The many faces of emotional labour in the hospitality industry

“Emotional labour is emotion work (the management of human feeling) performed in exchange for pay and as a condition of employment.” Arlie Russell Hochschild

Remarkable hospitality typically stems from remarkable employees. Perhaps more than any other industry, we rely on the human touch to curate and supply memorable experiences. Hotel staff is there to do one thing: provide great service to their guests and visitors and it all begins with making that great first impression. Hence, frontline employees are of central importance for the guest journey and ensuing experience - particularly in the hospitality and service industries.

Hospitality typically involves interactions involving a customer and a host, e.g., between a guest and a hotel receptionist or between a shopper and a shop assistant. These types of interactions are carried out as service requests which can be provided by human employees or since of late, by service robots.

Human employees that perform these direct interactions with customers of service - related enterprises’ are referred to as frontline employees. I.e. people whose employment requires them to work face-to-face with customers and guests.

It is a well known fact that working in the hospitality industry is physically demanding, (e.g. standing for long periods), involving long and antisocial hours under an umbrella of terms and conditions weaker than those in other sectors. For frontline staff, there is the additional challenge to overcome – one that is referred to as ‘Emotional labour’.

Emotional labour is a key behavioural requisite for frontline staff, particularly in hotels and restaurants, Apart from the physical and technical aspects of the job, the role may require a show of one’s emotions as part of the service to customers. These emotions may mask one’s true emotions and in most instances require a degree of acting. It comes with the job. Unfortunately, the effort and value of emotional labour often goes unrecognized and unrewarded in a low wage sector and yet it forms a very important aspect of service delivery.

Emotional labour demands workers not merely manage and /or mask their own emotions, but adopt systems to manage the flow of emotions and exchange between workers and customers. It calls upon the employees to demonstrate a willingness to be of service and to show the organizationally desired appropriate emotion to the guest - anytime, all the time and in any situation.

In her book, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild coined the term emotional labour in 1983 and documented the rules of feeling and expectations that comprise emotional labour. The following example presents a case in which the absence of emotional labour reveals its cultural expectation and demand:

A young businessman said to a flight attendant, “Why aren’t you smiling?” She put her tray back on the food cart, looked him in the eye, and said, “I’ll tell you what. You smile first, and then I’ll smile.” The businessman smiled at her. “Good,” she replied. “Now freeze, and hold that for fifteen hours.” Then she walked away. In one stroke, the heroine not only asserted a personal right to her facial expressions but also reversed the roles in the company script by placing the mask on a member of the audience.

As Hochschild argues, the flight attendant is required to be nicer than might be considered natural. Bottom-line: It’s about attempting to feel the right feeling for the job. Examples include waiters promoting a pleasant dining experience (as in ‘service with a smile’) , debt collectors being harsh to arouse fear in their clients or funeral directors looking mournful to make the bereaved feel that their grief is shared / understood.

Emotional labor can take three forms:

1. Surface acting. Where the employee simply responds to the client by parroting a script they have been instructed to follow. For instance, mechanically saying “Have a pleasant day”, without really caring. Reminding themselves, “My boss tells us that’s part of the job...unless I’m nice to guests I won’t get a good appraisal” is not the language of a passionately engaged employee. It is rather the fake voice of a character in survival mode and survival mode, as we know, hardly ever delivers gracious and excellent service.
2. Deep acting. Where the employee acts out what is expected of them in that situation. “It’s my pleasure and do let me know if you need any further assistance.” Such employees are convincing actors, offering gestures and voice tones that are expected for the moment. This acting, however, requires employees to stimulate emotions that they may not feel. It involves a deceptive strategy of impression management, meaning “I may deceive this person by being friendly when I really dislike him”.
3. Spontaneous response. The response that is instantaneous and involves no acting, such as responding to an injured person on the floor. Natural and genuine emotional labour, is a strategy that has positive effects for both employees and customers. The outcomes are mainly positive especially when organizations grant more autonomy and adopt positive display rules that call for the expression of positive emotions. 

Spontaneity is mistakenly believed to be a function of ‘chance’. That is not so, the better prepared one is, the greater the possibility of spontaneity – there is no manipulation; instead a well structured process that allows the free-flow of emotion, resulting in the engagement been natural and positively effective.

Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier

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