Is Emotional Labor a Glass Ceiling?
Today in the US, women hold more bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees than men and tend to outperform their male counterparts in business settings. Women make up nearly 50% of the workforce, but occupy only 21% of leadership positions. This trend is made more extreme when viewed through an intersectional lens — in particular, the combined impacts of gender and race.
This area of research has become a big priority for organizations. When the top talent is not making it to top positions, this impedes the success of the organizations they belong to. However, if organizations are investing more heavily than ever into DEI training and fair practices for hiring and promoting, why aren’t they seeing more diversity in their leadership teams?
Women face more hostile work environments (read last month’s column on sexual harassment), reporting more interpersonal conflicts than their male counterparts and more work-related health problems. An in-depth study by Gwartney-Gibbs, P.A., and Lach revealed that organizations are ill- equipped to handle and escalate the conflicts that women experience on a daily basis, resulting in women making lateral transfers, leaving their organization to escape the conflict.
So, what is the cause of this workplace stress and how can we handle it?
The research overwhelmingly points to one factor as being one of the strongest causes of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, psychological strain, as well as decreased job satisfaction and organizational attachment: that is Emotional Labor.
Emotional labor is invisible work that someone is compelled to do by others in order to keep them happy. In a work setting, emotional labor may look like offering “service with a smile,” coordinating social events, remembering personal details about your co-workers, volunteering to do menial tasks, or becoming the go-to person when people need to air grievances or feel overwhelmed with their own task load.
“Research suggests that cumulatively, ongoing emotion work is exhausting but rarely acknowledged as a legitimate strain – and as such, is not reflected in wages” (Hackam, 2015). Although both men and women can participate in activities that require emotional labor, men tend to be rewarded and recognized for it, whereas for women it is expected. This is especially true for women entering male-dominated professions where more “female-type work” is expected from them in order provide comfort to the men in the organization.
What can men do about it?
Remember the negative impact of emotional labor comes from the cumulation of it, as women experience this in every facet of their lives, including outside of work. Look at the relationships you have with women and think critically about who is taking on the emotional labor. Who plans the get-togethers, remembers birthdays, coordinates gifts? Who creates Christmas magic? Who remembers the kids’ allergies and appointments? Who takes stock of the pantry to create the shopping lists?
Treating women as equals is not something that can be isolated to the workplace and instead must be exercised in everyday life.
What can women do about it?
One tool I’ve found helpful is to log my activity in a journal so I can see where my time is being spent. You’ll likely be surprised by the result! If you believe you’re taking on unpaid emotional labor tasks that are preventing you from completing your work within reasonable hours or causing you additional stress, take the log to your leader and ask them to help you prioritize projects and manage time. Not only does this inform your leader of the extra work you’re putting in, but it also helps you develop a framework to proactively decide which tasks I want to take on. Decide whether the breakdown of your time is aligning with your role responsibilities and personal career goals.
SOURCES
https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-management/
https://hbr.org/2016/09/managing-the-hidden-stress-of-emotional-labor
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/08/women-gender-roles-sexism-emotional-labor-feminism
Gwartney-Gibbs, P. A., & Lach, D. H. (1994). Gender differences in clerical workers; disputes over tasks, interpersonal treatment, and emotion. Human Relations, 47(6), 611-639.