Editorial: Walking the talk of managing emotional labour

Every day, different types of public sector employees deliver services to the public. Some do it indirectly, from a back office (for example public sector accountants, civil servants), while others are entirely visible to the public. Of the latter category, street level bureaucrats (SLBs) are an unusual, yet very large group in the public sector, performing work which is underpinned by emotions. They differ from other public sector employees in terms of an atypical overlap between their front-line work role and their high specialization. They are in direct contact with the public, so need to put on a suitable front, but are also forced to take harsh, life-transforming decisions which are not normally associated with front-line delivery or implementation (Dudau, Kominis & Brunetto, 2020). They also need to develop routines as a means of rationing services for which demand inevitably exceeds supply. All SLBs, regardless of the seriousness of their decision outcomes, have to present publicly-acceptable facial and bodily behaviour, irrespective of how they are really feeling, whether they are delivering public utilities, or saving someone’s life, or issuing a dog licence to a resident. However, the invisible processes associated with that, such as the degree to which they use or supress their emotions, depends on the type of services provided. For example, it may take more effort for oncology nurses and doctors treating children who are dying to regulate their emotions (especially their sadness), and present a happy or calm demeanour towards their patient, compared with, for example, parking officers who issue fines for parking violations.

Beyond SLBs, other public sector professionals also employ emotions, and even emotional labour, in their work. For example, accountants, researchers, lawyers and civil servants can also struggle in regulating their emotions (for example Levitats & Vigoda-Gadot, 2020; Bracci et al., 2015), as do voluntary and community sector workers (Akinsulure-Smith et al., 2018). However, whereas for SLBs this is intrinsic to their role, it can be a less prominent component of other public and voluntary sector employees.

Regulating emotions at work, by managing or supressing them in order to fulfill core work requirements has been referred to as ‘emotional labour’ (Hochschild, 1983). Emotional labour is different from emotional work. Hochschild (2012) differentiates between emotional work, which involves the private act of regulating personal emotions, and emotional labour, which involves presenting a demeanour to the public which is at odds with their real emotions as a necessary, albeit perhaps only implicitly recognized, condition for doing the job well. It is this particular link between emotional labour and work outcomes that can be disempowering and have health implications for SLBs. Indeed, there are emotional consequences associated with this activity, including increased stress, reduced wellbeing and, in the worst cases, burnout.

The study of emotions in the public sector is somewhat recent—with Guy et al. (2008) beginning the process of considering the role of emotions in public sector employee outcomes. To date, most of the focus has been on the role of emotional intelligence and its link with emotional regulation, engagement and, in the worst cases, emotional exhaustion (Hsieh, 2014; Vigoda-Gadot & Meisler, 2010; Levitats & Vigoda-Gadot, 2017). Further recent research has begun exploring other psychological attributes, such as the link between the use of positive organizational behaviour and the development of Psychological Capital (PsyCap) (Luthans et al., 2006). PsyCap comprises four sub components:

• Hope (flexibility).

• Optimism (positive attitude).

• Self-efficacy (belief about skills capabilities).

• Resilience (ability to bounce back after adversity).

PsyCap’s value is in providing a buffer against stress, which then enhances the work outcomes of different types of emotional labour. PsyCap research offers management the opportunity to adopt supportive practices for enhancing employees’ work outcomes (see Brunetto et al., 2020a, 2020b), particularly in counterbalancing any negative effects of, for example, emotional labour (see Dudau, Kominis & Brunetto, 2020).

PMM theme

This Public Money & Management (PMM) theme examines how to better manage emotional labour in the public sector (Dudau & Brunetto, 2020). We start from the premise that it is management’s responsibility to ensure that SLBs know the norms and expectations about behaviour in the workplace, and especially in relation to interacting with the public (Grandey, 2003). The management of employees who need to use high levels of emotional labour has not received much attention in the public sector literature (Farr-Wharton et al., 2017; Brunetto et al., 2017). This is an unfortunate omission because there has been an acceptance of austerity-led funding models dominating how managers of SLBs manage for the past decade (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017) and only a recent somewhat belated acknowledgement of the negative impact on employees’ wellbeing and public outcomes (Xerri et al., 2019; Trinchero et al., 2020).

This PMM theme comprises four research articles, two new development articles and one debate article. The authors represent four countries and four continents and put forward several theoretical angles and framings of emotional labour in multiple public sector work areas. Empirically, our articles cover emergency medical services (Henderson & Borry, 2020), fire services (Needham et al., 2021), and the police (Farr-Wharton et al., 2021), while the shorter articles also add perspectives on emotions in accounting work (McCaffry & Chríodáin, 2021), managing emotional labour for ambulance professionals (Wankhade, 2021) and, most topical, the emotional labour involved in ethical decision-making upon emerging from the Covid-19 crisis (Allen & Macaulay, 2021).

Our first research article is by Gamage (2021) who frames emotional labour within a content-process enhanced job demands–resources model. We continue with Needham et al.’s qualitative study on the emotional labour entailed in role extension in the fire service. This is followed by two survey-based quantitative studies: Henderson’s & Borry’s research on rules, trust and emotional labour, and then Farr-Wharton’s and colleagues’ research on the role of authentic leadership in enhancing wellbeing and dampening the negative effects of emotional labour on police officers.

The article by Gamage provides a conceptual model of emotional work by innovatively integrating emotional labour literature with the SHRM literature to emphasise the cognitive processes entailed in emotional labour. Gamage’s integrated model provides a multi-level understanding of how organizational-level factors (i.e. organizational HRM policies and strategies) and individual-level factors (i.e. employees’ perceptions of jobs demand and resources and their adoption of specific emotional labour strategies) interact to produce organizational and individual work outcomes.

As the title suggests (‘While you’re there, can you just … ’), Needham et al.’s article draws attention to the changing nature of public service work—in particular to role extending (alongside more hybrid and boundary-spanning roles) as a growing phenomenon within public services. The authors interviewed firefighters engaged in public health work and found that, while role-extending was less emotionally intense than emergency response, it evoked more negative emotions—challenging display rules; undermining role preparedness; and creating emotional dissonance. Therefore, far from being a cost-free add on, unsupported role extensions reduce the mitigating factors which normally help workers to manage emotional labour.

Our third research article, by Henderson & Borry, examines the determinants of emotional labour and suggests ways in which organizational characteristics (red tape, rule consistency, and trust surrounding rule-breaking behaviour) influence perceptions of emotional labour. The authors find that red tape increases emotional labour measured in the frequency of displaying emotions not felt and of hiding emotions that are genuinely felt. However, rule administration consistency, feelings of support from organizational leaders, years in position, and level of certification decrease the need for emergency medical (pre-hospital health) professionals to hide emotions.

Our final research article is by Farr-Wharton and colleagues. They found that the support Italian police officers receive from their leadership explains a third of the variance in their wellbeing. Low wellbeing reflects the minimal support police officers receive when carrying out their official duties while hiding the emotional toll from their often dangerous and difficult tasks. The authors’ conclusion, that the likelihood of negative health and wellbeing ramifications for police officers remain high in the absence of supportive leadership, certainly resonates with Henderson’s & Borry’s findings, and offers clear ways forward for organizations.

After a feast of research perspectives on (managing) SLBs’ emotional labour, McCaffry & Chríodáin challenge us to consider the emotional labour managed and experienced by backstage public sector professionals, such as accountants. As stewards of the public purse, they are known to put up an ‘accounting vizard’ but is there a time for making sense of, and managing, emotional labour more openly and move towards authentic stewardship in public sector accounting? After this peak behind public services’ ‘line of visibility’ (Radnor et al., 2014), we move back to the front line and closer to the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Two of our short articles help us make sense of emotional labour during crises: Wankhade’s and Allen & Macaulay’s. Wankhade reflects on lessons from research for managing professionals used to experiencing strong emotions during crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, with some insightful and moving empirical snippets. Then, Allen & Macaulay offer us a macro perspective on (managing) emotional labour during the pandemic by examining the links between emotional labour and ethics. These are admittedly under-developed, despite some foundations being laid for the idea that morality and emotions can impact on public management (Macaulay, 2009). This new development piece opens exciting potential avenues of future exploration to guide research and practice in public management in (and for) an uncertain future.

In summary, SLBs’ work environment is characterized by austerity-driven funding and management models that legitimate chronically high workloads, and the advent of the pandemic has amplified all of these. This is because, unlike other types of employees, their skill and knowledge, coupled with a professional code dictating standards and codes of practice, often places them in the front line protecting the public from threats of all kinds (including health, terrorism and poverty). The pandemic changed the working lives of SLBs, often increasing the burden of responsibility to service and protect communities, without an adequate management acknowledgement or organizational response to address the resulting negative implications for their health and wellbeing (Brunetto et al., 2021). Public administration scholars have acknowledged that SLBs have emotions; in contrast, the response from organizations and their managers has been more piecemeal. More research is required to provide organizations with evidence-based best management practices that ensure both high performance and high wellbeing for SLBs.