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