There are days when being on the front lines of a business can
be draining. Ask employees in industries from food service to
customer call centers, and they'll be able to recall their most
difficult customers in vivid detail. Girau has days in which he
receives five or six complaints. "By then, I know it's a
bad day," he says.
"Employees are expected to take whatever the customer doles
out," says Christine Pearson, research professor of business
management at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill's
Kenan-Flagler Business School and an expert on civility in the
workplace. Service workers, Pearson adds, tend to be seen as an
"impermeable buffer" between owners and customers off the
pressure that flows from above while smiling away the incivility
coming from the customer.
But "smiling away the incivility" might have ill
effects, literally. In late 1998, Grandey surveyed 168
administrative assistants to learn how they controlled their
emotions. She found that employees who faked a good mood were more
likely to suffer from emotional exhaustion and burnout. These
workers also received significantly lower marks on their customer
service abilities from co-workers. "Employees who constantly
must ignore their true feelings may become estranged or
alienated," Grandey says.
Content Continues Below
Laboratory research has also found physical effects from this
bottling-up of emotions: overworked cardiovascular and nervous
systems and weakened immune systems. In other words, stress, which
costs U.S. businesses millions every year in absenteeism, turnover,
replacement costs and health insurance.
Page
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 