When the smile is work – about rhythm and sustainability in work with people

Abstract

Emotional work demands – like life itself – regulation of emotions. Currently, modern service jobs are emotional work, where the work day can be seen as a chain of interactions with other persons. Each relation as a service meeting or a service relation (Gutek et al. 2002) forms a little work process. Rhythm and sustainability in this work is created when the workflow exchanges between standardized tasks that can be solved smoothly, and a smaller proportion of interactions that indeed, requires extra effort, and self-management, but where most of the interactions get a good outcome. We have identified some particularly demanding work situations; and observed how some service providers solve them in a proactive manner, while others work more responsively (reactive). An antecedent or proactive focus can – next to prevent many negative outcomes – be characterized by the service provider’s use of a ‘tipping point’ in the situation, where it is possible to connect, get attention and awareness by use of a solution-focused behaviour (Amble & Gjerberg 2003). Response-focused emotion regulation at the work place may increase, for example, signs of job strain, job dissatisfaction and emotional exhaustion (Grandey & et al. 2005). In each interaction, the employee may choose to use emotions and emotional expression or not, sometimes it is inevitable that it happens spontaneously. However, what counts most in relation to their own well-being, which does not directly depend on the emotions expressed in the situation, is “the verdict from one’s own feelings” in the aftermath of such a demanding work situation. It sets the mood (Larsen 2000) and becomes the basis for the next interaction. The surprise, for both researchers and the emotional workers themselves, is that only a few episodes, reflecting demanding interactions, and when they have a negative outcome, have the strength to shadow for a majority of the interactions during that same day which actually has been good. Mastery (Bandura 1997) of a few but challenging work tasks can make a difference between the feeling of joy or jittery – a good or a bad day. This article explores several interactive research projects, in private service as well as public health care. Taking into account previous studies on the role of job autonomy and its buffering effect on strain (Karasek and Theorell 1990; Wharton 1993b, Hvid 2009), we wanted to examine how reflection on certain demanding work tasks, with an aim to improving performance (Amble & Gjerberg 2009 b), affects the workers’ perception of job autonomy as well as various types of work characteristics. By using the Demand/Control model (Karasek 1979) and by identifying rhythms (Hvid et al. 2008) in emotional work, the purpose is to investigate how sustainability in this type of work, also must include an opportunity for collegial development, where employees are given the opportunity to learn and train sufficient expertise, a repertoire of behaviour, as the basis for the experience of autonomy and to be in control.