Organizational Behavior

Understanding Display Rules & Emotional Labour at Work: Cost, Consequences, and Coping Strategies

Imagine you work as a barista at Starbucks. A customer walks in on a bright sunny morning, eagerly anticipating your warm welcome, the comforting aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and your excited request for their name – which per pre-established rules, is always hand-written on the renowned coffee cup. However, that day you wake up feeling off, and show up to work as your true self – an individual battling different kinds of life stressors. You decide not to greet the client, you refrain from engaging in small talk, and avoid taking their name.

The customer looks up at you and asks: “Is something wrong?”

This scenario highlights the significance and ever-so-faint yet important presence of display rules and emotional labour in workers’ lives.

3 Science-Backed Ways To Improve Productivity In Workplaces

Workplace productivity plays an integral role in determining the overall success rate of a company, hence the reason why companies have recently begun to devise new innovative strategies to improve employee performance. According to Gallup’s (2022) state of the global workplace report, only 21% of workers are engaged at work and only 33% of overall employees are thriving when it comes to their well-being. More than ever before, companies are saddled with the responsibility of finding innovative ways to increase productivity (Guillaume et al., 2017).

10 Ways HR Professionals Can Help Protect Employee Mental Health

Last year, I presented a Human Resources research project on wellbeing in the future of work and its impact on the HR function. When I reflected on the fact that this topic would gain importance in the future of work, and for the HR function in particular, I never would have imagined that “the future” was only a couple of months ahead. Fast forward time to the first months of 2020, and we are all seeing HR professionals and business leaders gain interest in wellbeing at work due to the side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The positive consequences of taking care of employee’s mental health have been documented in thousands of research papers and academic books of psychological sciences and other related fields for many years. Despite this, it’s still one of the last remaining taboos of the world of work. Improving wellbeing & mental health at work has always been, and will always be, a very important aspect to keeping an organisation and its workforce healthy and efficient, even in the worst of times.