Emotional Labor As A Workplace

The workers at the deli chain Pret A Manger is used as a prime example of this by Timothy Noah in his article “Labor of Love.” Noah’s article builds primarily off the work of Arlie Hochschild, who defined “emotional labor,” which is is when employees must "induce or suppress” emotions in order to make the customer "experience a positive feeling" (1-2). According to Noah, Pret’s employees are extreme examples of “emotional laborers,” as they must follow set “Pret Behaviors” at all times. These rules of behavior make positivity and smiling mandatory, and subsequently all Pret workers must not only serve customers food, but also cater to their emotions (2-3). If employees fail to uphold their happy facade they face repercussions, often in the form of withheld bonuses (3). Noah states the stress to perform to these standards at all times makes the employees into “enthusiasm cops,” watching and enforcing these emotional behaviors onto one another, and as Noah puts it, “further constricting any space for a reserved and private self” (3). It is in this way that Pret manipulates its own workers into doing extra work (emotional labor and the enforcement of it) without extra

Although originally written in 1983, The Managed Heart is still an up to date look at an interesting concept: combining emotional feelings with the work one does. At first glance, the notion that emotions may have an impact on one’s work environment seems almost a non-issue. However, Hochschild is not saying that; rather, Hochschild looks at the effect of emotions in the workplace, but also the interaction of those emotions with the work itself. The author’s interest in this topic began at an early age, 12, when she recounts an event in her life: her parents, part of the U.S. Foreign Service, entertained diplomats. Hochschild describes the question that came to her mind as she looked up into the smiling face of a

Interaction is an important concept in sociology, and it has been studied from multiple different perspectives. Both Erving Goffman and Arlie Hochschild have made notable contributions to the sociological study of interaction. According to Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, interaction can be explained through a dramaturgical model. Within the dramaturgical model, interactions are portrayed as performances, as if a particular social environment is a stage, and the people in that social environment are actors (Goffman). Erving Goffman’s sociological interpretation of interaction is extended by Arlie Hochschild in her piece Feelings Management. Hochschild focuses specifically on performances that are put on in the workplace. Acting in the workplace has become a necessity in the service industry because in many cases, people must act warm and welcoming in order to keep their jobs. This method of acting happy and upbeat in the service industry is called emotional labor. However, as Hochschild explains, emotional labor can cause a strain on service workers, especially when they must act cheerful, even when they feel upset and distressed. The discrepancy between a person’s true emotions and their feigned emotional state is known as emotive dissonance. Continued emotive dissonance can lead to spillover, in which a person’s true emotions come out because they can no longer hold back these emotions. Though emotional labor began in the workplace, Hochschild

Sociologist Arlie Hochschild, author of The Managed Heart argues that modern societies demand emotional labor particularly in the service sector, where she described it as, ”management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display … sold for a wage.” This term can apply to a variety of professions, but it is most often used to reference to the sort of attitude management which occurs primarily in minimum-wage service jobs. This regulation of emotion is used to maintain a professional appearance even in the face of a dissatisfied patron. In order to examine the nature of emotional labor, feeling rules and gender roles I conducted a personal one-on-one interview with someone who has prior and current experience working in the service job industry. Her name is Sasha Turk and she is a Female, 26 years old, born in San Francisco who self identifies as an American with a White/Filipina background and is a College Graduate with Degree in Anthropology, recently married with no children. She is currently employed at Discount Dance Supply as a Retail Sales Associate, for what she describes as minimum wage. The store primarily sells goods for dancers and entertainers as well as athletic equipment for training. Sasha also has years of experience working as a part of the catering/serving business for the stadiums of the Warrior 's, Oakland A 's and Raiders working as a server for patrons who use top level rooms for viewing their entertainment.

Rude behavior is not a form of professionalism. Often, customers do not receive the average customer service that they expected. According to the Civility Poll, “nearly seven to ten Americans say they have stopped purchasing from a company because of an uncivil interaction with a company representative.” In that same poll, “thirty nine percent believe that the workplace is becoming more disrespectful and that fifty nine percent are admitting to being uncivil to their co-workers” (Mattice). Rudeness or incivility effects the inner soul of a person with anger, worry and interference with processing information. Creativity and multi-tasking can be lost when dealing with such behavior. If one feels violated, it may cause them to lose interest in their job and resort to finding another job

Emotional labour could qualify as an additional work effort for employees since it entails them to perform under a specific mood or appearance in addition to the regular work they render. Meanwhile, fast-paced service industries are generally composed of job roles that require working at a rapidly changing and demanding environment such as restaurants and other hospitality services. While emotional labour is a major requirement for this industry, it also becomes an issue since both concepts does not necessarily align well. More importantly, since emotional labour appears as an extra effort for employees, it causes a strain in performance.

In the research there is a gathering of discussion on the possible negative impacts of emotional labour, frequently prompting burnout. Dawn did not experience the ill effects of emotional labour like that. Dawn thinks that the care homes management would genuinely not care how polite she acted, but as long as she got her work done without any problems. Management’s element of trust gives her the independence to act in her favour. If a patient has a bad attitude, she tries to understand why they may feel the need to act like that, not as a strategy act but because understanding what a patient needs is the correct way to

As I read our text and some online resources, delving into the topic a little more, I found it fascinating that there had been studies on what I originally considered a rather obscure subject. I found that it has been conjectured that emotional labor has been thought to lead to burnout (which I totally believe), and it can also contribute to emotional dissonance. (Miller 2015) In asking an employee to show feelings she or he does not have inside, it can have a “detrimental effect on some workers.” (Miller 2015)

The topic of emotional labor has received a great deal of attention within the organizational sciences, spanning across three decades, thousands of articles, and a growing number of reviews published on the subject (Grandey & Gabriel, 2015). Referring simultaneously to two separate processes, emotional labor indicates both “[emotion regulation] performed in response to job-based emotional requirements in order to produce emotion toward – and to evoke emotion from–another person to achieve organizational goals” (Grandey, Diefendorff, & Rupp, 2012, p. 1) and the nested intrapsychic processes inherent to emotion regulation at work. The former process can best be understood through a historical overview documenting the emotional labor

Researcher that has been carried out on the topic of emotional intelligence (EI) have revealed findings that link EI with higher achievements of individuals. A study done by Carmeli (2009) indicated that emotional intelligence plays a role in the wellbeing of individuals. Specifically, emotional intelligence is suggested to be an important predictor of crucial organizational consequences such as job satisfaction (Daus & Ashkanasy, 2005). Gender is another variable that is proposed as having a relationship with the concepts of emotional intelligence and job satisfaction. All over the world, many organizations are studying their employees’ satisfaction, feelings and attitudes not only to plan on how to allocate rewards and possibilities but also they do it because they are worried more about their employees’ feeling toward their jobs (Golparvar & Qazvi, 2010).

The aim of this text is to critical review two academic papers related to the emotion labour. One is "Being Somebody Else: Emotional Labour and Emotional Dissonance in the Context of the Service Experience at a Heritage Tourism Site" by Dijk and Kirk (2007), which is discusses about if emotion labour causes negative job outcome. Another paper is the writing of Karatepe, Yorganci and Haktanir (2008) named "Outcomes of customer verbal aggression among hotel employees". It mainly focuses on some emotion problems impact by customer verbal aggression. The paper begins with an overview of the two papers. Briefly explain the purpose and the main findings. Subsequently, by means of compares and contrasts the two articles, the

In our everyday lives, we are constantly interacting with other individuals. These interactions have an effect on our emotions. We have to learn how to identify and deal with these emotions because they have a direct effect on how we deal with issues at work. Individuals can work their way through this process by becoming aware of the importance of emotional intelligence.

This paper is aimed at evaluating my own emotional intelligence while subsequent parts of the paper will discuss how this emotional intelligence affects other aspects of human life like business, religion and politics. In this part of the paper, I will reflect on and demonstrate the skills and the knowledge needed to enable one to accurately see and understand the emotional strengths, weaknesses and nuances of other workers at the workplace.

During the past few decades, the study of emotional labour has proven to be vital. It has been shown how employees are required to manage their emotions as well as their behaviours, at least in the workplace. Hopfl and Linstead (1993, p.91) state:

Hochechild states the work which requires employees hide or change their real emotions, and continue to ‘smile and nod heads’ even receiving critical feedback is emotional labour (Mind tools, 2016). In other words, emotional labour is a kind of work that employees are required to show one or more specific emotions in the workplace so that they could promote organizational goals. According to Hochedchild’s opinion, emotions of individuals start to separate, emotions are used as productions by organisations and enterprises so that individuals are alienated (Xiong and Zhang, 2010). Employees disguise their emotions to satisfy customers in order to make more benefits for the company. Emotional labour can step over distinct vocations, stratums and functions. Hochschild thinks to take part in emotional labour for a long time period can cause mood disorder. However, Ashfortht and Humphrey