Achieving frontline communication excellence: the potential cost to health

With the burgeoning in recent years of the service sector, emotion management by frontline employees is becoming an increasingly prevalent means of differentiating one service provider from its competitors. Chronic emotion management, however, is thought to have serious negative consequences on the health of the employee in terms of stress and stress-related disease. This study addresses for the first time the empirical question of whether there is a direct link between emotion management and stress, by using a new self-report tool aimed at measuring emotional suppression/faking among 137 frontline employees. The results suggest that high levels of emotion management occur In at least one third of all frontline communications, and that the more emotion management performed, the more stress experienced. The implications for technical communicators and researchers are outlined.