A hybrid job center. Composite client experiences with employment services between enforcement and care

Conflicting demands and emotional labour: Balancing and swapping at the front line of the welfare state

“…First, a tension between service provision and regulation (Zacka, 2017): should the frontline worker first and foremost be a demanding, disciplining and strict enforcer of existing rules -or an enabling, helping and caring service provider (e.g. McGann, 2023;Nielsen et al, 2022;Trappenburg et al, 2022)? Second, a tension between bureaucratic distance to the client on one hand and personalized proximity on the other -e.g.…”

“…So, the sincerity, credibility and authenticity can easily be destroyed by the system itself [informant, group 6] According to her, the formal bureaucratic rhetoric of the system can obstruct employees from convincingly swapping to a position of informality. Expressed confidence in client resources might even -from the viewpoint of claimants -come across as mere smokescreens designed to conceal extensive systemic discipline (Nielsen et al, 2022).…”

“…Zacka (2017), e.g., describes how frontline workers engage in different exercises of 'calibration' to regulate their level of involvement in client cases. Others note how clients sometimes draw very sharp distinctions between the system on the one hand and the individuals working for the system on the other -facilitating informal worker-client relationships even within the contours of a highly formal and bureaucratic system (Hansen, L. S., 2021;Nielsen et al, 2022). The added value of the present analysis comes with its distinct focus on the demanding emotional labour conducted by front-line workers as they strive to establish informality: the risk of being exposed as an imposter, who just believes in the human resources of clients since it is part of 21 the job, and the attempts of employees -through various detailed strategies -to establish a space for an informal worker-client meeting.…”