Emotional Labor and Crisis Response – Chapters 1 and 3

What is emotional labor?

Research

“intense interpersonal work demands emotional labor. For pay. Emotions for sale.”

Emotional labor is the internal process all of us go through in order to reconcile what is inside us and what an organization expects from us.

Plays a role in almost all levels of government jobs

Performing emotional labor need not lead to burnout

It is part of an occupation, not something you just bring to the job

Originally argued that women did more emotional labor than man, but research found that wasn't true

Mary Guy, Sharon Mastracci, and Meredith Newman discovered that emotional labor doesn’t show up in job descriptions, performance evaluation, or pay in the public sector

Problem

Emotion Regulation Strategies:

Human Capital Issues

Public organizations require emotional labor to deliver effective public service

Situation Modification

Response Modulation

Attention Deployment

The work of first responders is labor intense and emotional. It cannot be done by a machine so HR practices are important

Critical Incident Stress Management

Term used by law enforcement, firefighters, and other emergency rescue squads for combatting emotional damage

Self Care

Needs to be formalized