Emotions in the workplace

Positive emotions at work such as high achievement and excitement have "desirable effect independent of a person's relationships with others, including greater task activity, persistence, and enhanced cognitive function." "Optimism rests on the premise that failure is not inherent in the individual; it may be attributed to circumstances that may be changed with a refocusing of effort." Specific workers such as "service providers are expected to react to aggressive behaviors directed toward them with non-aggressive and even courteous behavior…also to engage in what has been termed emotional labor by demonstrating polite and pleasant manners regardless of the customer's behavior." Being aware of whether or not you are showing positive emotions will cause ripple effects in the workplace. A manager or co-worker who displays positive emotions consistently is more likely to motivate those around him/her and have more opportunities within the company. Being able to bring out positive emotions and aware of how to do this can be an incredibly useful tool in the workplace. "Positive mood also elicits more exploration and enjoyment of new ideas and can enhance creativity" (Isen, 2000). A manager who is able to reward and speak to his employees in a way that brings out their positive emotions will be much more successful than one who lacks these skills. ==Emotional labor/ emotional work==

"As the nature of the U.S. and global economies is increasingly transforming from manufacturing to service, organizational participants are coping with new challenges, and those challenges often involve complex processes of emotion in the workplace. The initial shift in the economy involved a move to customer service (including industries such as retailing, restaurants and the travel industry), leading to scholarly consideration of the way emotional communication is used in the service of customers and in the advancement of organizational goals. This type of work has come to be labeled as emotional labor...the emotions and displays in emotional labor are largely inauthentic and are seen by management as a commodity that can be controlled, trained and set down in employee handbooks." "This relates to the induction or suppression of feeling in order to sustain an outward appearance that produces a sense in others of being cared for in a convivial safe place.". Emotional labor refers to effort to show emotions that may not be genuinely felt but must be displayed in order to "express organizationally desired emotion during inter-personal transaction." that appear desirable. Organizations have begun using their employee's "emotion as a commodity used for the sake of profit". "Although emotional labor may be helpful to the organizational bottom line, there has been recent work suggesting that managing emotions for pay may be detrimental to the employee". Emotional labor and emotional work both have negative aspects to them including the feelings of stress, frustration or exhaustion that all lead to burnout. "Burnout is related to serious negative consequences such as deterioration in the quality of service, job turnover, absenteeism and low morale…[It] seems to be correlated with various self report indices of personal distress, including physical exhaustion, insomnia, increased use of alcohol and drugs and marital and family problems". Ironically, innovations that increase employee empowerment — such as conversion into worker cooperatives, co-managing schemes, or flattened workplace structures — have been found to increase workers’ levels of emotional labor as they take on more workplace responsibilities. ==Negative==

Negative emotions at work can be formed by "work overload, lack of rewards, and social relations which appear to be the most stressful work-related factors". "Cynicism is a negative effective reaction to the organization. Cynics feel contempt, distress, shame, and even disgust when they reflect upon their organizations" (Abraham, 1999). Negative emotions are caused by "a range of workplace issues, including aggression, verbal abuse, sexual harassment, computer flaming, blogging, assertiveness training, grapevinxes, and non verbal behavior". "Stress is the problem of each person feeling it. [Negative emotions] can be caused by "poor leadership, lack of guidance, lack of support and backup. It can cause the performance of the employees to decrease causing the performance of the organization to decrease. Employees' lack of confidence in their abilities to deal with work demands… and their lack of confidence in coworkers… can also create prolonged negative stress". Showing stress reveals weakness, therefore, employees suppress their negative emotions at work and home. "People who continually inhibit their emotions have been found to be more prone to disease than those who are emotionally expressive". Marital and Family- Spouses and children can feel the crossover effects of burnout brought home from the workplace. Depleted levels of energy which effect home management is another consequence. Organizational- Negative feelings at work effect "employee moral, turnover rate, commitment to the organization". Not having a strong base to things like drama and gossip can also disrupt a functioning business. Lisa McQuerrey gives a definition for drama: "Drama is usually defined as spreading unverified information, discussing personal matters at work, antagonizing colleagues or blowing minor issues out of proportion to get attention." McQuerry wrote an article giving solutions to stop drama and conflict between coworkers. There are eight important solutions to ending conflict in a workplace according to McQuerrey, first being to set a policy in an employee handbook making drama unacceptable. With this, there needs to be a list of consequences. Second being that the roles of employees need to be clarified. Other examples in her article include: Stopping gossip before it makes its rounds, confronting employees about changes at work yourself instead of having a rumor mill, report drama if there is a regular instigator. McQuerrey goes on with saying that if situations go on, there should be a meeting held where management mediates the people who gossip. It is also important to follow up with your policy and give warnings about the consequences. Employees may be unaware of how their actions impact their coworkers, bringing in a behavioral expert into your business is usually a positive reinforcement when there's nothing else you can do. == References ==

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