The last taboo?: surfacing and supporting Emotional Labour in HR work

The emotional challenges Human Resource Professionals (HRPs) face, and the work they do in managing emotion in day to day HR practice, have largely gone unacknowledged and unsupported and yet is arguably HR’s most value-added activity. Through in-depth interviews and diary study, we uncover the emotion handling aspect of HR work. Specifically we explore Emotional Labour (EL) which, despite its centrality to HR work, remains under-researched in the HR context. By asking our participants to recount and reflect on emotive interactions, we examine HRPs’ use of EL in their relational work; how they come to learn the emotion display rules of their role; the strategies they use to cope with such emotional demands and the factors that help/hinder this process. Our contribution is to ‘surface’ emotion in HR work and identify how organisations can prepare HRPs for, and support them in, their emotion handling efforts.     

The changing face of HRM: in search of balance

Current models of HRM suggest that expectations about HR roles are changing as organisations are striving to make the HR function leaner and more ‘strategic’. In our article we explore the changing roles of HRM as they are perceived by different stakeholder groups within the HR profession through the medium of a study examining the diffusion of the concept of ‘the thinking performer’ launched by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in 2002. We explain how the concept of business partnering dominates respondents' talk about HR policy and practice and raise questions about the impact of this in terms of HRM's relationship with employees, employee well‐being and the career paths of HR professionals. We argue that the profession needs to reflect seriously on the consequences of a dominant business/strategic partner framing of HR work, which fails to address the duality that has historically always been inherent in HR practice. We conclude that there is a need for a more balanced HR agenda addressing human and economic concerns in current and future models of HRM.     

Managing ‘difference’: understanding age diversity in practice

This paper seeks to explore how age diversity is characterised, understood and managed by HR managers responsible for its implementation. With businesses competing at a global level and demographic trends changing the landscape of the labour market, the diversity approach to managing workplace equality has been heralded as the answer to the political and moral challenges in marrying external competition with internal workplace equality. Nowhere has this been more influential than in recent debates concerning older workers in the labour market, and yet, how age‐related HR practices relate to the underpinning philosophies of diversity has not yet been explored in any depth. Drawing from interview data with HR managers from a range of industry backgrounds, this article explores the inherent tensions faced when discussing age as a diversity issue, and the persistent effects of larger social norms related to ageing. By focusing on the concept of ‘difference’ as a key tenet of diversity, the challenges in ensuring equality while being aware of contradictory messages from both inside and outwith the organisations play a key role in age diversity in practice. This leads to a discussion about the more subtle practices involved in the workplace implementation of age diversity and how awareness of inherent biases may challenge age inequality within organisations.     

The framework of first-line manager's HR role identity: A Multi-actor HR involvement perspective

Drawing on role identity and social context theories, we introduce a conceptual model of first-line manager (FLM)’s HR role identity that extends the current theorization of what precedes their effective HR implementation. We establish that FLMs' role identity will guide their HR implementation behavior by attaching the HR role to their self-concept. We also develop a multi-actor HR involvement perspective to the discourse on FLMs' HR role identity since role identity is believed to increase when FLMs recognize HR role expectations and then behave as desired. In explaining the role of multi-actor HR involvement, the climate for HR implementation is considered a mediator in the relationships between HR involvement and FLMs' HR role identity since the social context created by each HR actor represents FLMs' interpretations of HR role expectations. Accordingly, we develop several propositions that serve as a baseline for future endeavors.     

My Strengths Count!

This article builds on the argument that research on the link between HRM and performance benefits from investigating how HR practices are envisioned by managers (in terms of underlying philosophies), and how they are perceived by employees (in terms of psychological climates). Our study focuses on the effects of a strengths‐based HR philosophy assuming that employee performance can be maximized through leveraging individual strengths. This philosophy relates to a strengths‐based psychological climate, that is, employee perceptions of the opportunities they get to identify, develop, and use their strengths. We hypothesized that a strengths‐based psychological climate positively influences employees’ positive affect, which in turn enhances their in‐role and extra‐role performance. In our study, 442 respondents working in 39 departments of eight Dutch and Belgian organizations gave ratings on the strength‐based psychological climate of their organization, and indicated their level of work‐related positive affect, in‐role performance, and extra‐role performance. Results of multilevel hierarchical regression analyses supported our hypotheses by indicating that strengths‐based psychological climate was positively linked to in‐role and extra‐role performance, and that this link was mediated by positive affect. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Mind the Intended‐Implemented Gap: Understanding Employees’ Perceptions of HRM

This study aims to shed light on the implementation of HR practices as a key piece of the human resource management (HRM)–performance puzzle. Although the literature suggests that discrepancies between the organization's intended and implemented HR practices are essential to understanding employees’ perceptions of and reactions to HRM, little attention has been devoted to this issue. Drawing upon a multiple‐case study of German health and social services organizations, we therefore explore the linkages (and potential gaps) between intended, implemented, and perceived HR practices. Our study provides new insights into the underlying mechanisms of this relationship, highlighting an organization's ability to leverage its resources as playing a crucial moderating role in implementing intended HR practices, while employees’ expectations of HRM moderate the link between implemented and perceived HR practices. We advance a set of propositions that contributes to a more nuanced, multilevel understanding of the complex phenomenon of HRM implementation. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Recruitment and retention in front‐line services: the case of childcare

This article highlights how problems of recruitment and retention in front‐line services create a particular challenge to traditional HRM models and solutions. Private day nurseries make an interesting example of the challenges facing managers in the service sector as the combination of a feminised workforce, a price‐sensitive service, public–private competition and state regulation create particular difficulties. We report on a study of 33 day nurseries involving interviews with managers and employees over an eight‐month period. Our findings show that childcare providers have to cope with recruitment and retention problems associated with high‐end interactive service provision compounded by gender segregation and small business characteristics. Our analysis of employer and employee perspectives examines labour market issues affecting recruitment, and categorises the reasons for staff turnover into internal ‘push’ factors, external ‘pull’ factors, outside factors and functional turnover.     

Managing work-generated emotions at home: An exploration of the “Bright Side” of emotion regulation

This conceptual paper applies the construct of emotion regulation to the work-family interface in order to further expand our understanding of the positive aspects of emotional labor. Contrary to the predominant view that emotional labor is stressful and produces primarily harmful outcomes, we propose that emotion regulation in work-to-home transitions reduces an individual's work-family conflict, enhances job satisfaction, and improves their spouse's family satisfaction. Indeed, work stress can cause employees to remain preoccupied with work-related thoughts and negative moods when moving from work to family settings. We argue that social display rules positively influence an individual's engagement in emotion regulation to meet family role demands. Drawing on current research on role boundaries, emotion regulation, emotional labor, and work-family conflict, we offer testable propositions to encourage future research on the beneficial aspects of emotion regulation in research on work and family. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in closing.     

Is Ulrich's model useful in understanding HR practitioners' roles in non-western developing countries? An exploratory investigation across private and public sector organizations in the Sultanate Kingdom of Oman

This study set out to explore whether Ulrich's model is useful in understanding HR roles in non-western developing countries such as Oman. The study surveyed a random sample of 780 HR practitioners, line managers and employees from public and private sector organizations. In addition 12 HR practitioners and managers were interviewed to supplement the data collected from the survey. The findings indicate that HR practitioners in Oman perform all the roles. However, ‘strategic partner’ is the least performed role. The findings also indicate that HR practitioners in the private sector are more likely to perform all the five roles to a greater extent than their counterparts in the public sector. We also found partial support for our proposition that HR practitioners in the public sector would play more ‘operational’ roles (e.g. employee advocate or functional expert) than ‘strategic’ roles (i.e. strategic partner or HR leader). The study revealed that Ulrich's model is robust enough to help in the understanding of HR roles in a non-western, developing country context. The findings are discussed within the context of institutional and cultural frameworks. The paper argues for more research to improve the understanding of how socio-economic and cultural factors influence HR roles and how they are performed.     

Real Geographies,Real Economies and Soft Spatial Imaginaries: Creating a ‘More than Manchester’ Region

This article develops a framework for analysing region‐building processes as spatiotemporal constructs, involving competing spatial imaginaries and attempts at consolidating these through institution building. Central here is the performative role of what we refer to as ‘soft space imaginaries’ in the ‘phased’ building of regions for planning and economic development over time. We demonstrate how this understanding can be used to examine the phased enactment of successive waves of region‐building by tracing the evolution of multiple soft spatial imaginaries in north‐west England. The analysis exposes the variable logics, alliances of actors, and tactics used to build momentum and secure legitimacy around preferred imaginaries which advocates often promoted on the grounds that they somehow reflected ‘real geographies’ or ‘real economies’. In this context, soft space imaginaries are seen to play an integral role in intellectual case making about the contemporaneous form and purpose of subnational governance. Yet our analysis also exposes the durability of past soft space imaginaries and their continued impact on efforts to build new soft spaces. What emerges is an understanding of soft space imaginaries as more than just superficial representations. They can help determine where government investment is channelled and into what kinds of policies.     

Perceived human resource system strength and employee reactions toward change: Revisiting human resource's remit as change agent

Although scholars have highlighted human resource's (HR's) important role as a change agent, we know little about the extent to which HR influences the change context to foster positive employee responses and support organizational changes. This study positions perceived HR system strength as an important internal context factor that influences employees' reactions toward change. Drawing on emotion theory and social exchange theory, we analyze the mechanisms through which employees' perceptions of HR system strength lead to positive employee responses to organizational change. Data from 704 employees in a UK police force showed that employees' perceptions of HR system strength were positively related to their ability to cope with organizational change and that this relationship was simultaneously mediated by state positive affect and perceived organizational support. Moreover, our findings demonstrated that coping with organizational change was positively related to employees' change‐supportive behavior. This study is important because it broadens the remit of HR's role as change agent and provides valuable insight into how HR positively influences employee outcomes during organizational change.     

Mobilizing consent: paternalism and cellular manufacturing

In this paper we explore the dynamics of the introduction of New Systems and Structures of Work Organization (NSSWO) in the context of the forces impacting upon organizational change in the unionized sector of manufacturing industry throughout the Thatcher period. This we do by way of a detailed case study of a major UK auto-components manufacturer. We explore a number of changes in work organization, including the introduction of a cellular-based system of manufacturing, from its initial strategic conception through to its implementation; the delegation of responsibility for quality to shop-floor operators and the use of more flexible working practices. In doing so, we reconsider the context of change, the detailed processes of change and the pattern of accommodation between labour and management. Drawing upon our previous work on the nature of paternalism (Ackers,and Black, 1991), we explore its significance in terms of management’s constant drive for more economic work practices and patterns of organization. Specifically we explore the significance of paternalism as a relevant concept in interpreting the case, and hence, also, as a relevant concept in understanding HRM. The case challenges the prevailing ideology that the ‘successful’

economic organization requires (a) a de-regulated labour market and (b)

a trade union free environment, or, failing this, that management needs to

develop an individualistic approach towards the work-force, moving from the

more pluralist‘industrial relations’approach towards an essentially ‘unitarist framework, as found in certain interpretations of ‘uman resource management’(Guest, 1987)

The paper is thus a contribution to the continuing analysis of those ‘tensions and struggles through which the open ended potential of labour power have been managed, through shifting patterns of coercion, accommodation and compliance into profitable forms of production’(Elger and Smith, 1994: 12; Thompson, 1990). By means of this case we attempt to explore this issue with respect to three interconnected

themes:

The place of paternalism as a relevant concept in the age of HRM.

The extent to which organizations may be better advised to look towards ways

to build upon their existing organization culture, rather than seeking solutions

from overseas models.

Linking with previous work on the ‘Joint Process’in the US (Black and Ackers, 1994), the paper raises issues concerning the ‘strategic issue . . . which managers have to face . . . the balance between joint regulation and joint consultation’(Storey and Sissons, 1993: 221), and hence the role of trades unions in organizational change programmes.     

Choosing union representation: the role of attitudes and emotions

In the United States, most unions are recognised by a majority vote of employees through union representation elections administered by the government. Most empirical studies of individual voting behaviour during union representation elections use a rational choice model. Recently, however, some have posited that voting is often influenced by emotions. We evaluate competing hypotheses about the determinants of union voting behaviour by using data collected from a 2010 representation election at Delta Air Lines, a US‐based company. In addition to the older rational choice framework, multiple regression results provide support for an emotional choice model. Positive feelings toward the employer are statistically significantly related to voting ‘no’ in a representation election, while positive feelings toward the union are related to a ‘yes’ vote. Effect sizes for the emotion variables were generally larger than those for the rational choice variables, suggesting that emotions may play a key role in representation election outcomes.     

Role redesign in a modernised NHS: the case of health care assistants

This article examines role redesign in the National Health Service (NHS), which has been central to the Labour government's modernisation agenda, focusing on the role of health care assistants (HCAs). Drawing on data from two acute hospital trusts, this article focuses on variation in HCA roles between trusts, indicating that there may not have been a uniform expansion of the HCA role as the government's HR agenda and most commentators suggest. Although the modernisation agenda has curtailed registered nurses' role in direct care, there are significant variations in the degree to which HCAs undertake a ‘relief’, ‘substitute’ or ‘apprentice’ role at trust level. These variations in HCA role stem from distinctive models of the nursing workforce with differing assumptions about the respective roles of registered and non‐registered nurses. The variations in HCA role have important consequences for the prospects for role redesign and HR policy in the NHS.     

Reducing burnout in call centers through HR practices

Previous research on call centers has demonstrated that human resource (HR) practices can be related to employee stress; however, these studies did not examine the linking mechanisms underlying these associations. Using the job demands–control (JD‐C) model as a theoretical framework, we examine perceived job demands (namely, emotional dissonance and quantitative demands) and autonomy as potential mediators in the relationship between HR systems and burnout (exhaustion and cynicism). We distinguish between HR control systems, which include performance monitoring practices, and HR involvement systems, which include training, participation, and performance‐related pay. This study samples 811 employees working in 11 call centers. Our findings support the idea that HR systems can help reduce burnout in call centers by verifying that HR control systems associated with more emotional dissonance and less autonomy increase burnout. On the other hand, an HR involvement system decreases workers' burnout because it alleviates the job demands of emotional dissonance and quantitative demands. This study fills a gap in the literature between HR systems and burnout by demonstrating the role job demands and autonomy play in explaining how HR systems improve or decrease workers' exhaustion and cynicism. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Demands or Resources? The Relationship Between HR Practices,Employee Engagement,and Emotional Exhaustion Within a Hybrid Model of Employment Relations

This article explores the ways in which employees may experience and respond to tensions inherent in the mix of potentially conflicting human resource (HR) practices that compose hybrid models of employment relations. By drawing on the job demands–resources (JD‐R) literature and viewing HR practices as “demands” and “resources,” we explore the impact of performance management and employee voice practices on employee well‐being, as exemplified by engagement and emotional exhaustion, in a large public‐sector organization in Ireland. Our findings suggest that employee voice mechanisms may act as a resource in both enhancing engagement and in counterbalancing the demands presented by a performance management system, thus reducing the deleterious effects of emotional exhaustion. Our study extends understanding of hybrid models of human resource management (HRM) and of the ways in which employees manage the contradictory signals that such models may send in terms of performance expectations. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Work and employment in distribution and exchange: moments in the circuit of capital

This article examines the ‘politics of production’ within grocery warehousing and distribution. In doing so, it highlights the complex linkages between logistics companies and their dominant supermarket customers. Building on the work of Glucksmann and the notion of the ‘total social organisation of labour’, the article reveals how an understanding of employment change within grocery distribution necessarily involves mapping these linkages, thereby examining how they impact on the labour process. Drawing on case‐study evidence from two third‐party grocery distribution companies, it examines empirically the nature of the linkages between these organisations and their effects on the labour process. It also explores the extent to which organised labour within these interconnected distribution companies is able to mediate and re‐shape the requirements placed upon them by their customers. It concludes by highlighting how the power of the retailers and the corresponding ‘logistics revolution’ has reshaped the politics of production. In addition, it calls for an understanding of work and employment in warehousing and distribution, which engages with the complex articulation between production, distribution and exchange.     

Feminisation of the medical profession: a strategic HRM dilemma? The effects of family‐friendly HR practices on female doctors' contracted working hours

Health‐care institutions face a strategic HR dilemma. They need to attract female doctors from a tight, feminised labour market by offering family‐friendly HR practices (e.g. part‐time employment), often based on collective labour agreements, while trying to contain their labour costs by employing as many full‐timers as possible. In this study, we investigate which family‐friendly arrangements serve health‐care institutions' HR strategies best in terms of retaining female doctors' working hours. Data collected in 2008 from 1,070 Dutch female doctors indicate that offering family‐friendly HR practices such as flexible working hours (in contrast to part‐time working) minimise the strategic HR dilemma, since it offers scope for improving the work–life balance without encouraging female doctors to work less hours. However, the effect of family‐friendly arrangements on working hours is dependent on the family‐friendly workforce philosophy: only with proper support for career goals do women using family‐friendly arrangements work more hours.     

The contours of employee voice in SMEs: the importance of context

This article develops a context‐sensitive approach to analyse how and why voice operates in small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), an area that remains under‐theorised and under‐researched. By building on a priori frameworks with proven ability to unpack complexity and take account of the wider context of SMEs, this article explores how resources (human and social capital) and constraints (product market, labour market and strategic orientation) interact to shape voice practices. The article finds significant differences between ‘reported’ compared with ‘actual’ practices in situ, and identifies different types of firms (‘strategic market regulation’, ‘strategic market‐led’ and ‘non‐strategic market‐led’) along with the factors that influence the form and practice of voice. Overall, the article argues that researchers should further pursue research that appreciates the layered nature of ontology and the role played by firm context to explain complex organisational phenomena, if we are to advance our understanding of voice practices in SMEs and beyond.