Emotional Labor As A Workplace

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

In The Managed Heart Hochschild focuses on emotional labour: managing one 's emotions in the work place because it is one 's job to do so. While she touches on some benefits of emotion management, her book focuses on the dangers of losing one 's true self when one 's employer can control how one feels. Her main subjects are bill collectors and flight attendants, both are expected to have extreme (and opposite) emotions on the job.

In a global world, post-industrial economies are required to focus on the workforce’s emotional labour, particularly in service and blue collar areas due to the emotional impact that certain situations and work-place interactions require of the employee. In Australia Emotional labour is a key issue in Human Resources and People management and is a focus of Industrial relations due to the significance of these interactions on the wider community. Emotional labour is a human emotive process produced at a personal level which involves the sacrifice of one’s personal emotions in order to provide the face of the company and to present a certain disposition that promotes a feeling of well-being on another. In 1979 Airlie Hochschild provided the first definition of emotional labour ‘the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” (Hochschild, 1979). Since Hochschild’s definition, thirty seven years have passed and the argument as to whether emotional labour is beneficial or detrimental to the workplace has led to dramatic developments of HR practices since the shift of a post-industrial economy in advanced countries like Australia.

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.

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

emotional labor is often called being polite, it is a near universal part of every job and of life. Nevertheless, the level to which individual performances makes a meaningful difference. An individual can “deep act” in a manner that is still related with one’s core values and beliefs at work (“Yes, the customer is being patronizing, but I empathize with her and care about solving her problem”) or “surface act” (“I’ll be nice, but deep down I’m really spitting nails”). There are two distinguishing strategy for emotional labor: the deep acting and the surface acting. Surface acting is modifying the displayed emotion while the deep acting involves altering actual emotional state. Research show that engaging to emotional labor leads to poor health,

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

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

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 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.

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)

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

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: