Donning the mask: the impact of Covid-19 on emotional labour performance Online publication date: Fri, 20-Aug-2021
by Niamh Lafferty; Sarah MacCurtain; Patricia Mannix McNamara
International Journal of Quality and Innovation (IJQI), Vol. 5, No. 2, 2021
Abstract: Emotional labour, the workplace management of emotions, is integral to work performance and relies on the observation and recognition of emotion in the service industry. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a sudden global increase in the number of employees and service users required to wear face masks, resulting in a new normal for emotion expression and emotion recognition in the emotional labour performance. This paper explores emotional labour theory and proposes a theoretical consideration of the challenges and benefits this modification to the service user-employee interaction may have. Suggested challenges include changes to the service user-employee relationship due to impaired communication and increased customer anxiety and frustrations. Organisational responses are discussed in relation to training and cross-industrial sharing of knowledge. Finally, opportunities for organisational research are discussed alongside suggestions for future research.
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