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The knowledge economy may be the way of Australia's future but, says UWA Business School Assistant Professor Catherine Leighton , it is also an economy that places emotional demands on the nation's workers.

Two thirds of Australians work in occupations with high emotional labour requirements, in which they must regulate their emotion displays to align with organisationally-desired norms. This may involve the expression of certain expected emotions or the suppression of inappropriate emotions. Examples include the ‘warm and friendly' cashier, the ‘aggressive' debt collector, the ‘caring and empathetic' nurse, and the ‘emotionally-neutral' magistrate.

To evoke ‘appropriate' emotions, workers may engage in surface or deep acting. Surface acting involves the adjustment of outward emotional expression (e.g. facial display), while deep acting involves the alignment of outward expression with inner feelings, so employees display ‘appropriate emotions' as determined by the organisational display rules or societal norms.

The problem, says Assistant Professor Leighton, is that emotion regulation (mostly in the form of surface acting) can lead to burnout and impact on job satisfaction, physical health, organisational commitment and intention to leave their organisation.

Exacerbating the problem is that, alongside emotion labour, service workers may also engage in emotion work - what Assistant Professor Leighton describes as emotional regulation that occurs during interpersonal interactions between employees, rather than employee interactions with clients, customers or patients (as described by emotional labour). Emotion labour has exchange value, as employees exchange their emotional displays for their salary, while emotion work has use value and indirectly contributes to the workplace. Only a handful of studies have examined emotion work, despite evidence of its importance. Past studies, explains Assistant Professor Leighton, have found emotion work can be a source of strain and may be as detrimental to employees as emotional labour due to the ongoing nature of workplace relationships.

‘In situations in which employees engage in both emotion work and emotional labour, employees may prioritise and nurture their customer relations, as this directly relates to their job requirements and, in doing so, they may neglect their relationships with co-workers, resulting in strain and burnout,' said Assistant Professor Leighton. ‘The importance of emotion work cannot be overstated, as one study found 23% of personal attacks or incivility experienced by employees were instigated by co-workers.

‘One of the theories that could explain why employees are less able to regulate their emotions during interactions with colleagues (emotion work) is ‘ego depletion.' Emotion regulation requires effort and can be tiring, and employees who choose to focus on regulating emotions with clients leave little effort to regulate their emotions with colleagues.'

Assistant Professor Leighton, working with Winthrop Professor Geoff Soutar and Assistant Professor Sandra Kiffin-Petersen, has developed a model that considers strategies employees can use to help guard against the negative impact of emotional labour and emotion work.

‘There are a range of different factors that influence an employee's ability to regulate their emotions in the workplace,' said Assistant Professor Leighton. ‘These include emotional job demands, employees' natural stores of positive and negative affect, the support provided by co-workers and supervisors and the dissonance between employees' genuinely felt emotions and expected emotional displays.

‘The model should help us better understand the process of emotion regulation and help employees to engage with clients and colleagues more effectively, reducing the strain, burnout and other problems associated with emotion regulation in the workplace.'

Assistant Professor Leighton would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this research further, preferably over a coffee, and can be contacted on +618 6488 7987.

Media references

Heather Merritt
Director, External Relations
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 8171
M: 0419 950 027
E: [email protected]

Verity Chia
Communications Officer
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 1346
E: [email protected]