Emotional Labour in HR Work: The Cost of Staying Neutral

Abstract

This article is about emotional labour in HR work: the effort of showing a calm, neutral face in meetings where you feel something else. Three pieces of research bear on it. A meta-analysis of 95 studies found that hiding your feelings at work, called surface acting, was linked with emotional exhaustion, while trying to change what you feel was linked far more weakly. A survey of 143 HR professionals at a Malaysian financial institution, summarised here from its published abstract, found surface acting linked with burnout. An interview study of 15 HR professionals described a "mask of professionalism" and what happened when they had no one to talk to afterwards. The findings are correlational or interpretive, and none shows that a particular step prevents burnout. The three steps at the end are practical readings, not tested methods, and they are not medical advice.

The redundancy meeting at half past ten

It is half past ten. You have just told a colleague of nine years that her role is being made redundant. You kept your voice level and your face neutral, as the process requires. At ten to eleven she is crying in the corridor, and you are asked whether the headcount slide is ready.

At eleven you are in a budget meeting, and nobody there knows what the morning was. At six you are home, and the conversation is playing again from the start.

What is emotional labour in HR work?

Emotional labour means managing what you show at work so that it matches what the role asks, whatever you feel. Researchers describe two ways of doing it. Surface acting is masking or faking an expression while the feeling stays the same. Deep acting is working to change the feeling itself.

Research cannot tell you how much of this your own week contains. It does suggest that the cost of hiding what you feel is a pattern tied to the role, not a personal weakness. The next three sections cover the studies. The three steps after them turn this into things you can do.

What a meta-analysis found

Hülsheger and Schewe (2011) combined 95 studies, 105 independent samples and about 23,500 people. Surface acting was linked with emotional exhaustion (a corrected correlation of .44), with psychosomatic complaints (.44) and with lower job satisfaction (-.33). Deep acting had much weaker links with ill-being: the correlation with emotional exhaustion was .09. A mismatch between the emotion you feel and the one the job requires, which the authors call emotion-rule dissonance, was also linked with exhaustion (.40).

Most of this evidence is correlational and cross-sectional, so it shows an association and not that surface acting causes exhaustion. The authors note that other factors, such as personality, remain open. The studies were not limited to HR.

Read the half-past-ten meeting through this. Keeping a neutral face while feeling something else is the pattern linked with exhaustion. This is an inference, because the meta-analysis was not specific to HR roles.

What HR professionals reported

Santos, Mustafa and Gwi (2015) surveyed 143 HR professionals at a large Malaysian financial institution. According to the abstract, surface acting was significantly related to all three forms of burnout they measured: personal, work-related and client-related. Deep acting was related only to client-related burnout. Trait emotional intelligence was negatively related to surface acting, and surface acting partly accounted for the link between trait emotional intelligence and burnout. This was one survey at one organisation, summarised here from its abstract, so it shows an association and not a cause.

O'Brien and Linehan (2019) held 20 interviews with 15 HR professionals, and five of them also kept a diary for a week. Participants described being caught between employees and the organisation. In disciplinary meetings and redundancies they were expected to stay detached and neutral, while the role also called for empathy. They described wearing a professional "mask". They coped by rationalising what had to be done, by keeping work and home apart, and by talking to colleagues. When that failed, for example when their values were strongly challenged or when no HR colleague was available to confide in, they reported self-blame, replaying events after work, and physical effects such as a knot in the chest. The authors recommend that organisations look at whether HR professionals have opportunities to share and be validated. The sample was small and came from one occupational group.

Read your own week through this. What these studies describe is a pattern that people in your role report, not evidence that you handle emotion badly. This is an inference. The interviews were not designed to show how common it is.

Emotional labour in HR work: three steps

None of these is a cure, and none was tested on HR professionals. They combine what the research points to with ordinary practice. Where a step goes beyond the research, it says so.

1. Choose one person to debrief with after the hardest meetings, on the same day. Ideally another HR colleague. Say what happened and what you did, not only how you feel. For instance: "The redundancy meeting went as planned. I kept it neutral, and it was hard." In the interviews, talking to colleagues helped people make sense of events, and having no one to talk to went with the worst outcomes. This is an inference from O'Brien and Linehan (2019). The study did not test a debrief as an intervention.

2. After a hard meeting, write two lines: what you had to show, and what you felt. For instance: "Had to show: calm and neutral. Felt: sad, and worried I chose the wrong words." Then stop. This is a judgement. It makes the gap between the two visible, and a gap like this is what the meta-analysis links with exhaustion. No study cited here tested it.

3. Ask what the rule really is, and for which meetings. Ask your manager or an experienced colleague which meetings need the neutral face and which allow you to show more. For instance: "In a disciplinary meeting, how much warmth is right? What about in the one-to-one afterwards?" Contradictory expectations, to be detached and to show empathy, were a source of strain in the interviews. Clarifying them is a judgement, and no study cited here tested it.

If the conversation keeps replaying after work, How to Stop Replaying Criticism From Your Boss is about that loop. If you want to see which situations set off your strongest reactions, How to Identify Your Emotional Triggers (And What to Do About Them) is a place to start.

Questions People Ask

Is emotional labour the same as burnout?

No. In the meta-analysis, surface acting was linked with burnout measures, which means the two are related but not the same thing. Emotional labour is the effort of managing what you show. Burnout is one outcome linked with it, and the evidence is correlational. Burnout in Finance: Why High Performers Hit the Wall covers burnout itself.

Can emotional intelligence protect HR professionals from burnout?

The Malaysian survey found that higher trait emotional intelligence went with less surface acting, and that surface acting partly accounted for the link with burnout. It was one survey at one organisation, measured at one point in time, so it cannot show that raising emotional intelligence would lower burnout.

Is it normal to feel drained after redundancy or disciplinary meetings?

In the interviews, participants described the work as draining and described events replaying after work. The study cannot say how common that is. Whether yours is ordinary strain or more depends on how long it lasts and what it stops you doing, which the last section covers.

Does this apply outside HR?

The meta-analysis was not limited to HR, so the pattern may apply to other roles that require a calm face, such as managers who deliver bad news. This is an inference.

When it is more than strain

A hard meeting that stays with you for an evening is one thing. It is more when replaying events keeps you awake for weeks, when you dread the next meeting, when you start avoiding the work, or when you have panic attacks or physical symptoms such as chest pain. In those cases talk to your doctor or a qualified mental health professional. If your employer offers an employee assistance programme, it can be a first step. This article is not medical advice. Coaching is educational support for work patterns. It is not treatment and not a substitute for it.

Sources

• Hülsheger, U. R., & Schewe, A. F. (2011). On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: A meta-analysis of three decades of research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16(3), 361–389. DOI: 10.1037/a0022876

• O'Brien, E., & Linehan, C. (2019). Problematizing the authentic self in conceptualizations of emotional dissonance. Human Relations, 72(9), 1530–1556. DOI: 10.1177/0018726718809166

• Santos, A., Mustafa, M. J., & Gwi, T. C. (2015). Trait emotional intelligence, emotional labour, and burnout among Malaysian HR professionals. Management Research Review, 38(1), 67–88. DOI: 10.1108/MRR-06-2013-0143 (Summarised from the published abstract.)