The Workplace Cause Conflict Among Staff And Employee Morale, High Turnover, And Mixed Emotions

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

I. Regardless of the situation you have to be willing to face any hard situation given by life. Sometimes we have situations when is time to laugh, sadness and sometimes Anger.

Attempts to define “emotion” have proved to be rather difficult. Instead of searching for a comprehensive definition, Gross (2011) describes the three core features of emotions. First, emotions occur when an individual decides that a situation is relevant to his or her goals. Second, emotions are multi-faceted, and involve both subjective and physiological experiences, as well as behaviors. The third feature involves the authoritative nature of emotions. They have the powerful ability to interrupt ongoing processes, assert their priority over other activities, and force their way into awareness. For example, some traditions describe emotions as “disorganized interruptions of mental activity” (Salovey & Mayer, 1989). Emotions are such an

In “Exploring the Managed Heart” by Arlie Russel Hochschild and “All the Happy Workers” by William Davies, the authors agree that the emotions of employees are influenced by corporations in order to increase profit, but while Davies suggests workers can resist this phenomenon, Hochschild argues that employees will be affected, even in their private lives. Hochschild uses the term “transmutation,” which is the blending of a worker’s private and public life, to show how corporation’s requirements for “emotional labor” affect the employee’s personal lives (15). To support how corporations are effecting workers personal lives, Hochschild states “transmutation of an emotional system to convey that what we do privately often, unconsciously, to feelings...

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

Strong reactions fall on the negative side of the spectrum with communication methods. When experiencing strong feelings about work, it is important to vent and express your feelings in a calm, collected manner. Blowing up at an employee or client is not professional, nor will it give a good impression. While dealing with clients or employees, patience and understanding must be expressed. Mistakes are made all of the time in the workplace. Dealing with them in a collected manner will earn respect from employees (Megan Martin). Ari has a tendency to explode and lash out at employees. Mistakes are not tolerated and usually met with termination of a job. Ari’s constant barrage of insults thrown around makes him unapproachable and feared. One specific outburst leads to the unjust firing of a mailroom employee. Ari meant to fire an employee and was met in his office by the mailroom employee. Without knowing the appearance of his

In the last decade of the 20th century, many researchers became involved in in-depth analyses of the causes and consequences of specific emotions and moods at work and several theories were proposed to explain emotions in the work place and one of these theories is the affective events theory. AET is a model developed by organisational psychologists, Weiss and Cropanzano in 1996 to explain how emotions and moods influence job performance and job satisfaction, Thompson and Phua (2012). The model explains the linkages between employees' internal influences (e.g., cognitions, emotions, mental states) and their reactions to incidents that occur in their work environment that affect their performance, organisational commitment and job satisfaction. The theory proposes that affective work behaviours are explained by employee mood and

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’

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.

A persons mood may also influence how they will respond to a crisis. Obviously a person that is experiencing depression rather than positive feelings will not fair as well during a crisis. Even more reason for leaders to know their employees.

In today’s capitalist society, many have to act or reject their current thoughts and emotions to thrive and survive in the workplace. In daily life many pretend to be happy and attentive for means of a pay check, in which without these tools many would find themselves without a job. While at times seeming trivial in terms of preventing working from being done, emotion is one of the few unique qualities that makes us truly human. It is in this way, emotion plays a important role in

Although emotions are difficult to describe, all of the people experience those pleasant or unpleasant feelings that can affect mood and behavior. Emotions are related to personal experiences and are a response to certain situations. Controlling feelings to perform a job is called “emotional labor”. Acting in a positive way with consumers is a job requirement of many employees; demonstrating high energy, interest, eagerness, joy, and warmth. Always holding a smile and showing kindness. Even when there are obstacles and complaints, the interaction with a client, patient or student has to be as smooth as possible. In an attempt to hide real emotions, staff often engages in emotional labor.

Affective Events Theory is recognising different factors that cause employees’ emotional reactions on their work and how the emotional reactions influence the employees’ job performance (Greenberg, 2011). This theory helps employers to understand employees’ moods and emotions at workplace. Affective Events Theory examines the impacts of work-related incidents on emotional reactions and the following consequences for attitudes and behaviour (Russell-Bennett, Hartel & Beatson, n.d.). Ashkanasy (2002) stated that Affective Events Theory is the collection of a sequence of positive or negative affective events that turns to positive or negative affective states. If there is a negative affective event and turn to negative affective states, it will threaten attitudinal states and behavioural reactions of employees (Ashkanasy, 2002). This theory also clarifies as an approach of counterbalancing judgment-based theories of work attitudes and behaviours (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996).

Attitudes and emotions in the workplace are extremely important because they dictate job performance. The emotions that people go through are something that cannot be avoided; however, they can be manipulated. Managers, leaders, CEO’S of companies learn to do this by experience and training. They manipulate employee’s emotions with the purpose of achieving better performance and satisfy an organization’s goals. Although people have always had different emotions, the notion that managers need to care for employee’s satisfaction and happiness is newly implemented in the workplace. In this paper, I will be explaining the impact of attitudes in the workplace, how mood, emotions, attitudes and behavior affect job performance and I will implement the point of view of the CEO of the Defense Commissary Agency, Mr. Joseph Jeu.