Is Emotional Labor Beneficial for Both Service Organisations and Service Employees - Research Paper Example

Is emotional labor beneficial for both service organizations and service employees? Introduction: In the modern era of technology, businesses have flourished in all areas world over. Business entrepreneurs adopt unique and innovative approaches to gain competitive advantage over their parallel organizations in the market in order to gain an edge over the rest. Various means are made use of in an attempt to maximize the profits. One of such tactics many service organizations frequently make use of in order to enhance their sales and business is the emotional labor. Emotional labor is defined as “effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotion during interpersonal transactions” (Morris and Feldman, 1996, p. 987). Unlike all other techniques of business enhancement, emotional labor is one factor that fundamentally requires an effort on the part of employees or others, involved in the marketing and customer dealing sections of such service organizations. Particularly the employees that are responsible for any sort of interaction with the public on behalf of the company are required to undergo emotional labor. Emotional labor requires an individual to wear a certain set of emotions all the time while dealing with the customers irrespective of mood or personal concerns of the individual. An individual’s moods and emotions keep changing from time to time depending upon the impact of everyday matters on the individual’s life. An individual’s mood is a reflection of his/her feelings and thoughts at a certain time. One can not naturally maintain one mood for long. However, service organizations require their employees to display a continuous pleasant mood, because the way they behave speaks volumes about the reputation and credibility of the organization. The way service employees deal with customers is the basis of customer’s judgment of the quality of service provided by an organization and plays a decisive role in relating a customer to an organization (Hennig-Thurau et al, 2006, p. 58). Employees, therefore, have to maintain a mood favorable for business that sets a good impression on the customers. Many a times, individuals have to go against their intrinsic mood to do justice to their job. Emotional labor, is indeed, a requirement of good business. This, however, has its own implications in turn. This paper evaluates the role of emotional labor in enhancing the business of service organizations and its impact on the service employees as well as on the reputation of business organizations. “Emotional labor is beneficial for the service organization, though for service employees, it may bring mixed results.” Why service organizations require emotional labor from the employees? Human nature feels attracted to pleasant scenarios. Moods play a fundamental role in making an environment pleasant. Indeed, moods make or break an environment. Pleasant environment is conducive to better business in that the customers feel respected and privileged. Service employees are particularly required to display emotional labor because a service employer is, in a vast majority of cases, the first and only being with whom a customer happens to interact (Grandey et al, 2005, p. 39). A service employee’s conduct is, therefore, of utmost importance for a service organization. Service organizations require their employees to act as per the expectations of the customers. In a vast majority of cases, the organizations have employees at the fore front and the customer learns about an organization from the conduct of employees that deal with them on behalf of the organization. Many a times, a customer is not satisfied by the service provided by an organization, yet their aggression is marred by the pleasant and decent dealing provided by the customer services agent. Let’s suppose someone purchased a telephone from a certain company. The telephone functioned rightly for the first two days, and then suddenly stopped functioning the third day. The customer lives miles away from the shop and it is not easy for him to visit the shop for the recovery of money or a new set of telephone. Therefore, he calls the customer services department. Unfortunately, he finds the line busy every time he calls. His temperament sears up and he becomes outraged. He decides to visit the shop and load them with complaints. He is all set to yell at the manager and intends to convey his feelings to every person who would offer to hear in an attempt to tarnish the name of the telephone company. Soon as he visits the shop, a customer services agent greets him with a smile and respectfully escorts him to the complaints department. The nice dealing offered by the customer services agent regulates the anger of the customer to a considerable extent. Rest of the tension is eased as the complaints manager apologizes on behalf of the engineering department and assures the customer that he can feel the pain, inconvenience and agony the customer has gone through. The complaints manager does not at all argue with the customer, and wears a constant smile on his face that reflects his positive wishes for the customer. He deals the customer very respectfully. The customer feels his emotions respected and his concerns entertained. This feeling keeps the customer from yelling at the complaints manager and instead, he conveys his problems verbally. He does not even deem it ethical to file a complaint against the company for the dysfunctional online service or the set he was earlier provided with. The complaints manager hands over a new telephone set to the customer and tells him to email any queries or concerns should he find any problem in the new set. The customer is ensured that his queries will be responded to at the earliest. At the end of his meeting, the customer leaves the shop with a “thank you” note and takes the new set of telephone with him with the assurance of the complaints manager that he will do something about the online service as soon as possible. Although much of the mood the services employees dealt the customer in was artificial, yet it kept the customer from yelling at them, tarnishing the name of company and discouraging other customers from buying the product that were there in the shop at the time he visited it. In this way, the emotional labor that the services employees went through benefited the services organization. This is a very simple example explained here. Emotional labor undergone by the employees works wonders for the service organizations and many potential threats are regulated by a mere smile on the employees’ face. People search for the company that would deal them with respect. Organizations whose employees work hard with their attitude to keep the customers’ interests entertained earn a big name and gain popularity among the consumers. Three fundamental factors that are influenced by the employee interaction with customer are consumer satisfaction, the consumer and worker relationship and the long term association of a consumer with a service providing organization. When an employee performs emotional labor in an attempt to satisfy the customer, the customer feels respected and attended. As a result of this, the customer not only regards the organization, but also develops positive affiliation with the customer. The customer develops a set of expectations from the service organization. “These expectations give rise to feeling rules or norms that specify the range, intensity, duration, and object of emotions that should be experienced” (Humphrey and Ashforth, 1993, p. 89). As a customer feels satisfied with the organization and the employees, he/she tends to build a long term relationship with both. This becomes the fundamental cause of, and adds to the popularity of a service organization and hence, the business is enhanced and the profits, maximized. Impact of emotional labor on the employees’ performance: There is hence, no doubt in the fact that emotional labor done by the service employees is beneficial for the service organizations. However, other side of the picture also needs to be taken into consideration before drawing a conclusion about the issue as a whole. In the constant display of artificial emotions by the service employees, many theorists are forced to doubt whether these employees have a true self and true emotions, or their intrinsic personality has been customized to suit the requirement of their work. Theorists think about such employees as made up of many selves linked with different social relationships and domains (Ashforth and Tomiuk, n.d., p. 185). The productivity of an employee declines gradually as he puts more and more labor to control his emotions and modify them as per the need of the job. In the start of every day, an employee is full of energy after a comfortable night sleep and is all set to offer his services in the best interest of the company. However, as the hours pass, the energy profile of the employee begins to decline. Very less of the energy that the employee was accoutered with in the start of the day remains with him by the time, the day ends. Much of this energy loss can be attributed to the extra effort the employee had to put in so as to remain presentable to the customers all day long. Every single customer requires 100% input from the employee dealing with him/her on behalf of the organization. Customers care little about the tiresome work routine of the employees and are usually all set to file a complaint against an employee, in case they notice that they have not been attended as they should have been. The heterogeneity, inseparability and the inter-relation of production and consumption of the service makes the quality of service influenced by the quality of interaction between service provider and consumer (Mishra, 2006, p. 3). Although it apparently seems that it requires little effort to customize one’s emotions as per the demand of the situation, yet this is actually, what the employees give in to get the work done. However, display of emotional labor by the employees has in turn, its all consequences. It saps their energy and leaves them lethargic. Many employees can not give in 100% in the later hours of their duty, and hence their productivity declines. Where emotional labor was actually made use of to avoid conflicts between consumers ad the service providing agency, it actually paves way for many conflicts as the services employees do not behave as the customers expect from them in the later half of the day. Job dissatisfaction and emotional exhaustion are two of the most commonly accepted repercussions of emotional labor in the work place (Chu, 2002, p. 5). However, there are works by other researchers that have reached conclusions that compliment the above statement. For example, Wharton (1993 cited in Chu, 2002) discovered that job satisfaction at workplace among employees is directly proportional to the emotional labor performed by the employees. Wharton (1993) found that it is not emotional labor, but instead, long working hours that make an employee lethargic and sap his/her ability to produce work. This, according to research, is true for both service and non-service employees. Emotional labor gives rise to emotions that are indeed, far from natural. Although such emotions might temporarily best fit a certain situation, yet the employees may occasionally have to face severe consequences as they can not modify their emotions as per the requirement of the incidents that happen as a result of their certain behavior at a previous point in time. For example, let’s consider the same case in which the customer wished to file a complaint against the telephone company because of the inadequate line contact service provided by the company. In that case, let’s suppose that the complaints manager had provided the customer with a new telephone set without reporting the matter to the senior manager in an attempt to calm down the customer temporarily. Normally, the complaints manager would tell the customer to leave an application for the exchange of set and the request would normally be entertained within two days. However, in this particular case, the complaints manager went against the procedure to calm down the customer and instantly replaced his set with a new one. This makes the complaint manager susceptible to serious penalties once the senior manager discovers that a telephone set has been replaced without following the proper procedure. Although what the complaints manager did was with the intention of benefiting the company, yet it might incur him loss in the future. However, many researchers are of the view that emotional labor plays a positive role in enhancing the productivity. In fact, it has been largely realized that there are certain situations where emotional labor performed by the employees brings positive results both for them and the organization. For example, situations in which the emotions displayed by the employees coincide with the way they actually feel, employees are indeed, experiencing “emotional harmony” which tends to fit them best into the framework of their job position (Rafaeli and Sutton, 1987 cited in Chu, 2002, p. 5). What situations one chooses and how one behaves in them are decided to much an extent, by the perceptions and ideologies one has. One’s performance on job is influenced by one’s psychology. Employees tend to express their emotions as per the intrinsic traits of their personality. In this way, they hardly get bored by the emotional labor and instead, retain their energy level while at work. Unfortunately, this may not always be the case. There are many situations in which the employee has to make use of emotions that are genuinely not an outcome of the traits naturally nested in his/her personality by the nature. Conclusion: An in-depth analysis of the existing body of literature apropos the emotional labor at workplace suggests that it is very essential for the success of business of any service organization. However, emotional labor results differently for different service employees in different scenarios. There is no doubt that display of emotional labor by the service employees is a measure of the political skills the employees are acquainted with. Political skills have conventionally been defined as “the ability to effectively understand others at work, and to use such knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one's personal and/or organizational objectives” (Ferris et al, 2005 cited in Gardner et al, 2009, p. 476). Political skills in the employees are of huge interest to any service organization because they are in the fore front to deal with the potential customers. On the other hand, emotional labor can both make and break the psychological health of a service employee. It has a huge impact on the productivity of any employee. In case when such circumstances happen that require the service employees to make use of their intrinsic personality traits, they not only do the job nicely but also remain fresh and revived in the workplace all day long. On the contrary, circumstances that require service employees to act contrary to their intrinsic personality sap their energy to work and they may feel lethargic and exhausted. Hence, usability of emotional labor for service employees varies depending upon the circumstances. References: Ashforth, BE, and Tomiuk, MA, n.d. “Emotional Labour And Authenticity: Views From Service Agents.” viewed 7 December, 2010. Chu, HL, 2002, “The Effects of Emotional Labor on Employee Work Outcomes” viewed 7 December, 2010. Gardner WL, Fischer D, and Hunt, JG, 2009, “Emotional labor and leadership: A threat to authenticity?” The Leadership Quarterly, 20, pp. 466-482. viewed 7 December, 2010. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.03.01 Grandey AA, Fisk GM, Mattila AS, Jansen KJ, and Sideman LA, “Is ‘‘service with a smile’’ enough? Authenticity of positive displays during service encounters”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 96, pp. 38-55. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2004.08.00. Hennig-Thurau T, Groth M, Paul M, and Gremler, DD, 2006, “Are All Smiles Created Equal? How Emotional Contagion and Emotional Labor Affect Service Relationships”, Journal of Marketing, vol. 70, pp. 58-73. viewed 7 December, 2010. Humphrey, RH, and Ashforth, BE, 1993, “Emotional Labor In Service Roles: The Influence of Identity”, Academy of Management Review. vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 89-115. Mishra, SK, 2006, “What Emotional Labor is: A Review of Literature”, viewed 7 December, 2010. Morris, JA, and Feldman, DC, 1996, “The Dimensions, Antecedents, And Consequences Of Emotional Labor”, The Academy of Management Review, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 986-1010. Read More