Service with a Smile

"Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It is a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do, if you are to bring it to your customer interactions."

In organizational behavior, emotion is defined as a mental and cognitive response to an event or entity (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996). Emotions is called as functional patterns of behavior that leads to the employees to adapt to their own working environment (Rivena 1985). In this essay, the main purpose is to elaborate further about the definition of emotional labor. The pros and cons of emotional labor will also be discussed. Different examples with different kind of organization or industry that practices emotional labor will be supported by examples from Starbucks. When the emotional labor of a company if not handled properly, it will definitely lead to toxic emotion such as stress, depression which will cause a harm to the organization and finally ways to avoid toxic emotions will be discussed.

Emotional labor needs a “expression of organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transaction” (Morris 1996). Morris and Feldman (1996) also define emotional labor as “the effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions”. This quote actually indicates that one “feels” will influence the way of a person “acts” towards their customers (Van Maanen 1989). Emotional labor is defined as when an employer of an organization appropriates the emotions of the employees. It is also defined as the degree of manipulation of one’s inner feelings to display the appropriate emotion in response to display rules or occupational norms. It suggests that emotional labour is primarily beneficial to the employer and organization. A uniform behavior by all employees will result in efficient fulfilment of duties, provision of high-quality services, and regular customers. According to Ashforth and Lee (1990), emotional...