MGC1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Psychological Stress, Negative Approach, Emotional Labor
30 May 2018
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MGC1010 Week 10 - Should Managers Care?
Employee Wellbeing, Voice and Rights
● Employee demotivation costs businesses a lot of money (billions)
● If employee wellbeing is not considered productivity will decrease significantly;
happy workers are productive workers
● Must also consider stress, voice etc ie be socially aware of employee wellbeing
Employees and the Organisation
●
● Why people make the difference
○ People management has been, and continues to be, a vital management skill -
an organisation needs capable and committed people to achieve its objectives
● Feeling of lack of empathy = lack of motivation for the firm and work
The Meaning of Work
● On average, we spend 35% of our total waking hours over a 50 year working-life
period at work (Thompson, 2012)
● A quarter (25%) of people check into work hourly while on holidays, via e-mail or
phone (Shontell, 2010)
● More than half (59%) of Americans check their work emails during major public
holidays (i.e. Christmas) (Dickler, 2010)
● Work life is one of the biggest stressors (34%), compared to debt problems (30%)
and health (17%) (ACAS, 2013)
Quality of Life
● Quality of work life: overall quality of human experiences in the workplace.
(Schermerhorn et al., 2014)
find more resources at oneclass.com
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○ Research has shown that full time workers are actually only productive for
about 4 hours a day.
○ Most people spend so much time at work that ‘quality of work’ is an important
component in ‘quality of life’.
○ Poor management can lead to lower overall quality of life, whereas good
management has the potential to enhance both
○ Contemporary managers are expected to create positive work environments /
work-life balance for employees
● Employers must consider the demands they are placing on their people if a better
work–life balance is to be achieved.
● Spillover-crossover model: examining the impact of work on home, and
consequently the transference of emotions from the employee to other members of the
household
○ Spillover: process that happen at the intraindividual level (i.e. bringing work
emotions back home)
○ Crossover: process that happens at the interindividual level (i.e. transferring
feelings of stress or fatigue to partner) (Demerouti et al., 2005; Bakker et al.,
2009)
○ If ineffectively managed it can lead to negative productivity levels and well
being across work and home life
Emotional Labour: Modern Context of Work (Hayes and Kleiner, 2001)
● Effort, planning and control needed to express organisationally desired emotions
during interpersonal transactions (Referred to as display rules)
● People expect us to behave in a certain way as “appropriate” to our jobs
○ Eg: would be surprised if sales attendant insulted you whilst trying on clothes
● Originally linked to service industry jobs:
○ Flight attendants
○ Debt collectors
○ Funeral parlour attendants
● Emotional labour likely in:
○ Face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact jobs
■ Eg: call centres
○ Roles that require workers to produce an emotional state in others
■ Eg: counsellors, mentors, teachers
○ Enables employers a degree of control over staff
● Higher when job requires:
○ Frequent and long duration display of emotions `
■ Eg: retail, hospitality etc
○ Displaying a variety of emotions
■ Eg: teachers need to engage differently for the situation
○ Displaying more intense emotions
■ Eg: military personnel
● If there are unreasonable expectations placed or poor management it can lead to
emotional burnout
● Thought to lead to dysfunctional behaviour in employees (low job satisfaction)
○ Should allow employees to engage and not simply be involved in mundane
repetitive work
● Difficult to display expected emotions accurately, and to hide true emotions
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Employee demotivation costs businesses a lot of money (billions) If employee wellbeing is not considered productivity will decrease significantly; happy workers are productive workers. Must also consider stress, voice etc ie be socially aware of employee wellbeing. People management has been, and continues to be, a vital management skill - an organisation needs capable and committed people to achieve its objectives. Feeling of lack of empathy = lack of motivation for the firm and work. On average, we spend 35% of our total waking hours over a 50 year working-life period at work (thompson, 2012) A quarter (25%) of people check into work hourly while on holidays, via e-mail or phone (shontell, 2010) More than half (59%) of americans check their work emails during major public holidays (i. e. christmas) (dickler, 2010) Work life is one of the biggest stressors (34%), compared to debt problems (30%) and health (17%) (acas, 2013)
