In Lugano, what is the cost of mandatory friendliness?
Within the SHR — Swiss Human Resources programme on psychosocial risks, emotional labour warrants a precise management question. In Lugano, how can managers require professional client relationships without making the concealment of emotions an obligation with no recourse?
What the literature establishes
Ute R. Hülsheger and Anna F. Schewe (2011, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology) distinguish, in their meta-analysis, between changing the visible expression of emotions and attempting to change the emotions themselves. The first strategy, commonly called surface acting, has more adverse associations with well-being, particularly emotional exhaustion. A friendly manner therefore does not, on its own, reveal the psychological cost of an interaction.
The mechanism behind a professional manner
Alicia A. Grandey (2000, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology) proposes a theoretical framework that examines emotional labour as emotion regulation under organisational constraints. Employees may change their expression without changing their feelings, or try to change their interpretation of the situation. This framework helps explain why the same instruction — remain friendly — can require different levels of effort depending on the situation and the person.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that employees simply need to learn to feel the expected emotions rather than simulate them. The meta-analysis does not justify turning this strategy into a universal prescription: less adverse associations do not demonstrate the effectiveness of preventive training. The management task also remains to determine which client behaviours the organisation accepts and when it allows someone else to take over. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot decide
These studies establish no threshold of emotionally difficult interactions beyond which a role becomes hazardous. The theoretical framework is not an intervention trial, and the associations synthesised are insufficient to establish causality in every company. Positive customer ratings therefore cannot replace an assessment of the conditions under which service is delivered.
A practical check in Lugano
In a bank, fashion shop, trading company or Italian-speaking family SME in Lugano, a team could test for two weeks a rule written in Italian specifying when to end an aggressive interaction and who takes over. A log containing no names or identifying details would record situations meeting this rule and those in which the designated backup was actually available. The indicator would be the proportion of relevant situations in which backup was provided, with the total number of relevant situations as the explicit denominator. This check measures the implementation of an organisational safeguard, not a demonstrated reduction in psychosocial risks. To go further: explore the Psychosocial Risks training in Lugano in the canton of Ticino, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Psychosocial Risks in Lugano
- psychosocial risks
- Lugano
- research
- training lugano