Testing a multidimensional model of emotional labor, emotional abilities, and exhaustion: A multilevel, multimethod approach.

Abstract

Addressing health-related risks for employees in the service sector, we identify emotion regulation (ER) ability—a dimension of emotional intelligence—as a promising resource with potential for facilitating emotional labor. We use an event-sampling design to investigate whether person-level ER ability moderates situation-dependent relationships of three different emotional labor strategies with emotional exhaustion in a beneficial way. Study 1 included data from 861 customer interactions from 187 service employees in the financial sector. All measures were self-ratings. Study 2 included 479 interactions from 101 employees in different service occupations; following a multimethod approach, ER ability was additionally assessed with peer ratings and an objective test. Controlling for age and gender, hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated main effects of event-level surface acting and automatic regulation on emotional exhaustion in both studies. Multilevel results showed that ER ability—in contrast to the global score of emotional intelligence—moderated relationships of three different emotional labor strategies with exhaustion. In particular, resource loss via surface acting was buffered. Overall, findings contribute to knowledge on emotional abilities in emotional labor processes, and differences in operationalizing and assessing ER ability. Practical implications concerning employee health are given.

Efectos del trabajo emocional en el agotamiento y la satisfacción laboral de los trabajadores en España

“…En la actualidad, la gestión emocional ocupa un lugar central en las organizaciones (Bolton y Boyd, 2003), por ello este campo de análisis ha encontrado en los últimos años un interés creciente entre investigadores y científicos sociales (Grandey, 2000;Grandey et al, 2013;Bolton, 2000;Cheung y Miu-Chi Lun, 2015;Humphrey et al, 2015;Scherer et al, 2020;Seymour y Sandiford, 2005;Totterdell y Holman, 2003;Wharton, 2009;Zapf, 2002). Las transformaciones en el modelo productivo y organizacional desde finales del siglo pasado han ido configurando un escenario en el que la dimensión emocional se ha convertido en un foco clave para entender la cultura organizativa en el sector de servicios.…”

When does job burnout not hurt employee behaviours?

“…The study lasted from May 2016 to March 2018. The selection of the research sample was dictated by the fact that interactions with customers are conducted by employees in customer, social or medical services, which also report relatively higher rates of JB (Scherer et al, 2020). Moreover, this group of employees is highly exposed to consumer incivility, which negatively affects their well-being and can lead to JB (Arnold and Walsh, 2015).…”

“…Thus, it can be concluded that exhaustion, depersonalisation and a sense of ineffectiveness caused by the state of JB increase the probability of employees ignoring their job duties, performing them unconscientiously or using various forms of deviance in a workplace. This aspect is especially observable in professions that require contacting clients and responding to their needs and problems (Scherer et al, 2020). However, the mechanism is more complex.…”

“…This burnout is accompanied by only a moderate level of organisational support. In terms of the intensification of stress at work, customer support roles in the ICT sector are particularly demanding, as they require constant contact with customers and solving their problems (Scherer et al, 2020). If employees performing professional tasks feel overwhelmed and cannot count on support from the organisation, the quality of services will ultimately deteriorate, and consumer dissatisfaction will rise (Shoshan and Sonnentag, 2020).…”

Revisiting the Effect of Emotional Labor: A Multi-Level Investigation in Front-Line Service Teams

“…On the basis of COR theory, if employees need frequent face-to-face interaction, they will feel emotional and physical depletion, a lack of energy, and even extreme tiredness ( Lee and Ok, 2014 ). Therefore, for a surface actor, these emotional regulation demands further burden employees ( Scherer et al, 2020 ; Yeung and Wong, 2020 ). Thus, we echo those findings which demonstrate a strong positive relationship between surface acting and emotional exhaustion in service teams.…”