(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
4—Respondents have concerns about ongoing budgetary constraints that have prompted many
higher education institutions to be operated with a greater focus on the bottom line, but at the
expense of academic services to constituents. Personnel in public institutions in California, for
example, were subjected to a state-mandated furlough program during the 2009-2010 academic
year that reduced the number of instructional days by 18. Teaching faculty, some of whom took
part in this pilot study, said they felt the furlough program had a major impact on emotional labor
because teachers were forced to come up with creative ways to meet student learning objectives
(SLO) and cover important material in less time with less pay, while still attempting to maintain
a positive attitude about their employment situations.
Implications and Recommendations
This paper takes the position that individuals (employees) in an organization can act as a
function of public relations by contributing to the development of a mutually satisfactory and
beneficial organization-public relationship (OPR). However, it is important to note that
organizations often require behaviors of their employees that can affect relationships with the
organizations’ key publics and result in degrees of emotional labor.
Based on the findings and feedback from respondents in this pilot study, it is not unreasonable to
suggest that sensitivity toward emotional labor should be an ongoing part of any organization’s
employee relations program. According to Vey (2005), organizations that ignore the problems
associated with emotional labor could face even greater challenges. For example, emotionally
exhausted employees have lower performance and productivity, and higher absenteeism. These
workers also can impact the morale of those around them. When teachers are dissatisfied and
depressed because of an unresolved institutional problem, others around them can very easily
become lethargic, cynical, and discontented and, before long, the entire organization becomes
dispirited and uninviting.
Although most organizational decisions are made at the administrative level, instructors play an
important role in establishing the overall tone of a school (Van der Sijde). If teachers are
experiencing feelings of failure and/or lacking in personal satisfaction, their relationship with
students and the overall school will ultimately suffer (Purkey, 1970).
One way in which higher education institutions can address the issue of emotional labor is to
better utilize two important organizational elements that already exist on college and university
campuses: human resources (HR) and public relations (PR). Human resources managers can
provide training programs to improve employee interaction and encourage use of counseling
services for employees who may be struggling with job-related stress. Public relations
professionals, through their role as counselors to management and as architects of the
institution’s public image, also can have greater input in helping to create and to present the most
effective kinds of “emotional expressions” that employees can offer to colleagues, students, and
other relevant publics of the institution. While some might see emotional labor as a problem that
falls under the purview of human resources only, emotional exhaustion (Grandey, 2000) can lead
to high rates of employee turnover, which can negatively affect an institution’s public image and
necessitate a public response.
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