EXAMINING THE CONCEPT OF EMOTIONAL LABOUR IN RELATION TO EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

This paper theoretically examined the concept of Emotional Labor in relation to the Negative and Positive impacts it has on employee performance. Based on extant Literature, three dimensions of emotional labor were adopted as the most reliable indicator of emotional labor namely attentiveness of emotion display, varieties of emotions to be displayed and frequency of emotional display. Consequently, our findings revealed that emotional labor is a phenomenon characterized by mixed effect. This is to say that each act of emotional labor displayed by employees in the organization leaves the employees with some positive or negative outcomes which could affect their performance in the organization. The study further discovered that emotional labor could produce some favorable outcomes for the employees such as increased job satisfaction and performance while in cases where employees are forced to display emotions other than their own could lead to stress, burnouts and decreased job performance. To mitigate against these negative tendencies of emotional labor, measures such as proper assessment, self-selection processes, social support and trainings in this area were recommended. Keywords: Emotional labor, Attentiveness of emotion display, varieties of emotion display, frequency of emotion display, Employee Performance, Productivity, and Excellent service delivery CITATION: Baridam, L. Q., & Oburu, C. E. (2020). Examining the concept of emotional labour in relation to employee performance.  The Strategic Journal of Business & Change Management , 7(2), 240 – 248.