The Role of Employees Within the Organisation

Employees are as vital for delivering a brand’s message as they are for delivering the business’ product or service. Their performance and satisfaction drives external service value and customer satisfaction, and their labour is as much emotional as it is operational. At Canary Jane’s Flowers, the nature of their products mean that customer relationships are particularly personal, and so the emotional labour of running the shop is increased.

The service profit chain model (see Figure 10.1) establishes the link between internal service quality and profitability, via employee and customer satisfaction (Heskett et al. 1994), the two of which are interlinked and feed from one another. In small business, the relationship between customers and employees is particularly close, and particularly important for profitability.

These relationships require emotional labour from employees, which is the performance by of expected emotions, which can be performed through changing facial expression, termed ‘surface acting’, or changing inner feelings, termed ‘deep acting’ (Grandey 2003). Deep acting is much more convincing to customers, and as such it is more desirable. Both forms of acting form part of the ‘labour’ in ‘emotional labour’, as it is mentally strenuous to maintain such a performance.

Better even that deep acting is the display of genuine emotion that aligns with the needs of an organisation, although it is much more rare and cannot be taught (Ashforth & Humphrey 1993). This has the advantage that it is not laborious, as it doesn’t involve any acting at all.

Emotional labour also includes the management of service-related conflict, and can markedly affect perceptions of service quality. Empathy, responsiveness, assurance, and reliability are all measures of how an employee connects with customers and are important factors in crafting customer satisfaction (Lee, Lee & Yoo 2000).

The application of the service profit chain to Canary Jane’s Flowers results in a somewhat simplified model; with a single owner-operator in Rebecca Stacey, employee retention stops being a consideration. Similarly, employee satisfaction, productivity, and internal service quality are merged as almost all customer service responsibilities are on one person.

Employee and customer satisfaction are also interlinked very strongly at Canary Jane’s Flowers because both parties are particularly involved in their service encounters. Ms Stacey’s emotional involvement is enhanced by her role as both floral designer and business owner, meaning she has a greater stake in business performance and ownership over the products she designs and sells. The customer’s involvement is also increased by the nature of flowers as a product, because they are so closely linked with relationships and emotion. This involvement necessitates engagement between parties on a personal level and requires a high level of emotional labour.

Typically, in service encounters with high involvement and emotional stakes, such as Canary Jane’s Flowers, deep acting is necessary. As mentioned above though, Ms Stacey has a genuine emotional stake in the business and its transactions so isn’t as affected by the emotional labour of acting. Often service employees require systems of support to help continue their acting without burn-out (Stevenson 1994).

References:

Heskett, J, Jones, T, Loveman, G, Sasser Jr., W & Schlesinger, L 1994, 'Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work', Harvard Business Review, vol. 72, no. 2, pp. 164-170.

Grandey, A 2003, 'When "The Show Must Go On": Surface Acting and Deep Acting As Determinants of Emotional Exhaustion and Peer-Rated Service Delivery.', Academy of Management Journal, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 86-96.

Ashforth, B & Humphrey, R 1993, 'Emotional Labor in Service Roles: The Influence of Identity.',Academy of Management Review, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 88-115.

Lee, H, Lee, Y & Yoo, D 2000, 'The determinants of perceived service quality and its relationship with satisfaction', Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 217-231.

Stevenson, J 1994, 'Employee burnout and perceived social support', Journal of Health and Human Resources Administration, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 350-367.