IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL LABOUR ON EMPLOYEES IN THE DIGITAL WORLD OF WORK

Abstract

In recent years, the digitalisation of work, driven by the Covid-19 pandemic and the forced shift to working remotely, the emergence of virtual teams and work via platforms, has completely redesigned the nature of work in the twentyfirst century. This shift has been technologically and economically discussed in great detail, whereas the psychological and emotional aspects have been largely overlooked. This research report explores the effect of emotional labour on workers in digital work contexts, using a comprehensive analysis of secondary academic and organisational literature. Emotional labour, as first introduced by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in her work The Managed Heart (1983), is the practice through which workers regulate their emotions and expressions, according to the demands of their work. Hochschild found two major approaches: the first was called surface acting, which involved employees "repressing" their true emotions and "faking" the emotions that they were expected to display; the second was deep acting, which involved an employee actively trying to induce the necessary emotions within him or herself. These strategies take on different, and sometimes more extreme, forms in digital work settings, such as remote work, virtual teams, gig economy platforms and digital customer-facing positions. This study aims to: (i) investigate the theoretical aspects of the concept of emotional labour and its development in the digital environment; (ii) explore the consequences of emotional labour on employee well-being, job satisfaction, burnout, work-life balance and productivity; (iii) discuss the challenges and issues that organisations and HR managers face relating to emotional labour in digitally mediated workplaces; and (iv) provide evidence-based HR strategies and recommendations for reducing the negative impact of emotional labour in digitally mediated environments. This is a secondary data-based research study. The analytical framework is based on peer-reviewed journal articles from Scopus-indexed and Google Scholar databases, books authored by reputable scholars, and reports from various organisations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Health Organisation (WHO), McKinsey Global Institute, Deloitte and Gallup. The majority of the literature reviewed falls within the timeframe of 2015-2024, with a focus on those studies from post-2020 that align with the new normal of work post-pandemic. Our key findings indicate that emotional labour within a digital context is significantly linked to higher rates of emotional exhaustion, digital fatigue, and burnout in both remote and gig economy employees as well as online customer service representatives. In non-physical workplaces, 5 emotional labour is invisible, a lack of empathy in supervision is felt, boundaries between work and personal life are indistinct and video-mediated communication makes self monitoring impossible to avoid, all of which are unique stressors not accounted for by conventional HR models. Studies have shown a strong negative correlation between surface acting and job satisfaction and organisational commitment, and that surface acting is more common and more detrimental in digital contexts. In terms of HR, this research highlights the need for organisations to recognize the emotional aspects of digital work, foster psychologically safe environments, and set digital boundaries. Finally, a series of "do this" recommendations for HR are provided, based on current research and applicable to the digital workplace.