How to Reduce "Emotional Labour"

The term “emotional labour “is used to describe the things that workers do in the service industry that goes beyond physical or mental duties. Workers in the service industry are often required to show genuine concern for customer’s needs, smiling and making a connection with customers. When these kinds of activities are essential to a workers performance it is known as “emotional labour”.

When you have to deal with aggravated or unpleasant people, emotional labour can become very challenging. A large part of the difficulty stems from needing to conceal your real emotions and continue to be pleasant when receiving negative or critical comments.

Staff in jobs that contain high levels of emotional labour tend to have higher levels of absenteeism, staff turnover and less engagement.

When an employee engages in emotional labour, they are essentially controlling their feelings to satisfy the goals and expectations of their organisation. This means these workers are:

• Only expressing positive feelings
• Hiding or managing their negative feelings
• Creating an appropriate emotion for the situation

There are two emotional labour techniques –

• Surface acting – Pretending to have an emotion by using unnatural and artificial body language and verbal communication. Smiling and using soft tones of voice can help you to display emotion that you don’t really feel or hide emotions that you do feel.
• Deep Acting –This is done by controlling your internal emotions and making yourself believe that you are actually happy and enjoying your interaction with the other person. Rather than pretending you convince yourself that you’re not having a negative reaction.

When you constantly need to display only the emotions that are fitting for the job, regardless of how you really feel, this can often lead to an emotional struggle between your real emotions and the ones you show to others. Some researchers believe that this leads to emotional exhaustion and a burnout for workers.

There are some strategies that organisations use to help their staff deal with the demands of emotional labour-

• Buffering – Some companies assign front end workers to manage the emotional demands of customers. This way by the time the customers reach back end workers they can focus on business.
• Teach ‘display’ rules. Staff are taught how to behave, and are sometimes even given scripts to use when dealing directly with clients. Therapists are taught to act neutrally, retail workers positively and bill collectors aggressively.
• Staff assistance programs – investing in facilities that provide access to stress management and emotional health services.
• Teaching problem solving techniques – Some companies help their staff to solve problems more effectively. This boosts workers confidence and reduces their negative reactions to angry or unpredictable situations.
• Improving emotional intelligence – The ability to recognise other people’s emotions is an effective way to reduce the burden of emotional labour.