“Just Throw It Behind You and Just Keep Going”: Emotional Labor when Ethnic Minority Healthcare Staff Encounter Racism in Healthcare

Encountering racism is burdensome and meeting it in a healthcare setting is no exception. This paper is part of a larger study that focused on understanding and addressing racism in healthcare in Sweden. In the paper, we draw on interviews with 12 ethnic minority healthcare staff who described how they managed emotional labor in their encounters with racism at their workplace. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The analysis revealed that experienced emotional labor arises from two main reasons. The first is the concern and fear that ethnic minority healthcare staff have of adverse consequences for their employment should they be seen engaged in discussing racism. The second concerns the ethical dilemmas when taking care of racist patients since healthcare staff are bound by a duty of providing equal care for all patients as expressed in healthcare institutional regulations. Strategies to manage emotional labor described by the staff include working harder to prove their competence and faking, blocking or hiding their emotions when they encounter racism. The emotional labor implied by these strategies could be intense or traumatizing as indicated by some staff members, and can therefore have negative effects on health. Given that discussions around racism are silenced, it is paramount to create space where racism can be safely discussed and to develop a safe healthcare environment for the benefit of staff and patients.

Differential effects of rude coworkers and patients on nurses' safety performance: an emotional labor perspective

PurposeThis paper examines how nurses differentially respond, both emotionally and behaviorally, to incivility from coworkers (i.e. other healthcare staff) and from their patients. Specifically, the authors explore how coworker and patient incivility distinctly influence the extent to which nurses engage in emotional labor, which in turn, may impact nurses' safety performance. The authors further examine how nurses' hostile attribution biases exacerbate and mitigate these effects.Design/methodology/approachA three-week longitudinal study was conducted with 187 nurses in which they reported their experiences with incivility, surface and deep acting, hostile attribution biases and safety performance (i.e. safety compliance and participation).FindingsPatient incivility led to more surface acting across all nurses. Further, the effects of coworker incivility on emotional labor strategies were conditional on nurses' hostile attribution biases (HAB). Specifically, coworker incivility led to more surface acting among nurses higher on HAB, and coworker incivility led to less deep acting among those lower on HAB. Finally, surface acting was associated with reduced safety participation, and deep acting was associated with greater safety compliance and safety participation.Originality/valueThe nursing context allowed the current research to extend understanding about how incivility affects an unexplored outcome—safety performance. The current research also offers a rare examination of the effects of incivility from multiple sources (i.e. coworkers and patients) and demonstrates the different processes through which incivility from these different sources impacts nurses' ability to perform safely.

The role of emotional service in the restaurant business

The article considers the restaurant business from the point of view of not only the entrepreneurial aspect, but also the service aspect, which is fundamental. The reasons why people visit restaurants have been revealed. In addition to physical need, restaurants are an element of cognition and a way of experiencing positive emotions. The importance of the restaurant business in shaping people’s positive emotional state has been formulated. Two forms of emotional labor of an employee and the influence of emotional states on work performance have been highlighted. The role of emotional intelligence and communicative competence in customer satisfaction with a restaurant visit has been determined. The importance of developing emotional intelligence has been concluded. Recommendations for its development has been formulated.

Emotional Labor and Burnout of Public Health Nurses during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Mediating Effects of Perceived Health Status and Perceived Organizational Support

The purpose of this study was to identify the mediating effects of perceived health status (PHS) and perceived organizational support (POS) in the association between emotional labor and burnout in public health nurses (PHNs). The participants were 207 PHNs convenience sampled from 30 public health centers and offices in Jeju, Korea. Data regarding emotional labor, PHS, POS, and burnout were collected between February and March 2021 using a structured questionnaire. Collected data were analyzed by Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis. Burnout of PHNs was positively correlated with emotional labor (r = 0.64, p < 0.001) and negatively correlated with PHS (r = −0.51, p < 0.001) and POS (r = −0.51, p < 0.001). In the association between emotional labor and burnout, PHS (B = −1.36, p < 0.001) and POS (B = −0.42, p = 0.001) had a partial mediating effect. Reduction of burnout among PHNs requires not only effective management of emotional labor but also personal and organizational efforts to improve PHS and POS.

Experience, Emotion, and Exhaustion: How Unionization Influences Emotional Labor

While HRM scholars have built a rich body of knowledge regarding emotional labor (EL), we know comparatively less about the social origins of EL components and individual outcomes in government work contexts. To address this gap, we employ conservation of resources theory to examine how one prominent social institution within government organizations, labor unions, influence the process through which EL shapes one individual-level outcome, emotional exhaustion. We also draw from the process model of EL developed by Brotheridge and Lee to evaluate one specific countervailing resource, person-job fit. Results obtained using data from the 2016 U.S. Merit Principles Survey suggest that unionization indirectly increases emotional exhaustion via increases in the perceived need for false face acting. While unionization does not have a direct relationship with person-job fit, perceived increases in the need for false face acting contributes to emotional exhaustion by reducing person-job fit.

Managerial Challenges of Emotional Labor Disruption: The COVID-19 Crisis in Mexico

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the knowledge of managing emotional labor during a crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a disrupting event, particularly affecting frontline healthcare workers and their supervisors who faced pressures to manage emotions during their interactions with patients. Emotional labor has been studied in emergencies; however, the case of Mexico offers insights into an understudied context and a long and singular crisis. Drawing from multi-level storytelling interviews with medical managers, physicians, and nurses in hospitals in different states of Mexico, this article argues that COVID-19 blurred relationships between performance and outcomes of emotional labor. As the organizational goal focused mainly on saving lives, some workers intensified and performed emotional labor innovatively, but others deviated from feeling rules. Managers’ role became crucial for employees to abide by affective requirements facing disruption.

Emotional Labor in the Tourism Industry

The chapter reviews the key concepts, definitions, individual and organizational antecedents, and individual and organizational outcomes of emotional labour (EL) in the tourism industry. The application of the concept in research and practice is discussed along with the implications. The theoretical domains of convergence and divergence are identified. key challenges and applications of EL with airlines cabin crew, restaurant service staff, and hotel industry frontline staff are identified and discussed. A systematic review of literature on EL in tourism is undertaken followed by critical appraisal of the implications of EL for HR practices in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Perdiendo mi persona

Para estudiantes de color who participate in academic research, there is added emotional labor as they make decisions revolving around language, identity, and disclosure. La labor se mantiene invisible para los organizadores de conferencias académicas, y presenta limitaciones a los que son permitidos de participar. Dr. Rachel Herzl-Betz y Hugo Virrueta share a conversation about Hugo's experience writing for one national conference funding application, y muestran como systemic inequality limits who may participate in academic research.