Behind the word “animal” of social animals is lingering emotional labor.
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “China-Europe Business Review” (ID: ceibs-cbr) , author: Cao Xinbei.
Author | Cao Xinbei
Editor in charge | Cao Xinbei
“Annual leave? Think beautiful! Now the company implements 996 and strives for 997.”
“Okay, leadership.”
“I read the revised version 61 of the PPT you sent. I thought about it and thought it was best to use the first version.”
“Okay, leadership.”
“I will send you a customer profile at 12 o’clock tonight. I remember to submit the specific marketing plan before 8 o’clock tomorrow morning. I will see it when I go to work.”
“Okay, leadership.”
The above dialogue has become an exaggerated daily routine for the animals. The term “she” comes from Japan and is a newly created word. It is a combination of society and livestock. It is used to refer to employees who continue to obey the company and are squeezed like animals. Whether it is contemporary Japan or China, social animal has become a common phenomenon in the workplace. Young people have laughed at themselves as the animal of the animal, and it is full of bitterness.
They joked that they were “making money selling cabbages and having a heart selling white powder,” with a meager salary, and taking on a lot of work. The company and the family live a dull and dull life. After the animals returned home at night, they were exhausted, sleeping and eating were careless. They were trapped in the quagmire of survival and could not extricate themselves. Insomnia and hair loss became common problems in contemporary animals.
In the Japanese drama “We Can’t Become Beasts”, the heroine played by Aigaki Yui is a standard stock animal. Opening your eyes every morning is a series of message messages that need to be answered; anytime, anywhere, or even in the subway station, you will be required to work overtime temporarily; pig teammates are not good at doing things, not only to clean up the mess, but also to be scolded instead of the back pot; fight for yourself Rights, but they have never been able to succeed, and can only helplessly squat on the side of the road with emotion “difficult life”.
But when you think about it, in terms of physical exertion, white-collar workers sit in the office cubicle every day, and are not engaged in any heavy and expendable labor. Why do they still feel exhausted and go home only want Ge You lying? Where does the “animal sense” that deeply surround the social animals come from?
01 It ’s tiring to sit in the office
Are you tired from sitting in the office? No, there is mental exhaustion.
When studying, parents always tell their children to study hard and find a comfortable job sitting in the office when they grow up. But the matter of “siting in the office” is not as comfortable as expected. In addition to physical work and mental work, employees also have a contribution that cannot be ignored-emotional work.
The concept of “emotional labor” was first proposed by the sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild and caused extensive discussion in academia. She defined it as “in public, employees use facial expressions and body movements to manage their emotions”. In his book “Emotions in the Organization”, Hochschild stated: “No matter what kind of work, as long as it involves interpersonal interaction, employees may need to carry out emotional labor.”
In order to meet the needs of work, this behavior of forcibly adjusting their emotions to meet organizational standards is quite common in work. In short, what we usually call “professional smirk with eight teeth exposed” is a typical emotional labor. From the perspective of economics, employees’ emotions are not just personal belongings, but commoditized tangible objects. Emotional labor is the same as mental labor and manual labor. Employees pay labor and exchange corresponding value items-wages.
Emotional labor can be divided into superficial actions and deep actions. Superficial actions refer to employees ’direct emotional disguise for organizational purposes, and display is not an inner expression. Deep movements are divided into active and passive. Active deep movements refer to the fact that although the movements required by the organization are inconsistent with the inner movements of the employees, the employees continue to adjust themselves through repeated self-hypnosis, so as to achieve the external emotions consistent with the organizational goals expression.
Passive deep movements are an ideal perfect situation, that is, the employee ’s emotions and the emotions required by the organization just adjustConsistently, in this case, there is no need to consume more emotions, and it is not easy to cause fatigue.
For example, if an employee is assigned an additional task, this task will cause him to work off two hours a day without corresponding salary compensation or welfare subsidies. Since it was the first week of the task, the employee barely tolerated the complaint and pretended to complete the task with a smile.
This is a superficial action: the individual suppresses his emotions and quickly puts on a mask. But the surface action obviously cannot last too long, because the employee is always dissatisfied. If the problem can not be solved reasonably and fairly, then he may take the “vote with his feet” method to find another way out.
The active deep action means that after being assigned an additional task, the employee starts to repeat self-hypnosis, such as “Forget it, take a step back to the sea and sky” “Be patient, after all, this task is also very important” “For It is also appropriate for the company to develop and make more concessions. “By constantly persuading itself to increase acceptance of new tasks.
Compared to surface movements, active deep movements can obviously last longer, but the long process of self-hypnosis and psychological construction will still increase the sense of “animal” in social animals.
As for the passive deep action, it is an ideal state similar to utopia, that is, when the company explained to the employees that they need to work overtime for two hours a day, the employees also offered to work overtime for two hours. , Individual goals are completely consistent with organizational goals, and do not require additional psychological construction or emotional adjustment.
For the study of emotional labor, most academic circles focus on the service industry, mainly because the service industry is more representative. Sales need to show a perfect smile to customers, nurses need to show care for patients, and teachers need patience and good temper. These are the most representative examples of emotional labor.
02 Become an office worker of social animals
Every office worker’s strong face laughter contains emotional labor.
But in fact, the coverage of emotional labor goes far beyond the service industry, but goes deep into the everyday life of every office worker. In the Japanese drama “We Can’t Become Beasts”, even if the heroine faces a violent bombardment of all kinds of information every day when she opens her eyes, the overtime culture is intensified, and she still needs to remain enthusiastic and respond in time;
Even if you feel wronged or over-requested, even though you feel angry and frustrated, you still have to smile and obey the consent; even if you fail to claim your rights or you are arranged for more and more work I can only sigh in private and turn my head, but I still have to smile and nod my head in order to survive.
The common behaviors in these workplaces are all employees behindEmotional labor produced by demand, whether it is a superficial action that immediately makes a person laugh, or repeatedly admonishes himself to “make money in order to survive”, through passive self-hypnosis to achieve passive deep actions consistent with the emotions required by the organization, there is no doubt that Consume internal energy and make employees feel tired.
We can see that only in extreme freedom, let employees let go freely, do whatever they want, and do n’t care about any other people or things in order to be spared from emotional labor. But in reality, there is no such perfect utopia, so as an office worker, everyone cannot escape from emotional labor. The only difference is the difference in working environment and atmosphere, which results in different emotional labor consumption for employees.
That ’s why people think that sitting in the same day and playing games at home for a whole day will have a very different feeling than when they work in the office building for a day. The former does not feel exhausted at all, and may stay up all night to play the whole night, while the latter will make you feel tired like peeling.
At the same time, for office workers, sometimes there is the idea that focusing on doing your job well is actually not that tiring, but in the workplace, there are various new and unexpected situations every day, which also need to be involved. Complex interpersonal relationship processing, collaboration and evasion of various departments will make people very tired. The reason behind this feeling is that when dealing with unexpected situations and complex interpersonal coordination, more emotional labor is needed, and it is easier to make people feel “animal”.
In addition, the more repressive emotions accumulate, the more personal energy will be consumed, making you so tired that you just want to be a salted fish. It is for this reason that every Monday, expression packs such as “don’t want to go to work” and “just want to lie down” will appear frequently. Words like “the world is not worth it” have also become buzzwords among contemporary social animals.
And, behavioral economics also found that when individuals consume energy for a long time, their behavioral decisions will be affected, and they will be more inclined to rely on intuition, experience, and sensibility to make irrational decisions. For example, when the social animals ended their exhausted day and finally returned home, although they originally had a study or fitness plan, they finally chose to surrender themselves, lie on the sofa, Ge You, rely on buying and buying to vent their emotions. Rational behavior.
Why do social animals feel “animal”? The answer does not depend on the ratio of mental labor to physical labor, but on the emotional labor involved in the work. From the perspective of traditional human capital, the wages paid by enterprises include employees’ daily work, personal knowledge reserves, and skill levels, but they do not take into account the factors of emotional labor.
But if combined with modern management ideas, you can find that emotional labor is also a part of the wages that companies need to pay. If the enterprise does not take emotional labor into consideration for a long time, it may lead to a decrease in employee satisfaction and even eventual resignation.
If we want to learn more about the sense of “animal”, we can combine it with the famous Hawthorne experiment of management psychology. The Hawthorne experiment was presided over by Harvard University professor Mayo. The word “Hawthorne” refers to the experiment object-employees in the Hawthorne factory that makes telephone switches.
The Hawthorne experiment mainly changes the working environment and conditions, and considers which factors affect the employee ’s work efficiency. Its breakthrough point in management is that the experimental conclusion transfers management from work and material factors to human. Factors, guide managers to have a deeper understanding of people’s social and behavioral aspects. The emotional labor behind social animals is obviously an important aspect of human nature and is closely related to employee satisfaction.
Managers need to understand that emotional labor cannot be completely eliminated, and in many cases, emotional labor is beneficial to companies. Whether it is a salesperson who always keeps a smile to customers, a warm and caring patient patient, or a patient patient teacher, they are all extremely valuable emotional assets provided by the company to the outside world, and are also an important source of attracting customers.
Therefore, for companies, in the early recruitment, the human resources manager should help the candidate understand the job details and responsibilities as much as possible, let the candidate consider whether the job meets their own interests and hobbies and life planning, and whether the corporate goals Match your personal goals. Only when you have realistic expectations for the work you want to do before you start work, and you have done a good job of psychological construction, can you better alleviate the emotional labor brought about by the work.
In the later period of management, managers should realize that tenderness, patience and kindness are not inherent qualities of each subordinate, and may also be a cover up after emotional labor. If you take a closer look at a person who is still enthusiastic about introducing product sales to customers at 4 pm, she may find that she only handled two unpleasant complaints in the morning, and therefore delayed her lunch, and her smile was full of fatigue. With bitterness.
In order to improve employee satisfaction and relieve employeesDue to the psychological pressure of workers, companies can regularly organize party building, hiking, cycling, karaoke and other group building activities to help employees relax moderately. At the same time, as managers, when explaining the work content and requirements to their subordinates, they should provide as much information as possible, so that the decisions made by the company are not forced from the top down, but are provided when a large amount of background information is provided. Next, exchange the company’s needs and ideas with subordinates to better achieve the coincidence of personal goals and corporate goals. By creating a good communication environment and building an orderly work process, try to reduce the workload of employees’ emotional labor.
Every office worker’s strong face laughter contains emotional labor.
But in fact, the coverage of emotional labor goes far beyond the service industry, but goes deep into the everyday life of every office worker. In the Japanese drama “We Can’t Become Beasts”, even if the heroine faces a violent bombardment of all kinds of information every day when she opens her eyes, the overtime culture is intensified, and she still needs to remain enthusiastic and respond in time;
Even if you feel wronged or over-requested, even though you feel angry and frustrated, you still have to smile and obey the consent; even if you fail to claim your rights or you are arranged for more and more work I can only sigh in private and turn my head, but I still have to smile and nod my head in order to survive.
The common behaviors in these workplaces are all employees behindEmotional labor produced by demand, whether it is a superficial action that immediately makes a person laugh, or repeatedly admonishes himself to “make money in order to survive”, through passive self-hypnosis to achieve passive deep actions consistent with the emotions required by the organization, there is no doubt that Consume internal energy and make employees feel tired.
We can see that only in extreme freedom, let employees let go freely, do whatever they want, and do n’t care about any other people or things in order to be spared from emotional labor. But in reality, there is no such perfect utopia, so as an office worker, everyone cannot escape from emotional labor. The only difference is the difference in working environment and atmosphere, which results in different emotional labor consumption for employees.
That ’s why people think that sitting in the same day and playing games at home for a whole day will have a very different feeling than when they work in the office building for a day. The former does not feel exhausted at all, and may stay up all night to play the whole night, while the latter will make you feel tired like peeling.
At the same time, for office workers, sometimes there is the idea that focusing on doing your job well is actually not that tiring, but in the workplace, there are various new and unexpected situations every day, which also need to be involved. Complex interpersonal relationship processing, collaboration and evasion of various departments will make people very tired. The reason behind this feeling is that when dealing with unexpected situations and complex interpersonal coordination, more emotional labor is needed, and it is easier to make people feel “animal”.
In addition, the more repressive emotions accumulate, the more personal energy will be consumed, making you so tired that you just want to be a salted fish. It is for this reason that every Monday, expression packs such as “don’t want to go to work” and “just want to lie down” will appear frequently. Words like “the world is not worth it” have also become buzzwords among contemporary social animals.
And, behavioral economics also found that when individuals consume energy for a long time, their behavioral decisions will be affected, and they will be more inclined to rely on intuition, experience, and sensibility to make irrational decisions. For example, when the social animals ended their exhausted day and finally returned home, although they originally had a study or fitness plan, they finally chose to surrender themselves, lie on the sofa, Ge You, rely on buying and buying to vent their emotions. Rational behavior.
Why do social animals feel “animal”? The answer does not depend on the ratio of mental labor to physical labor, but on the emotional labor involved in the work. From the perspective of traditional human capital, the wages paid by enterprises include employees’ daily work, personal knowledge reserves, and skill levels, but they do not take into account the factors of emotional labor.
But if combined with modern management ideas, you can find that emotional labor is also a part of the wages that companies need to pay. If the enterprise does not take emotional labor into consideration for a long time, it may lead to a decrease in employee satisfaction and even eventual resignation.
If we want to learn more about the sense of “animal”, we can combine it with the famous Hawthorne experiment of management psychology. The Hawthorne experiment was presided over by Harvard University professor Mayo. The word “Hawthorne” refers to the experiment object-employees in the Hawthorne factory that makes telephone switches.
The Hawthorne experiment mainly changes the working environment and conditions, and considers which factors affect the employee ’s work efficiency. Its breakthrough point in management is that the experimental conclusion transfers management from work and material factors to human. Factors, guide managers to have a deeper understanding of people’s social and behavioral aspects. The emotional labor behind social animals is obviously an important aspect of human nature and is closely related to employee satisfaction.
Managers need to understand that emotional labor cannot be completely eliminated, and in many cases, emotional labor is beneficial to companies. Whether it is a salesperson who always keeps a smile to customers, a warm and caring patient patient, or a patient patient teacher, they are all extremely valuable emotional assets provided by the company to the outside world, and are also an important source of attracting customers.
Therefore, for companies, in the early recruitment, the human resources manager should help the candidate understand the job details and responsibilities as much as possible, let the candidate consider whether the job meets their own interests and hobbies and life planning, and whether the corporate goals Match your personal goals. Only when you have realistic expectations for the work you want to do before you start work, and you have done a good job of psychological construction, can you better alleviate the emotional labor brought about by the work.
In the later period of management, managers should realize that tenderness, patience and kindness are not inherent qualities of each subordinate, and may also be a cover up after emotional labor. If you take a closer look at a person who is still enthusiastic about introducing product sales to customers at 4 pm, she may find that she only handled two unpleasant complaints in the morning, and therefore delayed her lunch, and her smile was full of fatigue. With bitterness.
In order to improve employee satisfaction and relieve employeesDue to the psychological pressure of workers, companies can regularly organize party building, hiking, cycling, karaoke and other group building activities to help employees relax moderately. At the same time, as managers, when explaining the work content and requirements to their subordinates, they should provide as much information as possible, so that the decisions made by the company are not forced from the top down, but are provided when a large amount of background information is provided. Next, exchange the company’s needs and ideas with subordinates to better achieve the coincidence of personal goals and corporate goals. By creating a good communication environment and building an orderly work process, try to reduce the workload of employees’ emotional labor.