Emotional Labour in the Workplace: The Hidden Cost of Smiling for a Paycheck 

We all are emotional beings. We experience different types of emotions regularly. There are situations when you feel very exhausted and frustrated. Those may be having conflicts with your loved one or getting stuck in a traffic block on the way to work. Reasons and circumstances may differ for individuals. However, we may express appropriate expressions even in subtle ways. That’s what helps us to process emotions. 

Just imagine, you are having a lot of frustration and irritation due to some negative events that just happened in your life. You are working as a customer care executive. So, you have to suppress your negative emotions and act pleasantly. You always have to keep a smile, greet customers, and talk with them very calmly. This is called emotional labour. 

We often think about physical and cognitive efforts on the job. However, another important factor in many jobs is emotional labour. In such jobs, maintaining the right emotional tone is just as important as meeting deadlines or hitting sales targets. 

What is Emotional Labour? 

The sociologist Arlie Hochschild coined the term emotional labour in 1983 in her book ‘The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling’. Emotional labour refers to the effort required to manage and display appropriate emotions in a given situation. She described it as “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” in exchange for a wage. In simpler terms: it’s regulating your emotions to meet the expectations of your job. 

This is not just about being polite. Emotional labour requires actively shaping what you feel and show. You need to mask authentic emotions and replace them in a more cheerful way to meet the needs of the company. It’s the cheery flight attendant during turbulence, the empathetic counsellor holding back tears, the retail worker staying calm with a confrontational customer. Workers often use two primary strategies to manage emotional labour:

1. Surface acting: You may go through situations where you need to fake the required situation while experiencing something different inside. 
2. Deep acting: People using this strategy, try to actually feel the emotions they are faking, such as generating genuine empathy or enthusiasm. 

Both strategies require effort—but surface acting, in particular, can take a toll on mental health over time.

The Cost of Faking It 

While looking, emotional labour may seem as harmless and beneficial. After all, isn’t it a good thing that employees remain professional and pleasant, even in stressful situations? But, that’s not the case. You are suppressing your genuine emotions regularly. Several studies on occupational health psychology show that chronic emotional labour can lead to burnout, emotional exhaustion, and even depression. 

Burnout and Emotional Exhaustion 

As mentioned, surface acting may often be distressing. Such people often experience emotional dissonance — the disconnect between how they feel and how they’re expected to act. This dissonance is distressing and exhausting, and gradually, over time, it may contribute to burnout. Thereby, people feel fatigue, and reduced effectiveness. Research also shows that surface acting is often associated with emotional exhaustion, while deep acting has a weaker association. 

Impact on Job Satisfaction 

Emotional labour can lead to reduced job satisfaction, especially when you feel that you can’t be yourself. Authenticity and autonomy are two important factors that influence job satisfaction. These factors are threatened when you mask your emotions. Thereby, leading to decreased engagement, and higher turnover intention. 

Mental Health Consequences 

Prolonged emotional labour along with toxic workplace cultures may have a big toll on the mental health of the employees. They may be prone to anxiety, depression, or physical symptoms like headache and insomnia. This is especially true in service industries, where “service with a smile” is non-negotiable. For example, call centre workers, teachers, nurses, and retail employees often report high emotional demands—yet their struggles remain largely invisible. 

Who Bears the Burden? 

While emotional labour touches nearly every industry, certain groups disproportionately bear its burden. 

Marginalized Genders 

Women are often expected as nurturing and emotionally expressive. So they are often recruited for roles requiring emotional labour — healthcare, education, and hospitality. They are often criticized if they don’t act so. Women may also face the “double bind”—expected to be warm and accommodating, but also assertive and competent.

Frontline and Service Workers 

These kinds of employees often deal with customer complaints, public scrutiny, and unpredictable interactions—all while maintaining composure. Customer-facing roles are among the most emotionally demanding, and often, these jobs are the least compensated and most precarious. 

How to Address Emotional Labour? 

Recognizing emotional labour is the first step toward making it more manageable and equitable. 

• Acknowledge It as Real Work: Organizations need to acknowledge and validate emotional labour as a legitimate part of job performance rather than part of one’s personality. This should be considered in performance evaluations, training, and compensation discussions. 
• Offer Support and Resources: The organizations should provide access to mental health resources, emotional intelligence training, and peer support networks that can help workers manage the demands of emotional labour. 
• Ensure authenticity: The organizational culture needs to ensure the space for authenticity for their employees. They should encourage empathy over perfectionism and facilitate psychological safety. 
• Rethink “Customer Is Always Right” Culture: Not all customers are respectful. Employees have to also face abusive or unreasonable customers. So, protecting workers from such emotional harm should be a priority. 

Conclusion 

We will witness this emotional labour in various settings in our daily lives. So, next time when you visit such an employee who smiles and greets you with a pleasant nature, remember the efforts behind those behaviours. It’s not always genuine and authentic. It’s not for free. It is often a hidden cost of doing business. Recognizing it, supporting it, and compensating it fairly isn’t just good psychology—it’s good business. Because behind every smile, every calm response, and every “Have a nice day” is a human being doing real, emotional work. 

FAQs 

1. What exactly is Emotional labour? 

It is the process of managing your emotions—and the outward expression of those emotions—as part of your job. This often means suppressing true feelings and displaying emotions that align with workplace expectations, such as smiling and staying cheerful with customers, even when you’re stressed or unhappy.

2. How is Emotional Labour different from just being professional? 

While professionalism is about maintaining respect and competence, emotional labour goes further. It requires employees to modify or fake emotional expressions to align with job requirements. For example, being polite is professional; acting happy when you’re not is emotional labour. 

3. Which jobs involve the most emotional labour? 

Jobs with high customer interaction or caregiving responsibilities often require the most emotional labour. These include roles in healthcare (nurses, therapists), education (teachers), hospitality (servers, flight attendants), customer service (call centre agents), and retail. 

4. What are the effects of emotional labour on employees? 

Prolonged emotional labour can lead to burnout, emotional exhaustion, decreased job satisfaction, and mental health issues like anxiety or depression. The constant need to suppress or fake emotions creates internal stress, especially if employees lack support or recognition. 

5. Is emotional labour always bad? 

Not necessarily. Some employees find meaning in connecting with others emotionally – especially in caregiving or service roles. However, when It is excessive, unacknowledged, or forced, it becomes draining. Balance and support are key. 

6. Does remote work eliminate emotional labour? 

No. It has simply shifted to digital spaces. Remote workers still manage emotions in emails, video calls, and chats—trying to appear upbeat, engaged, and responsive, even when feeling otherwise. It’s different, but still emotionally taxing. 

7. Why is it called the “hidden” cost of smiling for a paycheck? 

Because emotional labour is often invisible and unpaid. Unlike tasks that can be measured or seen, emotional effort isn’t always recognized or compensated. Yet it’s essential to many roles—and when ignored, it can silently wear down workers’ well-being.