Beyond burnout: Understanding emotional labor
While we all know that performing a lot of physical labor at work can be draining, many overlook the toll that emotional labor can take on our overall well-being.
Many job roles require a great deal of emotional output, from building relationships to navigating customer demands.
Even less interactive roles still require employees to navigate social situations and manage their personal feelings at work.
All of this can be tiresome, but there are ways for employees and employers to work to manage and cope with this emotional labor.
Below, we’ve outlined some of the benefits and drawbacks of emotional labor, strategies for dealing with it, and how managers can be more intentional in considering how much emotional labor they request from their teams.
What is emotional labor?
Emotional labor, sometimes written as emotional labor, is the effort we put into managing our emotions to meet the demands of our job or various social situations. It’s about presenting a specific emotional front, regardless of our feelings. Think of it as the invisible work we do to maintain a positive and professional atmosphere.
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild first used the term emotional labor in the 1983 book The Managed Heart from the University of California Press. Hochschild initially used the term to describe the specific type of work and emotional management expected from service workers.
The term later grew in popularity when discussing other forms of labor performed at work and home, such as childcare, that carry a higher mental load. Thus, the definition of emotional labor now includes labor performed in both professional and personal capacities.
Is emotional labor in the workplace a bad thing?
Emotional labor can have several advantages for the company and the individual, such as improved customer satisfaction, stronger workplace relationships, a positive professional reputation, and tremendous overall career success. As such, emotional labor isn’t inherently a bad thing.
We all experience it regularly, and it is the cornerstone of relationship-based or interpersonal roles such as customer service work, sales, counseling, and more. However, exerting too much emotional labor can also harm employees.
The hidden cost of emotional labor
While emotional labor isn’t inherently bad, it can harm people’s well-being. Here are some potential consequences of emotional labor that employees and employers need to be aware of and watch out for.
Emotional exhaustion and burnout: A recent study on emotional labor within the healthcare profession found that emotional labor was “significantly positively correlated with emotional exhaustion, physical and mental health, and anxiety.”
Performing emotional labor, especially in an emotionally demanding role like healthcare, can become exhausting if you need more time to rest, recharge, and engage in self-care, eventually leading to burnout.
Increased stress levels: Performing emotional labor may cause an increase in stress. Work stress is already a significant issue for most Americans, so adding to this concern with added emotional labor can speed up burnout.
Reduced job satisfaction: The added exhaustion and stress from emotional labor may plummet employee satisfaction levels, which can then impact job performance, retention, and productivity as well.
Difficulty separating work and personal life: When we don’t correctly separate our work and personal lives, we often feel emotionally exhausted because we cannot correctly disconnect from work.
Performing too much emotional labor may make it hard to leave your thoughts and feelings about the workday at work, and they can then bleed into your outside life, such as your hobbies or family time.
Potential for resentment and cynicism: Resentment and cynicism are common symptoms of burnout. Employees struggling to manage the emotional labor aspect of their roles may become disengaged and take on a negative outlook toward their jobs, peers, and even themselves over time.
Emotional dissonance: When your genuine emotions conflict with those you have to portray at work, it can create a negative feeling of emotional dissonance. Many employees perform surface acting (portraying false outward emotions) or deep acting (trying to alter your inner emotions to fit the demands of the work or social setting) at work, which can create feelings of emotional dissonance.
Is emotional labor taking a toll on your well-being?
If you’re finding that emotional labor is taking a toll on your physical and mental well-being, try these coping strategies:
Set boundaries: It can feel incredibly intimidating to say no to things at work. However, sometimes it’s necessary. Turn off your Slack notifications when you leave for the day to properly disconnect. Also, stay out of your work inbox on weekends. It’s okay to say no when you don’t have the emotional bandwidth.
This is especially true if you are being asked to take on an unfair burden. An unfair burden could include performing duties outside your job role or an unevenly distributed team workload.
Practice mindfulness: Try mindfulness techniques to identify your feelings, center yourself, and manage those emotions. If mindfulness practices like meditation or breathing exercises aren’t your thing, you could also try walking during your work breaks. Exercising and fresh air sometimes help you sit with your emotions and calm your mind.
Seek support: Reach out for support when you need it. Talking to someone can be a great way to release and process your emotions, especially when performing high levels of emotional labor. This can be through peer support from a friend or talking to a professional such as a therapist.
The gendered nature of emotional labor
There is often an underlying expectation that women perform more emotional labor than men, and this expectation is often unspoken.
As a result, women bear a disproportionate burden of emotional labor in both personal and professional settings.
Consequently, it is hard for women to find time to focus on themselves, and it is also difficult for them to recharge when they need it.
In addition, many jobs fall under the category of pink-collar work. These jobs are especially emotionally demanding.
For example, roles like executive assistants, flight attendants, or legal assistants can be incredibly emotionally demanding. The employee is expected to stay calm, collected, and organized in these roles.
At the same time, they support those in high-stress roles. These individuals may frequently struggle with emotional regulation, which further contributes to the emotional demands placed on pink-collar workers.
Strategies for managing emotional labor in the workplace
Here are some strategies to better manage the emotional labor you request from employees.
Share the load
Try to disperse emotionally laborious tasks evenly within the group. Of course, everyone is responsible for managing their own feelings and emotions during the workday. However, you can still share the load regarding added tasks or particularly stressful situations.
For instance, avoid giving one person all the more complex or pickier clients. This remains true even if you think they are good at diffusing those situations. Instead, it’s good to have everyone get some practice handling challenging customer situations.
This practice benefits the team. Furthermore, it spreads out the emotional labor across several people, preventing burnout in any one individual.
Similarly, try to share duties such as planning office birthday parties. Often, a woman in the office ends up bearing the emotional burden of planning celebrations and rallying everyone together, even if it’s entirely outside their job role. Encourage everyone to share the load in the emotional labor that comes with these workplace social situations.
Offer support
Provide employees with resources and tools that help them prioritize their emotional well-being. Employee assistance programs (EAPs) are an excellent benefit. EAPs can provide short-term counseling that helps employees work through their personal feelings.
It also helps them navigate other stressors in their lives, such as finding childcare or tackling financial planning concerns. In addition, workplace wellness programs can be a great way to invest in your employees’ well-being and help them engage in self-care.
Give employees a break from emotional work
Many more emotionally laborious roles require employees to put on a performance. The positivity, enthusiasm, and interpersonal conversations expressed by flight attendants, greeters, cashiers, and waitstaff are a big part of a customer’s experience and the overall atmosphere of your establishment.
So they need to be “on” in front of customers, but this gets emotionally exhausting quickly.
Be aware of high-stress periods
On an individual basis, we all encounter periods of our lives where balancing our emotions may be more challenging. As an employer, you will only sometimes know what’s happening in employees’ lives and how that impacts their emotional labor capacity.
However, employers should aim to be aware of more readily apparent extenuating factors that can increase an employee’s emotional load, such as:
The holiday season: People tend to perform more emotional labor at work and home during the holidays. The social elements of in-office celebrations or holiday parties can add to an employee’s emotional labor workload due to the increased social interactions with coworkers.
Changes in the workplace: Various workplace changes, such as organizational restructuring, management transitions, layoffs, and more, may cause heightened anxiety and tension.
Major world events: Employees must manage their emotions around events like pandemics, elections, and other newsworthy events.
Emotional labor in the workplace: A growing concern
Emotional labor isn’t new. People have been managing their feelings and emotions at work for decades and even centuries. However, emotional labor and its impact on job performance and personal well-being have become a growing concern in recent years due to a few different factors.
The way we work has changed
Remote and hybrid work provide employees with more independence and flexibility. It’s easier to take a moment to practice mindfulness or step outside for some fresh air to center yourself when you’re at home and not being directly watched by your supervisors.
However, there’s another side to this. We all have work emails, instant messaging tools, and other collaboration programs on our devices at home. Consequently, it’s harder to separate personal time from work time.
For example, employees might receive and respond to messages outside of work hours, which creates added emotional labor. In particular, they likely have to manage their emotions around these work conversations. Simultaneously, they are handling personal or family obligations, which further increases the emotional burden.
We’re living in tumultuous times
Managing your emotions at work becomes more complex when significant things are going on in the world. The last five years have seen many ups and downs, with major public health issues, challenging economic conditions, and notable socio-political events.
Employees have had to continue working through these events, which have changed the overall work landscape and the financial security of businesses and families. As a result, this can require extra emotional labor.
Furthermore, we’re now connected to the news in a way that we weren’t before. This is due to social media’s current nature and the 24/7 news cycle. People hear about significant world events immediately through their smartphones.
Additionally, sites like LinkedIn make employees more acutely aware of major layoffs within their industries, which can invoke anxiety and uncertainty.
Burnout rates are increasing
The 2024 NAMI Workplace Mental Health report found that 52% of employees surveyed felt burned out in the past year because of their jobs. 37% said they felt so overwhelmed that it made it hard to do their job.
This staggering number spans different demographics and levels throughout companies. In this survey, women reported burnout at higher rates than men. This suggests that added emotional labor may accelerate burnout in female employees. Specifically, women may experience burnout faster compared to their male peers due to this added burden.
Experienced and manager-level employees reported higher burnout levels than entry-level staff. This is worth noting because managers are often overlooked in burnout initiatives. Moreover, managing other people requires a heightened level of emotional labor.
Managers are responsible for supporting their direct reports, helping them work through challenges, and often navigating complex conversations around performance, which further contributes to their emotional labor.
Additional resources:
The 5 emotional intelligence competencies you need to have
Foolproof strategies to resolve conflict in the workplace
Emotional intelligence coaching strategies for employees
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