There's more than meets the eye: emotional labor and employee outcomes

Emotional labor is the expression of organizationally mandated emotions by service workers during service encounters. The performance of emotional labor is known to benefit service organizations in terms of organizational productivity, repeat business, and service quality. However, it has been found to be detrimental to employee well-being and job satisfaction, particularly when service workers engage in surface acting rather than deep acting. This book provides empirical evidence of the performance of emotional labor and its consequences among Malaysian hotel workers. Surface acting was found to result in emotional exhaustion and decreased job satisfaction, whereas the reverse was true for deep acting. Clearly, deep acting proves to be a more beneficial method to manage work emotions. Additionally, social support (i.e., supervisory support and co-worker support) and job autonomy could buffer the negative consequences of emotional labor. A crucial message for hotel managers is that education and training with regard to the performance of emotional labor may be necessary to help employees learn how to provide sincere hospitality.