Emotional labour and employee well-being: An empirical study of structural cause and
individualized effect on service employees in South Korea
Presenting author: Lee, Jung-Hoon
Additional author: Kim, Hyun-Ki
Organisation/affiliations & address details of presenting author: Research Professor, Korea Univ. Business School
Organisation/affiliations & address details of additional author: PhD. Candidate, Korea Univ. Business School; Senior
Research Fellow, LG Economic Research Institute
ABSTRACT
Using the data of interviews and survey of two groups of emotional labour employees – sales
representatives and call centre workers – over 20 workplaces such as department stores, call centres, largescale retail trades and insurance companies, we have firstly examined causes of mental stress and secondly
have looked into a couple of cases to brace our suggestions. We have also had a close look at some of
similarities and differences of emotional labour between the two groups. They have shared some features
such as the strength of emotional labour, a high rate of non-standard employment, a large number of
female workers, and a great number of non-union labour. The two groups have exhibited differences in
age, the number of years worked, contract status, and perception of organisational control. Not only has
this research made an attempt to conduct qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis together to observe
the current status of two key groups of service labour market in Korea, but it has also tried to suggest
how to help the workers to relieve their mental stress and how to improve the employment relations.
INTRODUCTION
Through its rapid industrialisation focusing on manufacturing industry in 1970s and 1980s, South Korea
joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) in 1996 and has achieved
its economically tangible growth. The sudden growth in the industries brought about sudden changes in
the industrial structure at the same time. Among these changes, the proportion of tertiary industry soared
from 48.6% in 1991 to 68.8% in 2009. Despite the constant growth of the service industry, not many
studies have examined its industrial relations in South Korea. Among the drastically increasing tertiary
industry services, this paper has focused on the two main emotional labour services – call centre services
and sales representatives – and looked at their stress sources using quantitative and qualitative analysis.
Table 1. Changes in the number of retail trade and employees
2007
general merchandise
retail
Large-scale general
merchandise retail
No. of enterprises
2008
2009
2010
2007
No. of employees
2008
2009
2010
113,813 112,249 110,991 109,086 339,017 360,748 369,235 361,443
459
506
525
551
74,568
89,882
87,579
78,101
Department store
84
82
83
93
18,368
18,938
17,730
18,320
Other large-scale
general merch. retail
375
424
442
458
56,200
70,944
69,849
59,781
Source: Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS), data collected nationally each year
Table 2. Changes in the number of call centre & telemarketing services and employees
2007
No. of enterprises
2008
2009
Call centre &
telemarketing
682
721
700
services
Source: KOSIS, data collected nationally each year
2010
2007
801
37,824
No. of employees
2008
2009
55,872
54,865
2010
54,753
As Table 1 shows, although the number of general merchandise retail trades decreased slightly over the
1
years, the number of employees still increased overall. The number of the other types of retail trades
increased constantly. The number of enterprises and employees of call centre and telemarketing services
increased significantly between 2007 and 2010, reaching 801 enterprises and 54,753 employees in 2010
(Table 2).
European Journal of Industrial Relations (EJIR) addressed some concerns in regard to call centre workers
amongst service employees in European labour industry. Richard Hyman(2009) pointed out the survey
results which showed that there was a weakening trend in collective bargaining in the call centre
employment and downward employment conditions in six Western European countries. Likewise, there
are growing interests in the industrial relations of emotional labour. It is 1. because boosting
neoliberalism has brought an increase of the number of non-standard workers who are vulnerable and
easily get exploited, and 2. because most of call centre employees or sales representatives are nonstandard workers.
This research is to take part in the current studies on emotional labour. Although a number of emotional
labour studies have carried out in the field of organisational behaviour, many of them have focused on its
concepts and measuring methods, which has resulted in its lack of research on the industrial relations of
emotional labour. Therefore, we have designed this research believing that there are still various areas to
cover in the emotional labour field such as the labour market, labour policy or the systematic features.
BACKGROUND
Emotional labour, which was developed by Hochschild(1983), is a form of emotion regulation performed
by any service employees who are required, as part of their job, to maintain their appearance and to
display specific sets of emotions while hiding their true emotions with the aim of inducing the customers
to feel taken best care of. Call centre workers, sales representatives, flight attendants, and waiting staff are
some of the examples of emotional labour workers. A large number of the studies related to emotional
labour have focused on emotion itself, such as modified emotions of employees in the workplace, their
actual emotions, and their efforts to control their own emotions. Studies on the exhibited emotions have
looked at how it influences the clients, whereas ones on the efforts to emotion regulation have been
interested in how the emotion regulation impacts on the employees’ psychological sentiments and work
attitudes.
Emotional labour involves interaction with customers, and many researchers considered the frequency
and types of such interaction as one of the components to measure emotional labour. For instance, Bulan
and her co-researchers measured the degree of emotional labour by asking workers how much time they
spend to interact with the public either voice-to-voice or face-to-face and how much time they interact
with either their colleagues or their supervisors (Bulan et al., 1997). Brotheridge and Grandey, Morris and
Feldman also included the average hours and frequency that workers interact with customers (Brotheridge
& Grandey, 2002; Morris & Feldman 1996; 1997). A large number of emotional labour research have
their results linked to the burnout syndrome that Maslach and Jackson(1981; 1984) stated, which consists
of three scales – emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, diminished personal accomplishment.
Grandey(2000) took an interest in “surface acting (managing observable expressions)”, which is one only
regulates his/her expressed emotions without trying to change his/her actual internal feelings, and “deep
acting (managing feelings)”, which is that one makes an effort to change what he/she is really feeling to
be congruent with his/her displayed emotions, and measured the degree of emotional labour by
surveying workers’ surface acting and deep acting. She also carried out a number of studies to see how
emotional labour is affected by regulations or guidelines of exhibiting emotions or by the degree of
workplace demand for normative emotions.
Service workers tend to put on a publicly visible facial and bodily display within the workplace regardless
of their personal feelings. That is, they get isolated from their own feelings due to the emotional labour
performance and undergo continuous psychological tension, which would cause burnout or psychosocial
health issues in the end. Grandey(2000) described the process of how emotional labour affects personal
or organisational health into three stages – situational cues, emotion regulation process and long-term
2
consequences.
Situational Cues
Emotion Regulation process
Long-Term Consequences
Emotional Labor
Interaction Expectations
∙ Frequency
∙ Duration
∙ Variety
∙ Display rules
Deep Acting: Modify Feelings
∙ Attentional deployment
∙ Cognitive change
Emotional Events
∙ Positive events
∙ Negative events
Surface Acting: Modify Expressions
∙ Response modulation
Individual Factors
∙ Gender
∙ Emotional expressivity
∙ Emotional intelligence
∙ Affectivity (NA/PA)*
Individual Well-Being
∙ Burnout
∙ Job satisfaction
Organizational Well-Being
∙ Performance
∙ Withdrawal behavior
Organizational Factors
∙ Job autonomy
∙ Supervisor support
∙ Coworker support
* NA = negative affect; PA = positive affect
Figure 1. The proposed conceptual framework of emotion regulation performed in the work setting (extracted from
Grandey(2000))
METHODS
The objectives of this research are through quantitative and qualitative analysis 1. to inspect the status of
emotional labour workers and causes of their burnout and stress, and 2. to interpret these analyses to
draw implications to improve service workers’ well-being. As this study is not yet finalised but still in
progress, the research model of the quantitative analysis has not been elaborately set up. The authors will
carry on this research with more sophisticated research model to thoroughly examine the relationships
between moderators and mediators.
The data of the qualitative analysis were collected from the individual in-depth interviews participated by
10 sales representatives and 10 call centre workers. Six of the 10 call centre workers were from inbound
services and 4 from outbound services. Inbound services, such as home-shopping services or customer
services, deal with calls made by the client to obtain information, make an enquiry, make an order, report
a problem, or request for assistance. Outbound services, on the other hand, give a client a call to sell or
promote products or services. From September to October in 2012, each researcher met to interview
their participants individually for about an hour to an hour and a half. The following Table 3 and Table 4
outline the interviewees’ details.
Table 3. Information of the participants of the sales representatives
Pst.
Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales
Place of work age
Department
store
Large-scale
retail trade
L-S retail
Retail trade
Retail trade
Dpart. store
Retail trade
Dpart. store
L-S retail
L-S retail
Employment type
51
Hired by the standing
point store
43
Outsourcing company
23
36
42
34
32
43
52
36
Hired by the s. p. store
Hired by the store owner
Outsourcing company
Subcontractor
Hired by the store owner
Hired by the s. p. store
Hired by the store owner
Hired by the store owner
Monthly wage Years worked
in the same field Pattern of duties
(in USD)
(current job/total)
1,330
2.5/4
Full-time
62 (daily)
8mths/8mths
9 hr/d, 4 d/w
80 (daily)
1,642+incen.
1,065+incen.
1,686
1,331
1,775
26 (daily)
1,598
1.5/3
6mths/4.5
19mths/2.5
3/3
1.5/7
5mths/10
5mths/5
3/10
Full-time
Full-time
5 hr/d, 5 d/w
Full-time
Full-time
Full-time
6 hr/d, 7 d/w
Full-time
3
Table 4. Information of the participants of the call centre workers
Job class
Place of work
Inbound call Department store c.c.
Inbound call Home-shopping c.c.
Outbound call Insurance comp. c.c.
Outbound call Sales company c.c.
Inbound call Insurance comp. c.c.
Inbound call Telemarketing comp. c.c.
Outbound call Credit card comp. c.c.
Outbound call Insurance comp. c.c.
Inbound call Credit card comp. c.c.
Inbound call Securities comp. c.c.
Age
Employment type
39
41
31
26
25
41
32
44
25
31
Subcontractor
Subcontractor
Individual business
Subcontractor
Direct contract w co.
Cntr. w. subsidiary co.
Subcontractor
Individual business
Subcontractor
Standard worker
Monthly Years worked
Pattern of
wage
in the same field
duties
(in USD) (current job/total)
1,029
1,331
1,331
1,509
1,154
1,598
1,775
1,775
1/1
2/3
2/2
1/1
10mths/10mths
7mths/23mths
1/2.5
6mths/7
15mths/3
3/7
Full-time
Full-time
Full-time
Full-time
Full-time
Full-time
Full-time
Full-time
Full-time
Full-time
The data of the quantitative analysis are from a KLI research collaborated with the authors to study
industrial accidents of emotional labour workers. This paper adopts and discusses the regression analysis
results of KLI research. Over 500 copies of survey questionnaires distributed to each sales
representatives group and call centre workers group, and 491 copies were retrieved from the sales
representatives and 525 copies from the call centre workers. Individual characteristics, job characteristics,
working conditions, organisational control and emotional labour were chosen as the dependent variables,
whereas burnout, depressive symptoms and stress were chosen as the independent variables. The three
general scales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory(MBI) – emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and
diminished personal accomplishment – were used to measure burnout. Depressive symptoms were
measured with the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale(CES-D), which KLI used
for their ageing panel study. Stress was measured with the 18-item Psychosocial Well-being Index-Short
form(PWI-SF) developed by Chang(2000). The PWI, a translated and standardised Korean version of
General Health Questionnaire(GHQ) by Goldberg and Hillier(1979), was developed not to diagnose
psychiatric disorder but to measure general mental health status. The 18-item PWI-SF has been tested and
verified its validity and reliability. Ordinary least square(OLS) with SPSS was operated for the regression
analysis.
RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Qualitative analysis
Having analysed the individual in-depth interviews with the sales representatives and call centre workers,
we have found some similarities and differences between the two groups.
Firstly, the level of emotional labour that the two groups have expressed is notably high. They have
appeared to suffer from immensely high level of stress. The sales representatives have vented their
frustration to deal with rude customers who lose their temper for nothing and swear at them, who make
an unreasonable demand for a refund or compensation, who demand to call upon them to make an
apology, or who ask for an extra voucher or free gift. The sales representatives have stated that they also
have to take responsibility for poor sale figures or for any stolen items. They have mentioned that even
though they get incentives or bonuses for high sales performance, it occurs on an irregular and
impromptu basis. The call centre workers have suffered emotional distress as well. They have stated that
they often experience verbal violence and sexual harassment. They have claimed that as they talk over the
phone, not face-to-face, some customers tend not to show much common courtesy but to behave rudely.
They have stated that they often deal with customers who ask for personal details such as the personal
phone number or address, who make sexual comments, who do not hang up the phone.
4
Secondly, both groups have a high percentage of non-standard employees. All of the sales representatives
and call centre workers participated do not have any direct contract with the company they work with. A
number of them belong either to a subcontractor or to an outsourcing company. Thus their working
conditions are of inferior grade to the standard workers, so are their wage levels. They have claimed that
they always feel insecure due to the lack of job stability.
Thirdly, both groups have showed a large number of female employees. Out of the total 20 participants,
all of them are female. Over 50 per cent of them have returned to work after having got married and
given a birth. It seems that it is relatively less difficult for a female worker to find a job in a sales
representatives or call centre area to return to the workforce after an interruption to their career. Women
than men appear to experience more difficulties in continuing their career when facing marriage and/or
childcare issues and in re-entering the labour force.
Fourthly, both of the groups are not protected by the union. Most of the sales representatives and call
centre workers interviewed are non-union labour. Although the department store, large-scale retail trade,
home-shopping company or insurance company they work for has a union, they cannot join it as they do
not belong to that company. And any of those outsourcing companies or subcontractors that the workers
are from do not have a union of their own. None of the interviewees have ever joined any regional
labour unions or craft unions.
One of the main differences between the two groups is the average age of each group. Sales
representatives in general are claimed to be mostly in their forties and fifties, and few are in the twenties
and thirties. Similar pattern has been observed in the age range of the interviewees from the sales
representatives group. On the other hand, call centre workers are claimed to be mostly in their twenties
and thirties and relatively fewer workers are in their forties and fifties. This contrast may result from the
difference of the customer base of each group. Consumers in sales services are often in their forties or so,
therefore, it would be in their favourable if the workers are of similar age, whereas call centres require
those who can tirelessly talk on the phone, using the computer and gazing the monitor.
The second difference of the two groups is the average number of years worked. The years of service of
the call centre employees have appeared to be shorter than the ones of the sales representatives. Inferring
from the interview with the call centre workers, the intensity of work seems to contribute to the results.
In the case of the call centre worker, once he/she reaches his/her third year, he/she is expected to be
competent and sophisticated enough to become the leader of a team with about 20 members. The high
intensity of work put them under such a great level of stress to bear that many of call centre workers
consider a career change from time to time. An interviewee has stated that there are many call centre
workers who cannot even stay for more than three months, some even for three days. In the case of the
sales representatives, on the other hand, it is not uncommon to find someone who has worked for five to
six years.
The third difference is their working conditions. All the interviewees from the call centre services seem to
have signed an employment contract and work exactly eight hours a day as stated, while a number of the
sales representatives interviewed have claimed that they have not signed any contract. They have also
stated that they work extended hours from time to time yet they at times do not get the legal overtime
payment. Department stores and large-scale retail trades not only tend to extend their trading hours on
weekends or public holidays but tend to promote sales through occasional special sales and events which
require overtime work. Overtime work does occur at a call centre, but the extended hours do not
generally exceed an hour and the legal overtime payment is also correctly paid.
The fourth difference is one with the organisational control. The sales representatives participants have
stated that each department store and large-scale retail trade has their policy and regulations for the
workers to follow, but then again the shop or section where they are placed also has their own policy and
regulations. Meeting the double control has a great impact on their stress level. On the other hand, the
call centre workers interviewed have stated that they do not see the organisational control as a big
problem. They have described that their phone conversation with a client is at times eavesdropped by
5
their supervisors or managers, and also the number of calls for them to make is generally controlled by
the company. They have said that the company may overhear their conversation on the phone efficient
work performance or for a training purpose. Organisational control seems to have a relatively high impact
on the stress level of the sales representatives.
Quantitative analysis
Table 5 shows the results of the regression analysis of the causes of the sales representatives’ burnout,
depressive symptoms and stress.
Table 5. Burnout, depressive symptoms and stress of the sales representatives
Burnout
Individual chrtcs.
Job chrtcs.
Org. control
Stress relieving
techniques
Emotional labor
Depressive
Stress
symptoms
Variables
Emotional
exhaustion
Depersonali
sation
Diminished
personal
accomplishment
Age
-0.0808
-0.0754
0.0782
0.0310*
0.0456
Univ. graduate
Standard worker
Length of work
Size
Meal time autonomy
Lavatory autonomy
Break autonomy
Freq. of busy time
5.7800*
1.8351
-0.0041
2.9910
-2.2097
0.0047
-1.8401
0.2217**
4.7123*
2.5952
-0.0017
-5.2538
-2.9119
-1.2360
-2.6406
0.2086**
0.9431
-1.8139
-0.0203
-3.6037
0.4527
0.1242
-2.0566
-0.0487
0.1181
-0.2513
0.0006
-1.3948***
-0.3245*
-0.2726
-0.1533
-0.0078
0.6893
-0.2780
0.0114
-1.0967
-1.9910**
-0.2269
0.1256
0.0333
No. of customers
-0.0249
-0.1499
0.0274
-0.0134
-0.0729*
Bonus
1.5185
1.5333
-2.9090
-0.2958
-0.0816
Time of interacting
with clients
0.0999
0.0508
-0.0821
0.0049
0.0027
Time of one customer 0.2121
-0.0421
-0.1168
-0.0061
-0.0522
Negative experience
4.8129*
-1.8961
-1.6788
0.2879
0.0023
Rule of conflict with
-0.1484
customer
-0.3391
0.2196
0.0583
0.0883
Secret inspection
monitoring
2.5237
-0.2347
-0.0585
0.0049
Conv. with co-worker -1.3693
-1.3065
-0.8997
0.1348
-1.0761**
De-stress program
1.1918
1.9950
-0.2421
0.1860
-1.0009*
Surface acting
Deep acting
2.1537**
-2.0379*
2.1503**
-1.0666
0.0714
-1.7907**
-0.0224
-0.2335**
-0.4652
-1.4491***
Voluntary acting
0.0835
0.6101
-0.8473
0.1033
0.5739
4.1517**
6
Emotional mismatch 3.0441***
Job burnout
0.1661*
0.7157*
Emotional exhaustion
0.0339***
0.1357***
Depersonalization
0.0021
0.0513*
0.0127*
0.1110***
Diminished personal
accomplishment
Constant
F-valus
Adjusted R2
Total participants(N)
42.5798**
6.34
0.1935
491
2.8226***
46.3585**
1.51
0.136
0.2831
101.9906*** 3.0584*
2.53
9.08
0.0641
0.2919
43.4500***
8.38
0.2735
\
Source: KLI(2012), compounded & reformed version of statistical analysis
The results analysed from the statistically significant variables indicated that overall burnout level was high
when the worker was a university graduate, when he or she had no autonomy in taking a break, when the
frequency of busy time was high, when secret inspection monitoring occurred often, when the level of
surface acting was high, when the level of deep acting was low, and when the degree of emotional
mismatch was high.
Both features of emotional labour and burnout were added to the independent variable to analyse
depressive symptoms. The following is the factors influencing depressive symptoms. Statistically
significant variables that exacerbated depressive symptoms were the enterprise being not large-scaled,
inconsistent meal time, low level of deep acting, high degree of emotional mismatch, and high level of
burnout.
In regard to stress, statistically significant variables were observed when the retail business was not largescaled, when the number of the interacted clients was low, when the worker made less conversation with
the colleagues about providing services to the clients, when any de-stress program was provided, when
the level of deep acting was low, when the degree of emotional mismatch was high, when high burnout
occurred, when the level of depersonalisation was high, and when the level of diminished personal
accomplishment was high. These variables influenced to raise the level to risk the psychosocial well-being.
Table 6. Burnout, depressive symptoms and stress of the call centre workers
Burnout
Variables
Constant
Indiv.
chrcts.
Job chrcts.
Depressive
Diminished
Stress
Emotional
symptoms
Depersonalisation personal
exhaustion
accomplishment
11.343*** 5.208**
11.024***
9.563
20.979***
Age
College+
graduate
Outbound call
-.015
-.006
-.003
.029
.078*
-.223
-.287
.117
-.073
.695
.854**
.048
.028
-1.025*
.928
Inbound call
1.444***
-.252
.464*
.250
.452
Hours of work
.041
.088**
.017
.090
.222*
.001
.003***
.103*
-.002
Daily calls made .003*
7
Years worked
.005
.006
-.005*
-.022
Standard position .470
.503*
.157
-.216*
1.834**
Wage
.003
.000
-.003**
.672
-.002
Incentive
-.176
.101
.080
.002
1.704*
Break autonomy -.708***
Parent/Subsidiary
.297
company
Job chrcts. No. of workers .001
-.532**
-.260†
-.426
-1.150†
.040
-.184
.055
.823
.000
-.001
.002
.002
Resting area
Degree of
meeting the
guidelines
Organstl.
Level of advice
control
Policy on verbal
violence/sexual
harassment
Neg. events
-.075
.586**
.121
.469
1.451*
-.138*
.001
-.061†
-.337*
-.358**
-.019
-.144*
-.150**
-.046
-.762***
.025
.034
.056*
.103*
.177†
.036***
.020**
.013**
.043*
.042*
.479***
.243**
.028
.332*
.315
Emotional Deep acting
-.218*
labour
Voluntary acting -.235*
Emotional
.006
mismatch
-.257***
-.292***
-.656*
-1.352***
-.170*
-.231***
-.405*
-.428*
.223***
.167***
.285*
.546**
Adjusted R2
0.187
0.200
0.269
0.233
F-valus
6.471
6.967
9.769
7.922
Surface acing
-.006
Adjusted R2 =
0.240
F=8.527***
Total participants(N)
525
Source: KLI(2012), compounded & reformed version of statistical analysis
Table 6 analyses the causes of the call centre workers’ burnout, depressive symptoms and stress. When it
comes to burnout, the inbound call centre workers had high burnout. The more clients interacted with
and the more daily calls made, the higher burnout became, while autonomy in taking a break while
working reduced burnout. All the components of emotional labour had statistically significant influences
to burnout. The workers who claimed to strictly follow the customer service guidelines had a lower level
of emotional exhaustion.
In terms of depression, university graduate employees presented less depressive symptoms than high
school graduate workers. Among the job characteristics, hours of work, the number of calls, and the
number of months worked had statistical significance. The organisational control on customer service
indicated that the more the worker followed the customer service guidelines, the less depressive
symptoms he or she experienced. A standardised manual may somewhat help to restrain excessive
emotional involvement. However, the degree of the organisational policy commanded to endure any
verbal insults or sexual harassment over the phone without hanging up influenced the degree of
depressive symptoms negatively. All of the emotional labour variables have an impact on depressive
symptoms.
The level of stress increases as the age or the working hours increases. The workers with performancerelated pay than the ones without it or the standard workers than non-standard workers have exhibited
more stress. The workers with autonomy in taking a break while working than the ones without it have
8
stated to feel less stress. When the worker and his or her co-workers follow the customer service
guidelines together, the level of stress decreases. Also when more advice between the employees is made,
the level of stress drops. However, high frequency of negative events with clients or high level of
emotional labour exacerbates the stress level.
CONCLUSIONS
As discussed above, emotional labour employees in Korea suffer from a high level of stress. Especially
sales representatives and call centre employees are exposed to various stress factors. To sum up the
interview results, one of the main causes of stress was a conflict with the client. The other causes were
insecure employment, low wage, short and irregular break and meal time, and organisational control.
The causes of burnout, depressive symptoms and stress were analysed through empirical testing with a
help of the KLI data. The authors will proceed with the research with more sophisticated research design.
Recently in Korea, it made big news when the management of a large discount store was accused to have
monitored and prevented their non-standard sales staff from organising a labour union. And there has
been an incident where a sales worker with depression caused by stress and sales pressure ended up
committing suicide.
These two episodes have led to many changes in the large companies which have been hiring and/or
outsourcing call centre employees or sales representatives in Korea. An ‘A company’ has switched their
4,300 non-standard customer service workers into standard positions. 80% of them have been female
workers in their twenties, so it has been expected to contribute to revitalise employment rate of women.
A large-scale retail trade which had attempted to obstruct organisation of a labour union have decided to
hire, except for those who changed jobs, 9,100 out of over 10,000 merchandise display subcontract
workers and about 1,680 out of 1,821 clothes sales representatives as standard workers. Analysis of the
employment state of these 9,100 workers who had been switched to the standard position have revealed
that a monthly average of turnover rate have been dropped to 1.7% from 15%. Once their stable working
environment have settled down, the rate is expected to remain at 0.6~0.7 %.
As seen in these two cases, a large number of service workers are non-standard worker with job instability,
likely to be female workers and are facing poor working conditions with low wage. It is not easy for them
to receive support from the labour union or to organise one for themselves. In addition to it, not many
active employment policies have been attempted by the government either. However, judging by the cases
above, the turnover rate was drastically dropped from 15% to 1.7% by standardising the employment
state, which proves how much the improvement of the working conditions of the emotional labour
workers effectively contributes to stabilise employment issues.
Therefore, the authors are to suggest the following three implications. Firstly, continuous institutional
support and framework is needed for the service workers under poor conditions. Institutional systems
that not only support and allow the emotional labour workers to join the labour union but improve the
working conditions are urgently needed. Secondly, systematic intervention for the psychosocial care of
the emotional labour workers is needed as well. The service workers are under a lot of stress yet no
organisational support and system to help to relieve their stress is provided. They look for their own ways
to cope with their stress such as drinking or chatting over a drink. The workplace should try to provide
counselling services and set up a formal grievance procedure to handle their issues fairly and
confidentially. Thirdly, the current system of supervisory responsibility needs reforming. A number of
service workers belong to outsourcing companies or subcontractors. Despite the fact that the actual
workplace where the service employees work, such as department stores, large-scale retail trades,
insurance companies or home-shopping companies, have authority to supervise and regulate the workers,
they tend to impute their supervisory responsibility to the outsourcing companies or subcontractors. As
mentioned earlier, standardising the job position of the service workers would be able to resolve this
matter.
9
This research has obtained abundant qualitative data from the individual in-depth interviews with the
sales representatives and call centre workers, and its analyses are continuously on-going. Over 1,000 of
the survey data would also help to try for a detailed research modelling. The following tasks are to
develop a concrete framework to support the Korean emotional labour workers to relieve their stress.
Also it is to attempt consistently to make realistic suggestions of the policy to help to improve the
working conditions of the service workers and enhance the institutional systems.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper has partially excerpted a research paper of KLI (study of industrial accidents in the service
industry, in preparation of publication, research director: Dr Park, Chan-Im) which the presenting author
of this research participated in 2012. We would greatly appreciate your examination of this paper.
As this research is still in progress, it is not allowed to cite it or to make a copy of it.
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