Managing a Kinder, Gentler World of Work: Emotional Labour and Workplace Governance

• Author: Anne P. Crick
• Pages: 235-252

235

CHALLENGE OF WORKPLACE GOVERNANCE

Managing a Kinder, Gentler

World of Work: Emotional and

Workplace Governance

In the new economy, more and more of us will be serving one another and

the way in which we serve will be increasingly important. Indeed, we will

be expected to provide not only efficient service, but service with a smile and

pleasant attitude. Pine and Gilmore (1998) even suggest that service employees

will have to create experiences through memorable interactions with their

customers. Managing this type of service requires different mechanisms from

those used in earlier eras – a fact that many managers seem not to have

recognised. Academics who have recognised and pointed out the changes

have not helped managers by providing them with any information about

how to deliver this service. Management strategies relating to this type of

service therefore tend to be similar to the strategies used to manage not only

traditional forms of service, but even manufacturing firms.

This chapter analyses emotional labour and the requirements that it places

on service employees and on service organisations. It critically analyses the

methods used to manage this new type of labour and indicates some potential

problems that may result from these methods. The next section provides an

overview of service in light of the demands of the new economy and discusses

the implications of these demands for the service employee and for the manager

of service employees. In the third section, we look briefly at research conducted

in the Jamaican environment which suggests that Jamaican managers have a

keen interest in emotional labour. The fourth section of the chapter examines

alternative mechanisms of governance and provides guidelines that managers

may use to determine the most appropriate method of managing. The chapter

ends with brief concluding comments.

)

Several years ago, Hochschild (1983) argued that, when it was no longer

possible to compete solely on price, competition based on service would

 

236 HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

become more important. Today, as some organisations promise customers

that “smiles are free” and others advertise for “smiling faces,” it is apparent

that organisations are interested in more than providing customers with low

prices. The low price strategy, is in fact, ultimately destructive and

unsustainable for all except the most robust organisations. Another basis of

competition – competition based on product quality – is somewhat more

durable but may be replicated easily by other organisations. In the past, the

time to replicate product improvements might have been months or even

years, but today those changes may take only a matter of days. Many

organisations therefore have determined that in addition to improvements in

price and quality, they must pay attention to improving the type of service

given.

There are, of course, many different types of service improvement

including a speed up of service such as that introduced by Cable & Wireless

Jamaica when they re-configured their service departments and added staff to

reduce waiting time. Service may also be made more convenient for the

customer by extending opening hours or by introducing 24-hour telephone

services. Some businesses have even started the ultimate in convenience –

home delivery of some products such as musical CDs. Another common

strategy is to enhance service by providing customers with personalised services

such as their personal banker. These service improvements are clearly important

and welcomed by consumers who are increasingly short of time and who

crave convenience. They are, however, generic strategies that can be, and have

been, copied by competitors. Some organisations have therefore realised that

it is important to compete on the basis of the customer-employee interaction.

Carlzon (1987) has called this kind of interaction “a moment of truth” –

the moment when the customer interacts with a representative of the

organisation and on that basis makes a judgement of the organisation. A

single moment of truth may be used by the customer to determine whether

the organisation’s promises of service and product quality are indeed true. An

employee’s failure to perform well in this moment of truth may therefore

tarnish the organisation’s reputation, perhaps irrevocably. Since customers

are so varied and have different needs, employees need to adjust their actions,

behaviours and responses to fit each one.

These moments of truth become increasingly important because, as

Hochschild (1993) points out, many organisations have cut the level of services

that they offer but do not wish customers to realise this. Hochschild argues

that in the airline business, for example, the level of comfort and convenience

has been dramatically reduced and airlines try to disguise this by focusing

customers on the attributes of their flight attendants. Flight attendants are