services and goes to the extent of recommending other customers to that particular organization where they were treated well (Kruml and Geddes 2000, p. 60).

The utilization of emotional labour also promotes customer-employee engagement. Customers appreciate employees who treat them with respect and kindness. If a customer feels that they are getting treated in the right manner, they will keep the conversation on since they are enjoying conversing. (Kruml and Geddes 2000, p. 55). Emotional labour also improves the revenue generation of the organization. When clients are satisfied by the excellent services, they get offered by the employees of an organization, the desire to market that organization to their friends' increases. The resulting is that the organization's customers increase, which implies that their sales and revenue increase too (Kruml and Geddes 2000, p. 50). Emotional labour result in intellectual labour. It means that when employees know what it gets required of them and practices it, it eventually becomes their routine, and they will not have to get pushed to do what is expected of them each time. It will also promote peace within the organization since employees will start operating with their brains rather than their feelings. As a result, dramas and chaos in the workplace will get replaced with focus.

Negative

Emotional labour may result in emotional dissonance. When employees get forced to act, who they are not may bring the conflict in their feelings. Surface acting only improves how people see you but does not improve the real inner feelings. The conflict between whom one is acting to be and the real them may lead to stress and a state of confusion. However, in the end, the employee is seen to suffer from pretending to be someone they are not. Their cognitive and psychological functions may be affected, which may affect the workflow. Given an example of a cashier who gets forced to surface act, they end up committing more errors, which may result in business loss. Employee burnout is high for organizations with emotional regulations. When employees get stressed due to the demanding job requirements, their job performance deteriorates. They begin offering poor services to clients since it is like they are being forced to act in a manner they feel pressured. Revenue generation of the organization them shoot down since fewer customers is willing to visit an organization where they are poorly treated (Kruml and Geddes 2000, p. 49).

Yet another negative effect is that employees may experience several health issues due to the increased stress. It only implies that the organization will be experiencing early retirements from employees as they go to seek medical attention. When such news surface the media, the company's name may get tarnished, and fewer people may be willing to receive their services (Kruml and Geddes 2000, p. 49). Last but not least, job's pressure may force some of the employees to shift their career route and opt to go to a direction they think have fewer constraints. It will thus not only bring them to step one but also kill their dreams and of those they interact with. An individual whose passion has always been in the air hostess job may decide due to the job pressure to go to a lowly job (Kruml and Geddes 2000, p. 49).

Conclusion

In conclusion, emotional labour gets said to be vital to an organization with various benefits like improving customer- employee engagement, improved customer trust, increased organization revenue as well as brings about intellectual labour. However, it still has some adverse effects like the result of emotional dissonance, burnout, early retirement, and changed career path, as discussed above.

References

David, S.A., Boniwell, I. and Ayers, A.C. eds., 2014. The Oxford handbook of happiness. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ljATDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Managing+the+Hidden+Stress+of+Emotional+Labor+Susan+David+September+08,+2016&ots=rQaLUwwy8e&sig=IvFDaHYkoiOmosZyVVPKmwCTR9E

Grandey, A.A., Fisk, G.M., and Steiner, D.D., 2005. Must" service with a smile" be stressful? The moderating role of personal control for American and French employees. Journal of applied psychology, 90(5), p.893. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/download/42946764/Must_service_with_a_smile_be_stressful_T20160222-24652-4teuu.pdf

Hochschild, A.R., 1990. Ideology and emotion management: A perspective and path for future research. Research agendas in the sociology of emotions, 117, pp.117-142. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=HkHgh2isxHIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA117&dq=Arlie+Russell+Hochschild+emotional+labor&ots=U7uTQxp5cw&sig=BDFJ2itwPX2k6if8fpk52ZnDGzc

Kleinginna, P.R., and Kleinginna, A.M., 1981. A categorized list of emotion definitions, with suggestions for a consensual definition. Motivation and Emotion, 5(4), pp.345-379. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/download/45979615/20._Kleinginna_1981_-_Definitii_ale_motivatiei.pdf

Kruml, S.M., and Geddes, D., 2000. Exploring the dimensions of emotional labor: The heart of Hochschild's work. Management communication quarterly, 14(1), pp.8-49. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Deanna_Geddes/publication/247741875_Exploring_the_Dimensions_of_Emotional_Labor_The_Heart_of_Hochschild's_Work/links/00b7d528d61cc54260000000.pdf

Larson, E.B., and Yao, X., 2005. Clinical empathy as emotional labor in the patient-physician relationship. Jama, 293(9), pp.1100-1106. Retrieved from https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/200456