How Does Workplace Emotions Help Improve Work Outcomes?

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

Noah utilizes the restaurant chain Pret A Manger for forcing its employees to be happy, and to make sure their customers are more than satisfied with their visit to the restaurant. He states how this job produces “emotional [labor] because the worker doesn't create or even necessarily sell a product or service so much as make the customer experience a positive feeling” (1). Again, this is a prime example that depicts how emotional labor is essential to the employees’ profession. He relates to both of the authors, Hochschild and Davies, when he mentions how “emotional labor” in the work place has become an increasing problem because of the link between mental health and productivity (2). Hochschild argues that companies are focused on employees’ emotions rather than their feelings, and Davies argues that if employees’ go to work unhappy then capital gain will decrease. Pret A Manger employees’ are given a set of rules known as “Pret Behaviours” that require their employees’ to be happy, efficient, and courteous (2). As a result the list of requirements Pret employees’ have to abide by has rendered all of their happiness into their profession just to make sure they can retain their job and the company compiles capital gain (2). As a result, Noah focuses on how employees’ have to preform emotional labor as apart of their profession even if it means performing false friendliness towards the customers. Like both Hochschild and Davies, Noah concludes that “emotional labor” is becoming innate to most professions today. Since, “emotional labor” is disseminating to jobs today workers’ have to learn how to cope with “emotional labor”

Separately recognizing, understand, and managing emotions can be simple, nevertheless remaining able to recognize, understand and manage emotions is quite complex and oftentimes rare. If a customer comes to a business in the past and has an excellent experience, then they will form a strong relationship with the company, and recommend the company to other people. To illustrate, when my sister worked at Chick-fil-la her first two weeks of job training focused on how to be EI to customers. By having this extensive training Chick-fil-la is known for its customer service as a result of emotionally intelligent employees, and constant returning customers. The fact that all Chick-fil-a’s employees are trained to be emotionally intelligent, it

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 contrast, the manager of the Revenue Commissioner only does well when the emotions are evident (e.g. anger and excitement). All the respondents believe that some emotions are easier to read than others. The pharmacy technician relies on certain cues such as the “smiling eyes” to signal happiness. In contrast, the therapy director believes that the feeling of upset is more transparent than happiness. Altogether, the responses support the theory of the six universal emotions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise.

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

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

The Economist’s treatise “Against Happiness”, develops the idea that companies should not utilize happiness as “an instrument of corporate control.” The piece asserts that companies may request politeness from their employees but asking them to feign their respective psychological states’ is inherently wrong. For example, Pret a Manager employs mystery shoppers to determine if its franchises’ workers’ are greeting with a “requisite degree of joy.”

It is no secret that in the customer service industry, the customer is always right and that smiling is a part of the job description. Nonetheless, an intriguing small study was published in the journal Personnel Psychology and it suggests that we should consider the consequences of emotional labor in the workforce as it affects sleep.

Trader Joe 's is a multi-billion dollar national grocery chain that owes much of its success to its real estate selection abilities, effective supply chain management, and by sidestepping name brand products to offer unique, great tasting food and beverages with natural ingredients. Its success is also directly attributed to effective workforce management practices and an organizational culture that appeals to both the consumer and its employee. Trader Joe’s leadership promotes a positive work environment, believes strongly in a “promote-from-within” policy, and projects a sense that its people are its brand. Corporate’s approach to the people it hires, trains, and nurtures is just as important as the quality products that fill its shelves (Rauch, 2011, p. 91).

Within organisations, managers tend to control a majority of employees’ actions. Control can be defined as ‘the power to influence or direct people’s behaviour’, and can be maintained through a number of means, and in this report, one will discuss how managers use emotional labour as a means of control. Emotional labour is defined as ‘the act of expressing organisationally required emotions during interactions with others at work’ (Huczynski). The term ‘emotional labour’ was discovered by Arlie Hochschild in her 1983 book ‘The Managed Heart’ in which she refers to emotional labour as ‘…’. Emotional labour is usually exchanged for

Emotional labour is the act of expressing organizationally required emotions during interactions with others at work (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010). Emotions are not simply for pleasure of people involved but they have an exchange value which is linked to profit. It also requires coordination of mind and feeling. The emotional style of offering a service has not only become part of the service itself (Hochschild, 2003), but increasingly is now often more important than the service itself. Cases such as the JetBlue’s flight attendant parachute out of the plane when the passengers did not listen to him (Hochschild, 1983) shows that the flight attendant is not an emotional labour as he could not manage his emotions well while

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.

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).

In contrast with the past workplace challenges and organizational behavior, there is a necessity to understand ourselves and others. Sometimes the stress and prestige can cause an adverse impact on one’s position in the workplace. The ability to deal with our emotions while working effectually with others and at the same time, performing the organization’s expectations are in high demand. Since the employees are an asset, and the organization is expecting a return on their investment, understanding how emotions work and how it impacts one’s capacity is indispensable in accomplishing organizational goals. In the workplace, people often have to work with each other. So the handling of relationships and interacting with others becomes the key to the success of the organization. Managers need to have a combination of skills and abilities such as the strength of will, awareness of self, empathy for others and sensitivity toward others internally and externally. Before one can handle others emotions he/she must first learn to lead themselves. So the question become, how is this done? Coleman’s theory suggest that this can be done through emotional intelligence which is the ability to create, build and maintain viable relationships (Coleman, 1998, p. 14). No one wants to follow the leadership of a person who cannot manage his/her emotions. Let’s look together at three business CEO’s personal backgrounds and use of emotional intelligence. The top chief emotions officers in the U.S.