Emotional Labor Case Study

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

II. By bringing your personal emotions to the workplace, can create a set of distraction in the work environment.

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.

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

Another potential cause of wage disparity is the type of position chosen by men and women. Men are usually considered the “bread-winners” of the family (although this is changing over time) and tend to choose higher paying positions, whereas women tend to choose a care-giving profession and positions that have lower financial risk, which end up being less financially rewarding.

It is also essential for us to find the “appropriate” emotion during work. If we cannot find the emotional boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate, we might face either underinvolvement or overinvolvement (Skovholt & Rønnestad, 2003, p.50). Although the human service career is rewarding, doesn't mean it's going to be easy. Every day we need to face clients with different issues, and our daily day is highly possible be emotional draining because of struggling individuals. Learning how to control our emotion inside or outside of our workplace is one of the important lesson in our career life. In addition, our unfinished business in our life could definitely make things difficult. Maintain wellness is important for every human service professional. We all know that unfinished personal concerns can limit the helper’s ability to build a working alliance with a client, that’s why we need to attend other counseling and understand how to help ourselves before we help

Essentially corporations are treating human emotion as if it were something that can be corrected by regular exercise. Consequently, corporations have their managers be more friend-like to the employees to increase morale, and monitor employee emotion. Although friendly management began with good intent, it extends the corporation’s reach into the employees’ personal lives. With managers as friends the employee is not able to fully detach from emotions associated with work. The only way to avoid a manager that is a friend is to call in sick; this is also one way to resist the control of the corporation (paragraph 22). Both authors agree that emotions generated by an employees’ job blend into their personal lives over time due to the control the company has over its employees. Davies contends that the emotional control stems from overly friendly management, and Hochschild believes the control stems from regulation of certain emotions while on the job. Either view leads to the realization that corporations have exerted an inescapable control on their employees’

Ashkanasy, N. M., Zerbe, W. J., & Härtel, C. E. (2002). Managing emotions in the workplace. ME Sharpe. Retrieved March 21, 2017 from https://books.google.com.ph/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nUiRnxzD68UC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=N.+M.+Ashkanasy,+C.+E.+J.+Hartel,+and+W.+J.+Zerbe+(eds.),+Emotions+in+the+Workplace:+Research+Theory+and+Practice+(&ots=S-KCim_1_h&sig=4JpsB9u67hD6nObcHRAD_F5t2hE&redir_esc=y#v=onePage&q=N.%20M.%20Ashkanasy%2C%20C.%20E.%20J.%20Hartel%2C%20and%20W.%20J.%20Zerbe%20(eds.)%2C%20Emotions%20in%20the%20Workplace%3A%20Research%20Theory%20and%20Practice%20(&f=false

Over half (59%) of all job separations were voluntary while 41% were involuntary, including firings (17%), temporary job endings (14%), and layoffs (10%) according to the study “Reasons for job separations in a cohort of workers with psychiatric disabilities.” Findings of current study in Science International. 27.4 (Aug. 31, 2015): From Academic OneFile, implies that management leadership plays significant role in improving the level of employee job engagement banking sector. Thus, management plays a crucial role in the employee’s ability to bond and engage in their jobs. According to Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) and Hochschild (1983), there are numerous emotional labor tactics. We fixated mainly on surface and deep acting. Surface acting involves the modification of emotional expressions without feeling that emotion (Hochschild,

Roles that could require emotional labour include being flight attendant, day-care worker, nursing home worker, nurse, doctor, call centre worker, teacher, and social workers. Hoschild, Arlie Russell (2012).

Where as the same study showed that men who use anger were given the chance to justify their emotion by the situation they are put in and not judged unfairly (Kreamer). The stereotype that women are sensitive and nurturing has enabled them to be seen as competitors in the business world and because of this study they now feel the need to refrain from displaying their emotions completely to be seen as a competitive candidate for a job. “Emotionality at the workplace is not a female issue, men and women are equally driven by it, even if the emotions are sometimes expressed differently” (Kreamer).

Despite men and women performed effectively in gender atypical field and better educated than each other, they are still advantaged and disadvantaged by their gender due to the society has much greater power in the gendered nature of service work. The mentioned theories above suggested that emotional labour is not created equal in the gendered nature of work but still the performance of emotional labour by women is undervalued even in male-concentrated occupations due to employers placed a lower value on work done by women and other factors that are often hard to quantify such as social pressure and gender

I was engaging with my emotional other, which is one whom a salesperson has a strong connection with and can use that to continue their work (O’Brien 2011: 326). After spending a couple of weeks working as a greeter and mastering my emotional labor expressions, the store hired another individual to help me at the door. Everything was smooth until they were actually texting and not saying anything to the customers as soon as they came in. A regular customer came in and immediately saw them on their phone, not engaging in emotional labor, but rather their private emotions of actually not caring about the customers, which lead the customer to go off on him. It was quite embarrassing for myself, but he was literally engaging in the nonperson treatment, which means treating others as if they don’t exist, and he was doing so by being on his phone (O’Brien 2011: 296). The greeter did not know how to react to the situation, and just said “What’s your problem man” and continued to be on his phone, his emotional capital wasn’t anything close to mine as he somehow did not receive the same training as me. Emotional capital is the concept referring to the situations one interacts during certain situations and gain repetitive emotions on how to handle used them in the future (O’Brien 2011: 325). Being his first day on the job, his emotional capital has not grown one bit and

Researchers have proposed a variety of explanations for systematic gender inequality in the workplace. Cultural benefits, the actions of male employees, the actions of the female employees, and the actions of the employer can contribute to intentional or unintentional gender discrimination (Ngo, Foley, Wong, & Loi, 2003). It has also been mentioned that women make less money because their work environment is generally safer than the stereotypical male work environment; childcare, cashiers, and secretary positions as opposed to firefighters, truck drivers and construction workers (Parcheta, Kaifi, & Khanfar, 2013). Perhaps the most dominant reasoning for women receiving less pay is the carrying over of biological roles into the workplace. Female employees often take time off to have a family, take care of a family, and are the primary caregiver of said family.

For instance, Jason Felix, a Human Resources Technician with College of the Desert describes his thought after having dealt with a rude applicant over the phone, “while physical labor is no walk in the park, dealing with people can leave you just as drained, if not more, and it can take longer to regain your emotional stability” (J. Felix, personal communication, January 30, 2017). After having been cut off, yelled at, and harangued, Jason had to still go about his day as if nothing happened. The use of good customer service in the face of disrespect is reminiscent Karl Marx writes, “the realization of labor appears as a loss of reality for the worker”. It is not the real person who is being polite but the person created for the work environment that is required to be polite. With this in mind, having to create an atmosphere of happiness when one isn’t feeling happy could result in the depersonalization of happiness with the self (Herpertz et al, 2016). The problem then turns into the employee not knowing whether they are actually happy or is only so used to being happy. How does the employee then adjust to the “real world” outside of the workplace? In A Managed Heart by Arlie Russell Hochschild, she speaks with airline attendants who must always create a positive space for passengers, their smiles being of most value to the company. One flight attendant interviewed is quoted saying, “Sometimes I