Almost everything we do in life relates to emotions. In our homes, workplaces and, sometimes, while transiting from our offices to homes, and while in the shopping mall, we show emotions, mostly unintentionally. Our emotions in the workplace have been studied by many scholars because of their impacts on workers’ performance and business success. How we laugh or smile at work, how often we feel irritated by the actions of other workers or bored in long meetings, and how we relate with others are due to our emotions. Some sales officers are easily upset or sad when they lose customers while some are excited when they hit a target. Some flare up when another person uses the common toilet and wet the floor and some will not greet or talk to anybody in the office, except if it is official. These and many more are all examples of the many emotional cases that occur in the workplace each day.
Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and degree of pleasure and displeasure. Understanding and managing the emotions of your employees at work is the first step to take as a manager for business benefits. Most football coaches and football team managers do not joke with emotions management of their players and other stakeholders to get results. Experienced business managers use tested tips to guide their dealings with the emotions of their workers and bring humanity and joy back to the workplace. In 2021, Quantum Workplace, a software company in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, conducted research to understand employees’ emotions and how they relate to employees’ engagement at work in order to offer insights into the variety and complexity of emotions at work.
Their study covers everything necessary for managers to understand and manage emotions of employees in the workplace, including: the most common emotions at work, how emotions differ throughout the organisation, the relationship between emotions and employee engagement, how to manage emotions in the workplace, etc. To create awesome emotional cultures, organisations need to understand which emotions are prevalent in the workplace and how they affect employees. According to Quantum Workplace, the most common positive and negative emotions at work are: (i) Comfortable, (ii) Satisfied, (iii) Enthusiastic, (iv) Frustrated, (v) Stressed, and (vi) Anxious.
Quantum Workplace grouped the positive and negative emotions at work as follows:
Positive emotions at work: Positive emotions are not limited to only optimistic and hopeful feelings. Examples of positive emotions could include calm, comfortable, energetic, enthusiastic, excited, happy, joyful, peaceful, relaxed, and satisfied. Their research findings show that the top three positive emotions felt by employees at work are: Comfortable (47.8%); Satisfied (37.1%); Enthusiastic (36.6%).
Negative emotions at work: There are a lot of negative emotions that can surface at work. Examples of negative emotions could include: annoyed, anxious, bored, disinterested, dissatisfied, frustrated, gloomy, miserable, sad, stressed, tired, uncomfortable, unhappy, upset, and worried. Below is what employees identified as the top three negative emotions felt at work: Frustrated (56.2%); Stressed (45.1%); Anxious (30.4%).
Employees claimed the worst forms of emotions are negative moral emotions. Negative moral emotions at work are still an aspect of managerial psychology that is under intense study. Basic emotions like happiness and sadness are pretty straightforward and easy to understand. But many of the emotions we experience in the workplace are much more complex – especially moral emotions. Morals are the principles that differentiate between good and bad behaviour, and they vary from person to person. Emotions that are influenced by our morals are called moral emotions. They include emotions like guilt, regret, and shame – and they carry much more weight than our primary emotions.
When taking average rank and top three (3) percentages into account, employees believe the most negative moral emotions are: Humiliation, Disgust, and Resentment. How emotions differ throughout an organisation is an interesting subject. There is a lot that can contribute to both negative and positive emotions at work. Many factors occur in our personal and professional lives, including things like tenure of work and position level in the organisation. Economic psychologists have proved that workers on the same amount of salaries are not satisfied except in abnormal cases. It is the job of the manager to “pacify” them.
Followers may feel frustrated from a lack of support or satisfied when they receive a promotion or award. Managers may feel stressed from conducting many one-to-one sessions or comfortable with the progress of their team, and leaders may feel anxious about the forecast of their business or enthusiastic about starting the year fresh with a brand new focus. We are all capable of feeling a variety of emotions at work. The research uncovered some differences between individual contributors and managers.
Managers are more likely to feel energetic, enthusiastic, and happy – but they may likely feel comfortable less often. There are many factors that contribute to our emotions. Managers may tend to feel positive emotions more often due to their roles as coaches, role models and head of the team. At the same time, managers often have more responsibilities and encounter more barriers than followers. This could explain a higher frequency of stress. For some, emotions can take a toll on their day. Some may temporarily disengage from their work though present in office and some may miss work altogether. Quantum Workplace research shows some clear connections between emotional culture and levels of engagement. Engagement impacts a wide variety of important business outcomes – making a solid case for addressing emotions at work.
Burying emotions, which is avoiding uncomfortable feelings, hurts engagement, but so does being in a toxic environment. When the people around you are frequently and openly expressing negative emotions, it can have a damaging effect on employees’ engagement and performance. Experiencing negative emotions expressed by others may decrease the feelings of connection. As employee engagement decreases, employees may become more sensitive to negative emotions. To help decrease the expression of negative emotions at work, managers need to understand what happened before those emotions manifest. Each type of emotion is unique and requires a unique approach to handling it by the managers.
To be continued next week
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