Not All Emotional Demands Are the Same: Emotional Demands from Clients' or Co-Workers' Relations Have Different Associations with Well-Being in Service Workers.

Joana Duarte,Mikaela Owen,Hanne Berthelsen

doi:10.3390/ijerph17217738

Abstract

There has been an increased interest in the study of emotional demands (ED) at work and its impact on workers’ well-being. However, ED have been conceptualized as a unitary concept, focused on interactions with clients, and excluding other potential sources of ED at work. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to explore the relation between ED from different relational sources (clients/patients/customers and colleagues, supervisors, and employees) and service workers’ exhaustion and engagement. Cross-sectional data from a sample of 2742 service workers were analysed using structural equation modelling. Results showed that ED from both sources (clients and colleagues) were associated with more emotional exhaustion, particularly if dealing with clients was not an integrated part of the role. Further, ED from clients’ relations were negatively associated with engagement for managers with staff responsibility, but positively for managers without staff responsibility. We also found moderating effects of psychosocial safety climate (PSC), whereby ED had the strongest effect on emotional exhaustion when PSC was low. This study suggests that different relational sources of ED at work have a different impact on employees’ well-being. Strategies that promote a reduction of extra-role ED, and the development of a PSC in the organization, could therefore offer possible solutions to promote employees’ psychological well-being and motivation.

Highlights

In the past couple of decades, there has been a shift away from an economy dominated by industrialization to an economy that is heavily reliant upon the service sector
Results from this study offer several theoretical and practical implications. This is the first study to our knowledge to have differentiated between sources of emotional demands, and offers a new avenue of research for future studies looking at emotional demands at work
The finding that challenge and hindrance emotional demands were both positively related to emotional exhaustion, while differently related to engagement suggests that these are not opposites poles of the same continuum as has been previously suggested [53]

Summary

Introduction

In the past couple of decades, there has been a shift away from an economy dominated by industrialization to an economy that is heavily reliant upon the service sector. The dominant service sector poses risks to workers in the form of emotional demands as a result of the interpersonal nature underpinning this line of work [2,3]. This has stimulated a wave of interest in the literature on the importance of emotional demands. Emotional demands have been understood as those aspects of a job that

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion