Emotional Labor and Gender: A Study of Bank Tellers in Kashmir

Syed Naiyar u nisa¹*, Mushtaq Ahmad Lone²

¹Research Scholar, Department of Management Studies, Central University of Kashmir,

Ganderbal - 191201 Jammu and Kashmir, India.

²Sr. Assistant Professor, Department of Management Studies, Central University of Kashmir,

Ganderbal - 191201 Jammu and Kashmir, India.

*Corresponding Author E-mail: syednaiyarandrabi@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

Researchers from the field of management and psychology are of firm belief that emotions significantly affect workplace attitudes and other organisational outcome variables. In service sector employees act as ambassadors of an organisation and represent the culture and values of an organisation to its customers. The relevance of emotional labor in studies of gender at workplace has increased in recent times. The present study has made an attempt to find whether men and women employees in the bank perform emotional labor diversely. The aim of the study was to assess emotional labor through hiding, faking emotions and deep acting that is performed by the banking employees operating in Kashmir province of the state Jammu and Kashmir. The findings of the present study reveal that the emotional labor is high in females than in males, it was found that female employees perform hiding and faking emotions more significantly than male employees and it was also found that the female employees perform more deep acting than male employees, In light to the above findings the implications to the organisation would be as emotional labor is performed differently as per both males and females, at the time of staffing decisions and training and development policies should be set as keeping in the view gender sensitivity, this will eventually reduce the negative effect of emotional labor and would lead to better performance of work. Further organisation should focus more on deep acting as of its positive outcomes at workplace.

KEYWORDS: Emotional Labor, Hiding emotion, Faking emotion, Deep acting, Duration.

INTRODUCTION:

Emotions are becoming more important in the current scenario as changes in employment and working conditions, particularly in the banking sector, accelerate. Earlier the emotions were considered as the reason to the failed judgement thus were given least importance (Grandey, 2000)¹, as the service economy expanded its importance was realised.

Hoschild (1983)² conducted research on emotional labour as Management of Human Feelings at Workplace, which was carried forward by other researchers and empirically tested (e.g., Bolton, 2005³; Morris and Feldman, 1996⁴; Rafaeli and Sutton, 1987⁵). Banking employees, who are mostly front-line employees, must deal with customers on a regular basis; as a result, the organisation has enacted some rules and procedures that employees must follow in order to deal with customers. Employees' efforts to match their expressions/emotions to organisational rules will eventually have an impact on their well-being (Hoschild (1983); Gosserand and Diffendorf, 2005)⁶. Only when the emotions are displayed positively, i.e., with a happy face quality of the service provided can be improved (Pugh, 2001; Wolcott-Burnam,2004)^7,8, which will increase organisational effectiveness as Banking is considered to play important role in Indian economy (Shridar and Sharma, 2020)⁹

The relationship between gender and emotions is commonly discussed in societal life (Brody and Hall 2000; Lutz 1988; Shields 2000)^10,11,12, as women are found to be more nurturing, emotional, and less aggressive (Lutz, 1998; Shields, 2000), whereas men are found to be more apathetic and mostly emotionally restrictive (Connell 2005; Jansz 2000)^13,14. According to the majority of empirical studies, men and women express positive and negative emotions differently depending on their job position (Simon and Nath, 2015)¹⁵. Because gender may play a role in emotion management, Hoschild (1983) proposed that emotion-based processes are more relevant to service-based occupations, which are primarily performed by women in the United States. The current study aims to determine whether men and women perform emotional labour differently and how the duration of interaction with customers influences the type of emotional labour strategy used by each gender. The study sample is made up of frontline bank employees from the Kashmir region, because frontline employees are the ones who are most affected by emotional labour (Hoschild, 1983).

Literature Review-Emotional Labor and Gender:

Emotional labour entails displaying and regulating emotions in accordance with job requirements (Grandey, 2000). It is defined by Morris and Feldman (1996) as "the effort, planning, and control required to express organizationally desired emotion during interpersonal transactions" (p. 987) There are two types of emotional labour: surface acting and deep acting (Ashforth and Humprey, 1993; Hoschild, 1983)¹⁶. Employees in surface acting tend to suppress their emotions in order to bring up the emotions associated with job expectations, whereas in deep acting, one tries to feel the emotions that are to be displayed in accordance with job expectations (Biron and Veldhoven, 2012)¹⁷. Surface acting was further subdivided into two types: faking unfelt emotions and hiding felt emotions (Lee et al, 2010; Lee, 2011)^18,19

It was discovered that workers in public service providers pretend emotions when they suppress what they are exactly feeling, but they are authentic when it comes to displaying emotions (Guy et al, 2008)²⁰ This led to the conclusion that the pretending part is surface acting and the authentic part of displaying emotion is deep acting (Yang and Guy, 2015)²¹.

Gender studies have revealed little or no significant difference between genders when it comes to performing emotional labour and dealing with emotionally intense work situations (Guy et al, 2008; Yang and Guy, 2015). Most jobs that differ according to gender have shown links with emotional labour, as female-dominated jobs are expected to employ emotional skills to achieve organisational goals as opposed to male-dominated professions (Meier et al, 2006)²². Gender imbalances continue to exist in corporate boardrooms around the world (Philips and Masiah, 2019)²³

Hypothesis Development:

Previous research has shown that gender differences occur in all aspects of the workplace, including leadership styles (Burke and Collins, 2001)²⁴, communication styles (Furumo and Pearson, 2007)²⁵, and emotional labour. Gender has been found to have a moderating effect on emotional labour and workplace outcomes in recent research (Fay, 2010)²⁶. When it comes to emotional labour, men and women use different displays (Simpson and Stroh, 2004)²⁷. Simpson and Stroh (2004) discovered that women suppress negative emotions significantly more than men, whereas men are more likely to cover up positive emotions than women.

H₁: There is no significant difference in sub dimensions of emotional labor (Hiding Feelings, Faking emotions and deep acting) among male and female employees.

H₂: Time spent on dealing with customers has no significant association with dimension of emotional labor (Hiding Feelings, Faking emotions and deep acting). The sub hypotheses are mentioned below

H_2a: The interplay between Gender and duration of dealing with customer will have no significant effect on Hiding feeling.

H_2b: The interplay between Gender and duration (time spent) of dealing with customer will have no significant effect on Faking emotions.

H_2c: The interplay between Gender and duration (time spent) of dealing with customer will have no significant effect on deep acting

METHODOLOGY:

A total of 198 banking professionals from two operating banks in Kashmir, 98 of whom were men and 100 of whom were women. The study's employee samples came from the clerical cadre because they deal with customers more frequently and have more face-to-face interactions. The questionnaire was distributed to 300 people (response rate of 60 per cent). The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire and were told that the information would be kept private. Table 1 summarises the sample's descriptive statistics.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS:

Table 1: Descriptive of demographic variables

	Percent	N	M	S.D
Gender
Males	49.5	98
Females	50.5	100
Age			38.5	6.98
Family status
Single	39.9	79
Married	60.1	119
Qualification
High school	5.6	11
Higher secondary	4.0	8
Bachelor’s degree	34.3	68
Master’s degree	50.5	100
Above masters	5.6	11
Duration of interaction			10.07	4.17

The current study was conducted on bank employees, 49.5 percent of whom were males and 50.5 percent of whom were females. The average age of the employees was 39 years, 60 percent were married, and 51 percent had a master's degree. Employee

interaction with each customer was estimated to take 10 minutes.

Measures:

Emotional Labor Scale:

This scale was developed by Brotheridge and Lee (2003) to consist of deep acting and surface acting. In a later revision (Lee et al, 2010; Lee and Brotheridge, 2011)^28,29, the dimension of surface acting was subdivided to two dimensions of hiding emotions and faking emotions. The revised scale with three dimensions of Faking Emotions, Deep Acting and Hiding Emotions was used in this study. The 9 items of the scale were used for the present study.

Table 2: T test for dimensions of emotional labor

	Gender	N	Mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean	t Value	sig
Hiding Feelings	male	100	2.4491	.87006	.08701	-5.852	.000
	female	100	3.1649	.85988	.08599
Faking Emotions	male	100	2.1222	.82230	.08223	-3.922	.000
	female	100	3.7795	4.14516	.41452
Deep Acting	male	100	3.3362	1.01163	.10116	.214	.852
	female	100	3.3067	.93881	.09388

The above table reports the independent samples t test of dimensions of emotional labor with respect to gender and it was reported that the female significantly faked more emotions than male (t=-5.82; p<0.05) and similarly females significantly were found to be hide more feelings than male (t=-3.92; p<0.05), while as there was no significant difference in deep acting with respect to gender. Therefore, two dimensions of emotional labor were found to be significant that is there was a difference with respect to gender while as when it comes to alter the internal feelings in order to bring up the emotions that required for the job no such differences were found in gender. Hence the hypothesis 1 was partially supported.

Table 3: Factorial Anova (Hiding feelings)

Tests of Between-Subjects Effects
Dependent Variable: hiding feelings
Source	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Corrected Model	5	5.680	7.580	.000
Intercept	1	919.669	1227.384	.000
Gender	1	19.849	26.491	.000
duration	2	.600	.801	.450
Gender * duration	2	.645	.861	.424
Error	194	.749

a. R Squared = .163 (Adjusted R Squared = .142)

A factorial ANOVA was conducted to compare the effects of gender and duration of dealing with customers on hiding feelings i.e. how gender and time spent on interaction with the customers affect hiding emotion of the employee and it was found that gender and duration of interaction had no effect on hiding feeling has it was found statistically insignificant F(2,194)=.861, p=.424. Hence H2_a stands supported

Table 4: Factorial Anova (Faking of emotion)

Dependent Variable: faking
Source	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Corrected Model	5	30.170	3.336	.006
Intercept	1	955.649	105.670	.000
Gender	1	52.459	5.801	.017
duration	2	1.459	.161	.851
Gender * duration	2	5.585	.618	.540

a. R Squared = .079 (Adjusted R Squared = .055)

A factorial ANOVA was performed to compare the effects of gender and duration of dealing with customers on faking emotions by bank employees, and a statistically insignificant interaction of gender and duration of dealing with customers on faking emotions by employees was reported, i.e. gender and duration of interaction or time spent while dealing with customer had no effect on faking of emotion that is done by employee while performing work, F (2,194) =.618, p=.540. As a result, H2b is supported.

Table 5: Factorial Anova (Deep acting)

Dependent Variable: Deep acting
Source	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Corrected Model	5	5.062	6.014	.000
Intercept	1	1268.377	1506.795	.000
Gender	1	.060	.072	.789
Duration	2	11.797	14.014	.000
Gender * duration	2	.011	.013	.987

a. R Squared = .134 (Adjusted R Squared = .112)

Two-way ANOVA was conducted to compare the effects of gender and duration of dealing with customers on deep acting and we reported a statistically insignificant interaction of gender and duration of dealing with customers on deep acting performed by employees, F (2,194) =.013, p=.987 i.e., gender and time spent by the customers shows no effect on deep acting. Hence H_2c is supported.

Therefore, we conclude that H_2a H_2b and H_2c are supported, thus hypothesis 2 is supported.

CONCLUSION:

This competitive pressure has resulted in the rise of various new technologies, which has amazingly increased the working capacity of professionals, but at the same time, they are experiencing burnout due to heavy workloads and pressure (Sampoornam, 2016)³⁰. Emotional labour has been associated with positive outcomes such as lower turnover intentions and emotional exhaustion (Das and Sahu, 2014)³¹ Gender studies have found little to no difference between genders when it comes to performing emotional labour and dealing with emotionally intense work situations (Guy et al, 2008; Yang and Guy, 2015). The current study backs up previous findings that the amount of time spent with customers and the gender of the employees have no effect on the dimensions of emotional labour, as there was no statistical significance, which can be explained by the fact that gender has no effect on hiding, faking, and deep acting when combined with the amount of time spent on customer interaction. Furthermore, the current study found that faking and hiding emotions were statistically significant with regard to gender, implying that females performed more faking and hiding whereas deep acting was found to be insignificant, implying that there was no gender difference in deep acting. The majority of studies have discovered that gender-specific jobs require more emotional skills than male-dominated professions (Meier et al 2006).

The current study concludes that when tested with emotional labour dimensions, gender had an individually significant effect on emotional labour dimensions (hiding and faking emotions) but was insignificant with deep acting. Furthermore, when gender and time spent dealing with customers were considered together to determine their effect on emotional labour dimensions, It was discovered that they had no effect on the employees' emotional labour strategies. Apart from that, the amount of time spent dealing with customers has no effect on emotional labour dimensions/strategies. As a result, we conclude that gender has some effect on the emotional labour dimension, whereas time spent/duration of interaction had no effect on emotional labour, and when they were considered together, they had no effect on emotional labour dimensions. The current study supports the findings of previous studies (Rafeli and Sutton, 1987; Guy and Newman, 2004) that suggest gender differences in emotional labour, i.e., men and women respond differently to emotional labour.

In the future, we will be able to link emotional labour to various organisational outcomes, and the gender of the respondents will be tested alongside other factors such as age, qualification, and job title. Furthermore, in future studies, the sample size can be increased to improve the generalizability of the results.

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Received on 17.12.2021         Modified on 17.02.2022

Accepted on 20.03.2022  ©AandV Publications All right reserved

Asian Journal of Management. 2022;13(2):134-138.

DOI: 10.52711/2321-5763.2022.00024