Emotional Labor in the Hospitality Industry

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how customer service, regardless of venue, albeit clinical, retail, collections, telemarketing or hospitality, is one on the most difficult employment areas within which to be employed. It looks at how servicing people requires the service agent to be respectful, courteous, ethical, and have the ability to resolve problems, inquiries, and/or complaints as quickly and expeditiously as possible at all times. It explores how the required skill of emotion labor is generally not recognizable by customer or employer, as both entities have removed themselves from the front lines of customer service and how, in order to maximize the quality of offered guest services, there exists a need for both employer and employee to recognize the value of emotional labor.

From the Paper:

"The emotional labor phenomenon in psychology is a complex process to understand when attempting to explain something that is yet to be recognized by occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, or business professionals. Emotional labor, as a skill, can best be defined as the being able to emotionally engage and or detach from a situation pursuit of excellent customer service (Ohlson, 2004). Further, the concept of emotional labor cannot be defined without adding the construct of emotional work to the definition. Both emotional labor and emotional work are intricately combined to form what is generally termed as value related job requirements. Knowing that all labor is emotional, what separates the novice from the artist is the emotion tied to the work."

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