Poor management practices reduce public value by engaging in management practices that increase stress-related workers compensation claims that ultimately tax-payers pay. Emotional resilience training has the potential to reduce stress irrespective of the work conditions, which should reduce the stress-related workers compensation claims, in turn increasing public value by default.
This paper examines the impact of an employee training program intervention on the level of individual resources supporting employees delivering social services. These employees are classified as ‘emotional labor’, because they make use of emotional resources more than other employees (Hochschild, 1983). This means that have to regulate their emotions whilst servicing their clients/patients, and so, even if they feel sad or angry, they have to display a behaviour which is different from what they are feeling (Bakker & Heuven, 2006).
Employees can garnish support from two sources to help them cope. The traditional source of support is from the organisation (manager, organisation and colleagues). However, public and NFP workplaces delivering social services are increasingly characterised by work harassment – especially in those countries that have implemented reforms within the context of permanent austerity (Pollitt, 2010). Work harassment is a form of organisational aggression delivered to large numbers of front line staff evident by excessively high workloads and high accountability. When high work harassment is evident, low organisational support is given to employees (Brunetto et al, 2015; Xerri et al, 2016). This is when employees need high levels of individual support.
A more recent source of support is from the individual. Psychological Capital (PsyCap) is a variable that was identified and tested by Positive Organisational Behaviour academics as a psycho-social factor that provides individuals with a buffer against all forms of stress. Luthans et al (2007, 3) defined PsyCap as:
“an individual’s positive psychological state of development that is characterized by: (1) having confidence (self-efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency) to attain success”.
PsyCap has the potential to provide emotional labor with the psycho-emotive resources to cope with dealing with difficult clients/patients.
This paper examines the impact of delivering emotional resilience training on the perceptions of work harassment of emotional labor working as nurses, personal carers, drug and alcohol officers in a NFP organisation. Emotional Resilience training is a derivative of PsyCap in that it uses many of the same exercises, but focuses more on explaining how emotions work to impact aspects of PsyCap. It also aims to increase awareness and competency in using PsyCap for early detection of potential safety issues affecting clients/patients.
A positivist approach was used involving pre and post tests for 95 recipients and testing at 4 points for 25 recipients. The paper shows the results and discussed implications for improving management
Organisational change and the organisation of public sector work
