Emotional Labour Essay

2098 Words9 Pages
EMOTIONAL LABOUR Introduction According to Hochschild (1983), emotional labour is a “management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display, emotional labour is sold for a wage”. Therefore, emotional labour can be understood as a group of workers who are expected to create and express emotions when they are working as a part of their jobs (Grandey 2000). The world economy is growing strongly, especially the service sector - the sector needs to contact with customers (Macmillan 2012). Along with the development of service industry, customers are not only interested in the product quality but also interested in behaviour and attitude of employees: patience, enthusiasm, communication skills, ability to satisfy customers. If the organizations want to improve the quality of its services, having “emotional labour” can bring their emotions to work is very necessary. This essay will clarify about the emotional labour in the workplace. Understanding of theory People’s living standard is improving every day, so in order to satisfy the demands of customers, most of occupations need to have emotional labour as an interpersonal job demands. Especially, for the service’s occupations such as restaurant workers, secretary, flight attendants, tellers, counsellors, emotional labour demands and display rules are also required as a main characteristic (Diefendorff & Richard 2003). Display rules, also called “feeling rules” (Hochschild 1983), are similar to a scrip describes what correct emotions the staff should response to different situations (Hochschild 1983). These rules are necessary to evaluate employee’s behaviours and responses toward customers (‘Display rules’ 2012). Display rules can be written down or unwritten. For example of an written rules come from the Ministry of Health of Vietnam, on August 2008, the Minister decided to promulgate a
Open Document