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Appraising Emotion Work: Determining Whether Emotional Labor Is Valued in Government Jobs Sharon H. Mastracci, Meredith A. Newman and Mary E. Guy The American Review of Public Administration 2006; 36; 123 DOI: 10.1177/0275074005280642 The online version of this article can be found at: http://arp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/2/123

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The American ARTICLE 10.1177/0275074005280642 Mastracci et al.Review / Appraising of Public Emotion Administration W ork

Appraising Emotion Work Determining Whether Emotional Labor Is Valued in Government Jobs

American Review of Public Administration Volume 36 Number 2 June 2006 123-138 © 2006 Sage Publications 10.1177/0275074005280642 http://arp.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

Sharon H. Mastracci University of Illinois–Chicago

Meredith A. Newman University of Illinois–Springfield

Mary E. Guy Florida State University In an era when greater responsiveness is required of government workers, the authors test whether there is a blind spot in employee performance appraisals that prevents rewarding the most effective workers. Emotional labor—work that is relational and involves the manipulation and expression of emotions—is labor intensive and is required of many public service workers if they are to perform their jobs well. The authors hypothesize that rationality, or “left brain” work, remains privileged whereas relational work remains marginalized and unrewarded. To investigate whether there is a disconnect between the required performance of emotional labor and annual appraisals that acknowledge its performance, the authors review appraisal instruments used by public agencies in Illinois. Results confirm that 86% of the instruments identify the performance of emotion work at only a perfunctory level or lower. The lack of acknowledgement renders such labor invisible and contributes to depressed wages of those whose jobs require it. Keywords: emotional labor; performance appraisal; gender differences; wage disparity

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ew public management’s approach to citizens qua customers encourages “service with a smile.” Ten years of the Government Performance and Results Act at the federal level and similar initiatives at the state and local levels have brought greater emphasis to organizational accountability in the performance of public programs. Several federal agencies as well as the states of Florida and Georgia now hire state workers on an “at will” basis. These initiatives are heralded as a means for encouraging workers to be more “customer friendly” to citizens and for dismissing them when they are not. As if in a time warp, however, most job descriptions and performance appraisals are written the same today as they were in the industrial age that benefited from Frederick Taylor’s (1911) Principles of Scientific Management. The process of job construction, where tasks are

Authors’ Note: An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2004 meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. The authors are grateful to the panelists for their helpful comments. The authors are also grateful for the research assistance of DiAna McCarter, who facilitated the data gathering process. Initial Submission: July 14, 2004 Accepted: May 16, 2005

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lumped together to form clearly defined jobs, is designed to depersonalize work and separate it from the person who performs it. By doing so, managers can treat workers as interchangeable parts, where any employee with X skill can perform any job with X requirements. A corollary to this is that only those tasks that are observable are delineated. This assures an impersonal, objective evaluative process that protects against favoritism because of race, age, gender, kinship, or any other characteristic that differentiates one worker from another. (See, for example, Lytle, 1946, as cited in Figart, 2000, p. 1). It also assures that those labors that are relational in nature will not be recognized and will not be compensated. This singular focus on manifest skills rests on an ideology of work that is a holdover from norms suited to the industrial era. Missing from this modus operandi is any mention of relational work that involves anticipating the needs of others, caring and nurturing, and communicating affectively as well as verbally. These tasks are a mainstay of health and human service professions, public education, paraprofessional jobs, most support positions, and overthe-counter transactions between government clerks and citizens (Guy & Newman, 2004).

What Is Emotional Labor? In this article, we query the extent to which emotional labor has become recognized as an important workplace skill. Do performance measures include it in the lexicon of employee evaluations? To place our study in context, we first present an overview of the concept of emotional labor. Emotional labor shares similarities as well as differences with physical labor. Both require skilled experience and are subject to external controls and divisions of labor (James, 1993). Any definition of emotional labor1 begins with the seminal work of sociologist Arlie Hochschild (1983). Hochschild uses the term to mean “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” intended to produce a particular state of mind in others; “emotional labor is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value” (p. 7). Emotional labor is a “gesture in a social exchange; it has a function there and is not to be understood merely as a facet of personality” (Hochschild, 1979, p. 568). Emotion work becomes a public act, “bought on the one hand and sold on the other” (Hochschild, 1983, p. 118). It requires that workers suppress their private feelings to show the “desirable” work-related emotion. In other words, the focus is on an emotional performance that is bought and sold as a commodity. In her study of flight attendants, Hochschild (1983) states that the company “lays claim not simply to her physical motions—how she handles food trays—but to her emotional actions and the way they show in the ease of a smile” (pp. 7-8). For the flight attendant, then, the smiles are an integral part of her work, just as much as her other job-relevant tasks. Hochschild’s explanation of emotional labor derives from Goffman’s (1959) “dramaturgical” or “acting” perspective of emotional display in social interactions. As an emotional performance, emotional labor involves both surface acting (where the employee feigns emotion) and deep acting (where the employee attempts to invoke and feel the actual displayed emotions; Hochschild, 1979, 1983). Even the authentic expression of emotion is work. According to Ashforth and Humphrey (1993), it includes spontaneous and genuine emotion that can be displayed with little prompting, such as a caseworker’s deeply felt concern for clients as expressed to comfort or empathize. To understand why this matters in public service jobs, consider a citizen’s response when a public employee seems cold and uncaring. Such a


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perception causes the citizen to criticize the services being rendered, whether the job performance is technically correct or not. In sum, emotion work is part of the job that must be done well for citizens to positively evaluate their interaction with the state. Emotional labor has been defined in a number of ways: as a covert resource (Hochschild, 1993), as an invisible yet expected component of job performance (Karabanow, 2000; Steinberg & Figart, 1999a, 1999b), as the act of complying with organizationally mandated display rules (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Humphrey, 2000), and as the effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotion during interpersonal transactions (Domagalski, 1999; Morris & Feldman, 1997). It has also been characterized as an oxymoron by linking emotion, a negatively valued experience, to labor, a positively valued means of production (Putnam & Mumby, 1993). All this is to say that emotion work is a task without a name. At this time, a vocabulary that adequately captures emotional-labor demands does not exist. Until it does, it will remain not acknowledged, not evaluated, and not compensated. Emotional labor does not fit easily into a box. It comprises both soft (feminine) and hard (masculine) emotions. The purpose of emotional labor is to make citizens feel good or feel bad, depending on the circumstances. In these terms, the jobs of mayor’s assistant and prison guard can be viewed as opposite poles of emotional labor. One employs a smile and requires its incumbents to be “nicer than natural.” The other employs toughness and requires “nastier than natural” behavior. Acting in a neutral manner may also involve demanding emotional work as one suppresses one’s true feelings and should be recognized as a form of emotional labor (Tracy & Tracy, 1998).

Literature Review Within these cloudy definitional parameters, we summarize the research that informs this study. There is a rich body of work beginning to emerge on the subject of emotional labor as it is performed on the job. Much of this is being conducted by sociologists and by feminist economists, although recent work in public administration is finding its way into the literature (Guy & Newman, 2004; Meier & Wilson, 2004). There are a number of recurring themes within this literature. Most fundamentally, research has addressed the dichotomy between the rational aspects of organizations and the role of emotion in the organizing process (Domagalski, 1999; Fineman, 1993; Shuler & Sypher, 2000). When rationality is viewed as the norm, emotion is no more than a disruptive influence on efficiency and effective functions (Tracy & Tracy, 1998). To accommodate emotion in the workplace, Putnam and Mumby (1993) advance an ideal they call bounded emotionality, which counters the dominant view of bounded rationality as articulated by Simon (1976). According to Putnam and Mumby, bureaucracy privileges rationality and marginalizes emotional experience. That is, “emotion is normally juxtaposed against rationality as a marginal mode of experience to be minimized in routine organizational life” (p. 41). In this way, emotional expressions are often characterized in gendered terms and become regarded either as appropriate, that is, masculine, or as inappropriate, that is, feminine (Ollilainen, 2000). For example, when women’s emotional expression is associated with nonrational behavior, their organizational contributions are devalued. A second stream of research focuses on rules governing the expression of positive emotions, generally in service-based occupations, such as convenience store clerks (Sutton &


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Rafaeli, 1988); flight attendants (Hochschild, 1983); food servers (Paules, 1991); those in fast food, insurance (Leidner, 1993), banking, and health industries (Wharton, 1993); litigators and paralegals (Pierce, 1995, 1999); and professors (Bellas, 1999). Negative emotions receive specific attention from Sutton (1991) in his study of bill collectors. Taken together, these studies highlight how emotions are commodified by employers. The expression of emotions is formally controlled and regulated to satisfy organizational goals. According to this body of research, the display of organizationally desired emotions assumes an exchange value because it is construed as a form of labor that is performed in return for a wage (Domagalski, 1999). Finally, the consequences of emotional labor are examined in terms of both positive and negative outcomes. The early emphasis on negative repercussions of emotional labor has been qualified and refined by more recent studies. Building on the work of Hochschild (1983), research has addressed unfavorable consequences of emotional labor (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Conrad & Witte, 1994; Kahn, 1993; Morris & Feldman, 1996; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987; Waldron, 1994; Wouters, 1989). The most often cited negative outcome associated with emotional labor is burnout (Tolich, 1993; Wharton, 1993). Other indicators of psychological health are also examined, including stress (Sharrad, 1992), poor self-esteem, depression, cynicism, role alienation, self-alienation (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Fineman, 1993; Seeman, 1991), and emotional deviance (Fineman, 1993; Tolich, 1993). These outcomes are generally associated with the concept of emotional dissonance, defined as the separation of felt emotion from feigned emotion expressed to meet organizational expectations. A few scholars, however, confirm Hochschild’s assertion that emotional labor can also produce favorable results, including increased satisfaction, security, and self-esteem (Strickland, 1992; Tolich, 1993; Wharton, 1993); increased psychological well-being (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Conrad & Witte, 1994); decreased stress (Conrad & Witte, 1994); increased task effectiveness (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Connellan & Zemke, 1993); and an increased sense of community (Shuler & Sypher, 2000). One concludes from these contradictory findings that further research along these lines is warranted. This article focuses on the first step in this research stream: to determine to what degree performance appraisals in public service agencies include an explicit evaluation of the performance of emotion work.

Jobs and Emotional Labor Both men and women engage in emotional labor. Hochschild (1983) estimates that approximately one third of American workers have jobs that subject them to substantial demands for emotional labor.2 Moreover, of all women working, more than one half have jobs that call for emotional labor. Nevertheless, men and women “do” emotional labor differently, with different outcomes. For example, service workers, who are primarily women, are expected to display emotions such as nurturance. Professionals and others in jobs dominated by men are expected either to display no emotion or to express hard emotions, such as anger and implied threats, to induce fear and compliance in others (Martin, 1999). Hochschild explains these differing expectations as follows: “The world turns to women for mothering, and this fact silently attaches itself to many a job description” (p. 170). Because men often find it easier to express emotions to a woman than to another man, they frequently cast women into the stereotypical role of “nurturant mother” (Martin, 1999) or confidante. Differ-



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ent role expectations attach to women and to men, even within the same occupation (for a discussion of paralegals, see Guy & Newman, 2004). Moreover, women are expected to perform more emotional labor than men, even within the same occupation (Morris & Feldman, 1996). Caring work is exceptional or optional for men, whereas it is obligatory for women (Bellas, 1999). Although men and women at times engage in emotional labor to produce “deference,” women are expected to do more of it (Hochschild, 1983, p. 168). For example, in her study of professors, Bellas (1999) found that students expected female professors to be warmer and more supportive than male professors and judged them more harshly when they were not. Teaching and service involve substantial amounts of emotional labor but are generally seen as requiring no special training and, as a consequence, are rewarded less than administration and research are rewarded. Hochschild (1983) explains this dynamic in the following general terms: “The more she seems natural at it, the more her labor does not show as labor, the more successfully it is disguised as the absence of other, more prized qualities” (p. 169). In the same way, many of the skills possessed by nurses derive not from the qualities of being a nurse but from the qualities of being a woman—a statement that clearly renders nurses’ skills as invisible by naturalizing and essentializing them (Steinberg & Figart, 1999b). Emotional labor (at least emotional labor that involves the performance of soft emotions) does not register on the wage meter.3 Decision makers are more likely to acknowledge the exercise of instrumental skills, which are culturally coded as male. The importance of skills culturally coded as female is mostly overlooked (England & Folbre, 1999). It is not coincidental that the average salary for (mostly female) childcare workers is less than that of (mostly male) dogcatchers nationally (Clayton, 2000). The question at hand is whether an appreciation for employees’ emotive proficiency is incorporated into performance evaluation criteria. Do manifest skills remain privileged, whereas relational work is marginalized or ignored? The study employs an interpretive analysis of employee performance evaluation instruments and processes, with particular focus on the knowledge, skills, and abilities component. Emotional-labor constructs established in previous analyses are used; these include communication skills, human relations skills, enabling cooperation, and fostering teamwork (Fineman, 1993; Fletcher, 1999; Guy & Newman, 2004; Steinberg, 1999; Steinberg & Figart, 1999a, 1999b). Job performance evaluation instruments are where formal recognition would take place. Thus, the research design presumes that the appearance of key words and concepts indicates recognition of these job skills. As Deborah Figart (2000) finds, acceptable scores on job evaluations translate into positive outcomes for the worker in the form of pay increases, opportunities for advancement, and at the very least, some measure of protection from dismissal.

Method Sample. Annual appraisal forms used by Illinois state agencies were requested and evaluated to determine the extent to which they acknowledge and value emotion work. Illinois is a large, diverse state that includes the third-largest metropolitan area in the country as well as much agriculture in the rural areas and mixed industry throughout the numerous municipalities. On the basis of this fact, we expect these findings to be not unlike those in other public settings. A letter was sent to more than 100 state agencies, requesting that they send copies of


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their employee evaluation forms to the researchers for a research project aimed at identifying “the range and scope of evaluative criteria across agencies.” After the initial wave of responses, a second wave of follow-up contacts resulted in a response rate of 50%.4 Threats to validity. Because emotional labor is a relatively unexplored concept and is a work attribute that is only sparingly understood, we are sensitive to threats to validity. This investigation employed a qualitative analytical method guided by systematic, theoretically based prior research. We judged this to be the most appropriate approach to gauging the level of emotional labor recognition in performance appraisal instruments. It is unlikely that respondent self-selection is an issue. Fifty percent of the agencies contacted supplied their forms, and this provided a representative sampling of forms used. Second, Ronnie Steinberg’s method is sound and has been employed in the past, which mitigates threats to construct validity of this technique (Erickson & Ritter, 2001; Sloan, 2004). Third, no external event occurred in Illinois to trigger an appreciation or heightened sensitivity to the subject of emotional labor, as was the case in the Ontario nurses union lawsuit that Steinberg describes in her 1999 analysis. Fourth, no problem of hypothesis guessing by respondents exists; as the appendix shows, the letter never indicated what we were looking for, and we did not elaborate in any of the follow-up calls and letters. Having said this, replication of this type of analysis, using performance appraisal instruments of agencies in other states and in localities, would not only reinforce these findings but add to our overall understanding of evaluation elements, as well. Content analysis. The forms were analyzed to determine the extent to which the largely invisible emotion-work components of job classification and compensation systems are made manifest. Steinberg’s (1999) Emotional Labor Scales were used as criteria to guide the content analysis of these instruments. Steinberg identifies four factors that capture the detailed content of emotional labor: human relations, communications skills, emotional effort, and responsibility for client well-being. These factors are consistent with those identified by Hochschild (1983). Human relations and emotional effort are defined along two separate 5-point ordinal scales measuring lowest (Level A) to highest (Level E) levels of human relations and emotional effort, respectively (see the appendix for a summary table). Communication skills are defined to include “writing and speaking skills, including nonverbal skills, reading, listening, and the requirement to use a different language” (Steinberg, 1999, p. 151). This definition of communication skills coincides with Guy and Newman’s (2004) work, as well. Steinberg defines responsibility for client well-being as “informing, training, advising, counseling, teaching, nurturing, and regulating the behavior of clients to ensure their wellbeing” (p. 154). Using Steinberg’s (1999) typology, we developed three categories of emotional labor recognition. Table 1 describes each in detail. In the perfunctory category, interpersonal interactions and communication skills are restricted to only job content and work function. Moderate recognition involves complex and direct interactions with others, whether subordinates, clients, or other stakeholders. Advanced recognition of emotional labor involves an appreciation for the full range of emotional requirements in the workplace, particularly the need to employ persuasion techniques, understand group dynamics, handle emotionally charged issues publicly, deal with dangerous or hostile people, deal with highly sensitive issues, and take responsibility for the well-being of others, whether subordinates or clients.


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Ordinary personal courtesy or polished courtesy Occasionally deal with clients and/or unfriendly people Relations with the public reflect organizational image; maintain professional rapport with colleagues, clients b Motivate, mentor, coach, or train employees Empathy, compassion, reassurance, hand holding; considerable patience required Minor conflict resolution Deal regularly with people who are emotionally impaired; considerable patience required Understanding, compassion; uncooperative clients; deal with dangerous or hostile people Use of persuasion techniques, understanding group dynamics; deal with emotionally charged issues in public forums Coaching/guiding clients through difficult situations; providing comfort for those in considerable pain; deal regularly with dangerous or violent people Responsibility for the well-being of others

Key Phrasesa

D and E

C

A and B

Human Relations and Communication Skills

D and E

C

A and B

Emotional Effort and Emotional Demands

a. Phrases taken from annual appraisal forms used by Illinois state agencies. b. “Motivating and training subordinates” appears as part of Steinberg’s Level C, but because that level also involves “hand-holding, reassurance, compassion, empathy . . . resolution of minor conflicts,” and dealing regularly with people who are emotionally impaired (Steinberg, 1999, p. 151), it was determined that the mention of training and mentoring responsibilities for supervisory positions or of maintaining rapport with personal and professional contacts did not imply the full range of emotional labor described in Level C on Steinberg’s scales. If motivating, training, and workplace rapport were mentioned along with other aspects of Level C, then the appraisal instrument would be placed in the moderate category. See the appendix for detail.

Advanced

Moderate

Perfunctory

Category

Corresponding Levels in Steinberg’s (1999) Typology

Table 1 Categories of Emotional Labor Recognition in Job Appraisal Instruments

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Findings from Analyzing Performance Appraisal Instruments Of the 49 respondents, 23 use standard Central Management Services forms.5 Human relations and communications-skill demands described on the standard forms indicate Level A or Level B recognition of emotional labor. Leadership and subordinate-development skill requirements on these forms not only are restricted to managerial and supervisory personnel but also suggest an only technically oriented relationship with clients or staff members. They do not reach the level required by Steinberg’s typology for “hand-holding, reassurance, compassion, empathy . . . resolution of minor conflicts,” and dealing regularly with people who are emotionally impaired (Steinberg, 1999, p. 151). Table 2 displays the analysis of 73 performance appraisal instruments along with characteristic phrases quoted from forms. Findings reveal that most agencies pay only the most rudimentary attention to emotion work. Five percent include no mention of any form of emotional labor, not even basic elements of interpersonal communication such as effective written and oral communication skills. Eighty-one percent pay perfunctory attention to it, whereas about 14% give moderate or advanced recognition to it. Perfunctory. As shown in the table, the forms from 49 agencies showed a passing awareness that communication, working with others, and being decisive are important skills. Whether these fall within a distinct category of emotion work is debatable, but these criteria at least acknowledge the importance of the employee to be in relationship with others and to be aware of job scenarios that extend beyond the employee’s immediate situation. Moderate. This category captures agencies that include performance criteria that focus on the employee’s ability to collaborate with others in a constructive manner. However, such criteria conflate emotional intelligence with emotion work, as occurs in “accepts assignments without complaint” or “shows initiative or drive.” Emotional intelligence and emotional labor are two different but related concepts. Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor one’s performance and to know when to exercise or hold one’s affective side in check. To be effective at performing emotion work, one must have emotional intelligence. Expressed another way, emotion work is the application or performance outcome of emotional intelligence. For employers, it is the exercise of emotional labor that is of interest, because in relational work, it is the employee’s labor that yields the desirable outcome in the public service exchange between citizen and state. Advanced. It is in this category that emotion work is best expressed among the forms examined. As shown by the phrases in Table 2, one sees keywords that imply the performance of emotion work: “handles unexpected or crisis situations,” “controls emotions,” “maintains appropriate rapport,” “acts appropriately with sensitive information,” and “anticipates long and short-term needs of employees.” Criteria such as these acknowledge the work of employees who must be not only cognitively skilled but also emotionally skilled to satisfactorily complete their work.


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4

6

Moderate

Advanced

8.2

5.5

5.5 80.8

%

Representative Phrasesa Possesses the necessary written and verbal communication skills. Ability to work with others to attain goals and objectives. Presents self in dress, appearance, and conduct that meet organizational standards. Ability to weigh alternatives and arrive at conclusions. Displays good listening skills and demonstrates the ability to effectively and consistently communicate verbally with coworkers, members, and agencies. Works well with others, is willing to assist coworkers, accepts assignments without complaint. Shows initiative and drive. Is reasonable, respectful, and understanding. Considers the opinions of others when making decisions about work or the working environment. Handles unexpected or crisis situations appropriately. Functions effectively under stress. Accommodates opinions and ideas of others, controls emotions as to not disrupt, offend, or frustrate others. Effectively and persuasively expresses self in appropriate fashion to . . . clients, . . . public, and media. Establishes and maintains appropriate rapport with other employees, clients, . . . and the public. Implements effective . . . strategy, acts appropriately with sensitive information and confidential matters, demonstrates decisiveness and develops creative solutions. Fairly and objectively evaluates performance, clearly communicates directions and expectations, offers appropriate solutions, addresses issues in a timely fashion, sets a positive example for subordinates, anticipates long- and short-term needs of employees, effectively utilizes and coordinates available resources.

NOTE: Ellipses used to protect the identity of the respondent agency. a. Phrases taken from annual appraisal forms used by Illinois state agencies.

4 59

Number of Agencies

None Perfunctory

Level of Recognition of Emotional Labor

Table 2 Level of Acknowledgement in Performance Appraisal Forms

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Patterns Revealed Several interesting elements of these performance appraisal instruments were revealed through this analysis. They concern assumptions about supervisory and nonsupervisory human relations requirements, emotional labor displays, and subjective criteria. First, nearly all incidents of motivating, mentoring, or coaching were restricted to appraisal instruments for supervisory personnel; either line personnel are not in positions to motivate or mentor others, or if they are, their job evaluations do not reward them for it. For example, the Illinois Office of the Attorney General (OAG) evaluates its attorneys and support staff using two different forms. The attorney form is in the advanced category because its criteria include persuasive self-expression, appropriate interpersonal relationships with colleagues, clients, and the public, and appropriate action “with sensitive information and confidential matters.” The support staff form, however, only inquires into whether the “employee possesses the necessary written and verbal communication skills” and whether the “employee has professional, courteous demeanor, shows respect to other agency personnel, and enhances the image” of the OAG. Is it possible that support staff members never deal with sensitive and confidential material or that they do not communicate with difficult or upset clients? If support staff do encounter these responsibilities, then they are not rewarded for it in their performance evaluations, for the appraisal instruments do not recognize such emotional-labor demands. Emotional display requirements and subjective criteria are implicit in the expression of emotional labor. This leads to the second point: that many performance appraisal instruments contain emotional display requirements. Although not the focus of this analysis, emotional display demands from State of Illinois performance appraisal instruments include a variety of phrases on various agencies’ forms, for example, the following: • “displays a positive attitude to constituents,” • “models an appreciation of a diverse workforce,” and • “[has the] physical and mental ability to meet job demands.”

These elements and others beg for further research on the subjects of surface acting and deep acting among public service workers. Surface acting refers to those job performances where the employee engages in a dramaturgy of sorts. Regardless of the employee’s true feelings, the job demands are such that he or she plays a role as if on stage, expressing emotions that are not actually felt. Deep acting, on the other hand, requires emotive imagery, such that the employee actually experiences the emotion that he or she is expressing. The employee is truly acting. Third, this analysis of state agency performance appraisal instruments revealed several instances of subjective criteria, which also provide the basis for further research. The question that arises is whether items such as these provide a means for evaluating the employee’s performance of emotion work or whether they simply fall prey to halo evaluations, in which the rater assigns positive or negative values based on one’s personal like or dislike for the employee. Examples of subjective criteria from these performance evaluation forms include the following: • “demonstrates flexibility and willingness to assist by taking on difficult or inconvenient responsibilities,”



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• “adequately comprehends the words of others,” and • “asks meaningful questions.”

Such items are difficult to operationalize or to deconstruct in terms that reveal emotion work. In the absence of such, however, they require remarkable levels of insight on the part of the evaluator if they are to produce accurate information. Finally, two appraisal forms mention emotion explicitly: one in a positive context, the other negative. We note these here to demonstrate different usages of the term in such instruments. The performance evaluation form used by the City of East St. Louis Financial Advisory Authority, an agency of the State of Illinois, begins as follows: 1. Generally, how are things going?

a) What do you like (feel good about)? b) What do you dislike (feel bad about)? 2. List three to five accomplishments you feel good about over the past year.

These two questions use the employee’s own likes, dislikes, and positive assessments as a springboard for performance appraisal. This approach elicits affect from the employee at the outset and uses it to guide the evaluative process. Although affect is incorporated into the evaluation process, it is used not in reference to emotion work but rather as a means for exploring the employee’s reaction to the work performed. In contrast, the State Universities Retirement System of Illinois performance appraisal form explicitly cites emotion at work qua emotion work: Under temperament, criteria are “is reasonable, respectful, and understanding. Accommodates opinions and ideas of others, controls emotions as not to disrupt, offend, or frustrate others” (emphasis added). In this case, the employee’s use of affective self-control is appraised in the context of emotion work per se.

Conclusions and Directions for Further Research Varying understandings of emotions at work, as brought to light by this study, warrant further research in a number of venues. For example, a deeper examination of the link between job description and performance evaluation instruments for sex-segregated jobs may reveal the differential presence or absence of items pertaining to emotion work. Might it be that “women’s jobs” would include more such items and “men’s jobs” would include fewer? Another examination should focus on the relationship between performance evaluation instruments and actual career outcomes, with a focus on whether recognition translates into compensation. It could involve a closer examination of how bureaucracy privileges instrumental rationality and marginalizes instrumental emotion work. It also could be an analysis of managerial or leadership training programs, focusing on the extent to which these programs genuinely recognize emotional labor and relational skills. In addition, further research could examine an agency’s job descriptions and link job content to performance appraisal. This would reveal the presence or absence of logical links between tasks, emotion work, performance, and recognition. Additional research could also probe more extensive comparisons between leadership studies and recognition and remuneration of emotional labor. How might leadership relate to emotional labor? In a speech delivered by Alice Rivlin at the 2003 conference of the Ameri-


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can Society for Public Administration, she outlined the requirements of successful leadership. Among these she included “unwarranted optimism” (Rivlin, 2003). What does it take to exude unwarranted optimism day in and day out? Might this be a form of emotional labor? Research could also examine the extent of emotional labor recognition by type of agency, using Lowi’s (1964) typology: distributive, redistributive, and regulatory. In other words, is agency type related to the degree to which emotional labor or relational skills are necessary or acknowledged? Evidence from this study confirms that bureaucracy privileges rationality and marginalizes emotional experience. Perhaps future evidence will challenge this overall assertion and reveal that bureaucracy is not monolithic; differences may exist as a result of the mission of the agency.6 In regard to the subject of emotional labor and job performance, there are many questions waiting to be answered. If public service work is anything, it is service, and service is relational. As government strives to become more responsive to citizen needs and expectations, service with a smile is a term heard more and more. We need to know more about the skills and abilities required to provide service with a smile day after day, week after week, month after month. Worker training, development, and retention are important variables in the human capital equation and will benefit from this knowledge.


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Occasionally deal with unfriendly people

Degree of emotional effort, emotional demands

Level C

May deal occasionally Deal regularly with people with people who are in who are difficult or with difficult or controversial people who are circumstances emotionally impaired

Exhibit polished courtesy Motivate, mentor, coach, or Promote and maintain train employees and the credibility public Relate to the public to May require hand holding, maintain organizational reassurance, empathy, and image rapport in nonsensitive situations May require resolution of minor conflicts

Level B

Note: Table constructed from content appearing in Steinberg (1999).

Discussion of factual information Ordinary personal courtesy Contacts with clients or the public are incidental, not integral

Human relations and communications skills

Level A Considerable tact, patience, ability to reassure, empathy, and rapport in providing direct services or comfort in sensitive situations Use of persuasion and networking Understanding of group dynamics. May involve dealing with emotionally charged issues in public forums Conducting extensive consultations with external groups over emotionally charged issues Subduing others in moderately difficult circumstances Deal with physically dangerous or violent people Work directly with people who are in constant pain or facing emergencies Work in highly sensitive or controversial circumstances

Level D

Appendix Steinberg’s (1999) Emotional Labor Scales

Deal regularly with physically dangerous and unpredictably violent people May also work directly with people (including family members) who are facing death or other sensitive situations

Creating a climate for commitment to the welfare of clients or the public Coaching and guiding clients through difficult emotional, attitudinal, and developmental change Providing comfort where people are in pain, dying, angry, distraught, or otherwise unpredictable, physically violent, or emotional Crowd control when crowd gets out of hand

Level E

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Notes 1. This term is more commonly found in the literature than the term emotion labor. An exception is Kruml and Geddes (2000), who prefer the latter term to distinguish between emotional labor (which they define as any labor performed in an emotional environment) and emotion labor, which “more specifically defines the construct as labor that involves the manipulation and expression of emotions” (p. 188). 2. Hochschild (1983) has identified such jobs as possessing three characteristics: They require voice or facial contact with the public, workers are required to evoke an emotional state in the client, and the employer exerts control over the emotional activities of employees. 3. For an illustration of the relationship between jobs, emotional labor, and compensation, see Table 2 in Guy and Newman (2004, p. 265). 4. Initially, 110 request letters were sent, and after correcting for duplicate listings and inapplicable agencies, the final number of agencies was 98. Forty-nine responses were received, resulting in a response rate of 50% (49 of 98). From those 49 respondents, we received 73 performance appraisal instruments because some agencies use more than one form depending on the type of position under evaluation, for example, supervisory versus nonsupervisory. 5. Central Management Services is the Illinois agency that provides human resource services to state agencies. Some agencies use variations of these forms. 6. See, for example, Newman (1994) and Kerr, Miller, and Reid (2002).

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Sharon H. Mastracci is an assistant professor of public administration at the University of Illinois–Chicago. Her research addresses issues in employment and training policy, gendered dynamics of labor markets, and public management. She is the author of Breaking Out of the Pink Collar Ghetto: Policy Solutions for Noncollege Women (ME Sharpe, 2004). Meredith A. Newman is a professor and chair of the Department of Public Administration at the University of Illinois–Springfield. Her research focuses on public management, administrative theory, gender and work life issues, and human resources. Prior to her current career in academia, Newman served with the Australian Foreign Service, the U.S. Department of State, and the World Bank. Mary E. Guy holds the Jerry Collins Eminent Scholar Chair in the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University. Her research focuses primarily on issues related to managing public agencies, especially in terms of human capital. In recent years, her writing is marked by a special emphasis on diversity and the changing workplace.
