The hospitality industry is a stressful and demanding sector that requires workers to interact with customers and provide them with excellent services. In this context, emotional labor is essential to customer service, which involves the management of emotions and feelings to meet specific customer service standards. Workers must continually adjust their behavior and express certain emotions to meet customer needs. However, emotional labor demands can tax workers and lead to burnout and stress, job dissatisfaction, and lack of trust. Therefore, this essay argues that the hotel should reduce emotional labor to improve worker well-being and customer satisfaction.
Developing appropriate emotion recognition abilities is a valuable step towards emotional intelligence. The peer-reviewed source by Koc and Boz (2020) focuses on developing hospitality and tourism employees’ emotional intelligence through developing their emotion recognition abilities. The study explores the impact of providing workers with training and support to help them better manage their emotions and feelings. The authors note that such training and support can contribute to an increased understanding of emotions, improved communication skills, and better overall performance in the workplace (Koc & Boz, 2020). The study looked at the effect of a training program designed to improve the emotion recognition abilities of hospitality and tourism employees. The results showed that providing training and support to employees in this field can significantly improve their emotional intelligence. Hence, providing employees with training and support to help them better manage their emotions and feelings can effectively improve their emotional intelligence and overall performance in the workplace.
Moreover, reducing emotional labor can lead to improved customer satisfaction. Emotional labor can be seen in the service industry, particularly in the hospitality sector, where employees must display a positive attitude and maintain emotional control to provide quality customer service. Wang looks at how reducing emotional labor can improve customer satisfaction and finds that reducing emotional labor can lead to better overall performance in terms of service quality (Wang, 2020). He suggests that reducing emotional labor benefits hotel employees and customers, as it can help reduce stress and improve customer satisfaction. The author also examines how different factors influence emotional labor and customer satisfaction by looking at the role of job characteristics, such as job autonomy and skill variety, on emotional labor and customer satisfaction (Wang, 2020). The results indicate that job characteristics can influence emotional labor and customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, hotel employees who anticipate emotional labor are more likely to experience job dissatisfaction and higher levels of turnover intention. This suggests that the pressure to manage their emotions and feelings to meet customer needs can lead to emotional exhaustion and burnout. As such, hotel management should strive to reduce the emotional labor among their workers to foster growth and motivation. This can be done by providing appropriate resources, such as training and support, to help employees manage their emotions. There are many resources, including human resources, that can help deal with emotional labor among employees. Furthermore, creating a supportive and caring work environment is crucial to recognizing employees’ efforts and addressing potential issues (McGinley et al., 2019). By reducing the pressure of emotional labor, hotel employees can reach their full potential and contribute to the organization’s success.
The challenge of managing emotions and feelings to meet customer needs can be a difficult one for hotel workers. Managing emotions can be hard to balance the customer’s needs while still ensuring that their feelings and emotions are taken into account. Therefore, it is essential to remain professional and courteous to customers, even when they may be complex or demanding. Managing emotions can be emotionally exhausting, as hotel workers are often expected to be constantly pleasant and accommodating, even when they may not feel like it. The effect can lead to resentment and burnout, as hotel workers may not be able to express their feelings and emotions to ensure customer satisfaction (McGinley et al., 2019). The constant pressure to remain pleasant and professional can take an emotional toll and lead to long-term burnout. Hence, it is vital for hotel workers to be aware of their feelings and emotions and to practice self-care in order to prevent emotional exhaustion and burnout.
Besides, providing hotel workers autonomy over their work can help reduce the emotional labor they must perform by helping them gain control over their work. By allowing hotel workers to take more control over their work, they can set boundaries and have more influence over the decisions that affect them. This can help reduce their emotional labor as they become more in control of their work environment. Additionally, when hotel workers have autonomy over their work, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated to perform their tasks, which can help reduce their stress levels and improve their work experience (Lee et al., 2019). In many organizations, employees who are totally denied the autonomy to act out of will and make sound decisions always live in fear of their employers. Therefore, giving hotel workers autonomy over their work can also create a sense of trust between them and their employers, which can help reduce the emotional labor they must perform.
Giving hotel workers autonomy over their work helps create a sense of trust between them and their employers. First, autonomy gives the worker a sense of ownership over their work, which can help to foster feelings of loyalty and commitment. Moreover, autonomy also gives the worker more control over their work environment, which can help to foster mutual respect between the worker and their employer. When workers are free to make decisions about their work and take the initiative, they are more likely to feel valued and respected by their employers (Lee et al., 2019). Likewise, autonomy can also give the worker a sense of security. When workers are given autonomy over their work, they are more likely to feel safe and secure in their jobs, knowing that their employer trusts them to do their jobs well. Thus, this can create a feeling of mutual trust between the worker and their employer.
There exists a relationship between emotional intelligence, emotional labor, perceived organizational support, and job satisfaction. Wen and his colleagues use a moderated mediation model to investigate how these variables interact to affect job satisfaction (Wen et al., 2019). The authors hypothesized that emotional intelligence and perceived organizational support would be positively associated with job satisfaction and that emotional labor would be negatively associated with job satisfaction (Wen et al., 2019). They also hypothesized that emotional intelligence and perceived organizational support would moderate the relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction (Wen et al., 2019). The study’s results suggest that emotional intelligence and perceived organizational support are positively associated with job satisfaction and that perceived organizational support moderates the relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction. Additionally, the findings suggest that organizations should focus on developing emotional intelligence skills among their employees (Wen et al., 2019). This study is particularly relevant in today’s workplace, where the need for emotional intelligence and job satisfaction is becoming increasingly important.
Most importantly, training and support are essential in helping hotel workers to manage their emotions and feelings better because it provides them with the resources and tools they need to respond correctly and handle challenging situations. With these resources, hotel workers can better understand their emotions and reactions and have the confidence to handle complex interactions with guests and other employees. Training and support can help hotel workers to identify their emotions and the triggers that cause them. Through this, they can learn to recognize their own emotions and the emotions of others and find more constructive, positive ways to respond (Koc & Boz, 2020). The impact of providing hotel workers with training and support to help them better manage their emotions and feelings is significant. It can help hotel workers build stronger relationships with guests and other employees and can lead to improved job satisfaction and productivity. Hence, adequate training and support help create a safe and positive working environment where employees feel supported and valued.
In conclusion, the hotel should reduce emotional labor to improve worker well-being and customer satisfaction. The hotel can achieve this by providing workers with training and support and more autonomy. By reducing emotional labor, the hotel can ensure that workers can better manage their emotions and feelings, improving customer satisfaction. Putting some effort towards reducing emotional labor can significantly improve hotel workers’ job satisfaction, which is an essential aspect of any employee. Therefore, the hotel needs to reduce emotional labor to improve worker well-being and customer experience.
References
Koc, E., & Boz, H. (2020). Development of hospitality and tourism employees’ emotional intelligence through developing their emotion recognition abilities. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 29(2), 121–138. Web.
Lee, L., & Madera, J. M. (2019). A systematic literature review of emotional labor research from the hospitality and tourism literature. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31(7), 2808–2826. Web.
McGinley, S. P., Wei, W., & Gao, L. (2019). The effect of anticipated emotional labor on Hotel Employees’ Professional mobility. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 28(4), 491–512. Web.
Wang, C.-J. (2020). Managing emotional labor for service quality: A cross-level analysis among hotel employees. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 88, 102396. Web.
Wen, J., Huang, S. (S., & Hou, P. (2019). Emotional intelligence, emotional labor, perceived organizational support, and job satisfaction: A moderated mediation model. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 81, 120–130. Web.