Deep Dive
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Discussion keeps the world turning. This is Roundtable. You're listening to Roundtable with myself, He Yang. I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yu Shun in the studio. Coming up, at some cafes in North America, baristas aren't just pulling espresso shots. They're expected to remember names, offer a smile, and maybe even write a motivational quote on your cup.
This makes me think of our Motivational Monday segment, actually. So we happily deliver that motivational quote to you on a Monday. Anyhow, some customers love that warmth. Others think it's asking too much. So is this kindness or unpaid emotional labor?
Who decides how far emotional labor should go in service jobs? Let's talk about the hidden layer of work in our daily lives, emotional labor. It's the effort behind being nice, calm, or supportive, and it often gets unevenly assigned.
It's a time to rethink how we divide responsibilities and compensate different kinds of work. Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcast. Got something on your mind? Whether it's the world of pop culture, technology, or something that touches your heart, we are here to chat. Drop us a line at roundtablepodcast at qq.com or go big at roundtablechina.com.
and send us a voice memo. We'd love to hear your voice. And now let's switch gears.
When you swing by your favorite cafe for that much-needed caffeine fix, chances are you're greeted with a smile. Maybe even your name scribbled on the cup with "I have a great day" if you live in North America. A global coffee conglomerate even requires its baristas to write uplifting messages on the cup, like they are part-time therapists with espresso machines.
Welcome to Emotional Labor, where your job isn't just what you do, but
but how you feel, or at least how you look like you feel. Maybe that's a better way to put it, how you're representing yourself. Yes, and whether it's serving customers, teaching students, and caring for patients, the vibe you give off becomes part of the gig. That fake smile, the chipper tone, even when you dread it,
But inside, that's all part of the performance, or shall I say, the modern definition of a job. So let's give people a review of what's going on now. There are a few news reports about this. Yeah, so this has made it into the news as of late. And there are a couple of different examples to talk about. Yeah, the coffee shop chain who...
is known for or used to be known for writing customers' names on the side of the cup, which to me was...
nice thing. Now it's taking it a step further. Seize the day or you're amazing or whatever on the side of the cup. It's another level. Here's another example. This is from a jewelry company, a big jewelry company, Tiffany. They launched an internal app called
Tiffany Joy. So this is an internal thing, right? This is for the employees of the company, Tiffany Joy. And here the employees are expected to post content that conveys some sort of positive emotions. And it's done. The idea behind this was to boost morale. Hmm.
within the employee group. But the employees, they responded by making a nickname, calling it forced joy, because they felt pressure to appear happy. I'll give you one final example. This is from South China Morning Post from last year. There's a supermarket chain in Japan, and they adopted an artificial intelligence system, an AI system to it. This is
wild to assess and standardize its employees smiles. They want to standardize the employee smiles. And that of course sparked a whole new debate about workplace, you know, expectations and things like this. It was the world's first company to promote a smile gauging AI system that
Which they used across 240 shops around the country. The system itself was called Mr. Smile, and it's supposed to be able to accurately rate a shop assistance service accurately.
And it draws on 450 different elements, including facial expressions, voice volume and tone of greeting. And these are all different examples of the expectations of employees at the office and the emotional labor that goes into work. It's interesting you mentioned office because I suppose for corporate jobs, it's maybe a different.
different kind of emotional labor that we can chat about in a second. But just out of the examples you just gave us,
Would you appreciate that uplifting message being written on your coffee cup or is that a bit much for you? To be honest, as a customer and from the perspective of being a customer, I would appreciate that. And seeing a motivational quote or just a smile on the cup, I would be uplifted. And it's kind of a nice gesture, I would say. What do you think, Steve?
I just kind of feel bad for the employees because they're busy at that shop, right? And then all of a sudden, it's not writing the customer's name. It's not writing Steve and then saying, Steve, your coffee's ready. No, it's creating some sort of inspirational thing to get Steve through the rest of his Tuesday afternoon. So they have to think about that.
So it's not just a... I mean, do they have a database that they just kind of randomly choose motivational quotes from? So I don't get it. I mean, I agree with you, Yushan, that, oh, okay, it's nice. I feel bad for the employees. I don't think this is necessary. I suspect that there's one...
hearty person, you get these people who are just really kind, very nice. Oh, didn't we talk about a topic about somebody who's like habitually nice to people and always motivating other people at the expense of their own health? Anyway, I hope it's not gone that far. But there are people or maybe there was one fantastic employee who did this and who maybe truly wanted to uplift the
But then the bad news is when the company picks this up and makes it a requirement for all the employees. Yeah, it becomes company policy. Yeah. And then, like you said, I think eventually people will have to come up with a database or maybe with...
Oh, this reminds me of what a fellow colleague did. She has this motivational calendar and then she can just pull one page out of it. You know, no brainer. You know what to say in a motivational message. But if it's done in a massive process,
production way, then it's inevitable that it will get to that point and people stop being human beings and become robots, at least in that segment. Yeah, I mean, about that specific example, you're going to lose the sincerity aspect of the point, which makes it kind of
- Pointless, perhaps. The idea of emotional labor is not a new concept. This goes back to 1983. There was a book written by Arlie Hochschild
And Arlie Hochschild is a sociologist. And the book was called The Managed Heart. And this term, emotional labor, describes the effort that's required to regulate your emotions, regulate your expressions to fulfill the psychological demands of a job. I think we'll discuss a little bit later that it's not strictly related to work.
But but it does relate to work in many aspects of it. And there are a lot of industries where there's a lot of emotional labor spent. Health care, for example, hospitality, for example. And maybe we'll talk some more about some different examples. But it's been around for a long time. And when the book came out 40 years ago.
She thought that about one third of all jobs required, quote, substantial demands for emotional labor. By 2013, she, the author, Arlie Hochschild, by 2013, she estimated it had grown to about half, half of all jobs required.
required emotional labor. And today it's probably even higher because hard skills are being taken over by robots a lot of the time. And the emotional labor is the human skill in perhaps an otherwise digitized and AI dominant and maybe even a little impersonal environment. Hmm.
Maybe we'll talk about this later, but a lot of people are treating these kind of emotional labor as, as you said, opposed to hard skill as soft skill. So it could be something that an additional requirement for a lot of these employees, but they're not getting paid.
for these kind of things. And it's interesting in the definition though, there are two primary ways. Apparently it's being categorized by the author, surface acting, deep acting. So this is, these are both acting. It really takes the authenticity out of the equation. That's where you don't, yeah, the surface acting is where you're displaying emotions that you're not really feeling at the time. Um,
I see this a lot in Western restaurant culture where you'll go and the server will say, hi, I'm Steve. I'm going to be your waiter today. I hope you're having a wonderful afternoon. You know, I appreciate that part of Western service culture, but at the same time, I feel like, okay, just dial it down 10%, you know? But Steve, you know what's worse? When I traveled to the U.S. last year to accompany my parents, et cetera,
And then many times, we've discussed on the show as well how the tipping situation has really just blown out of proportion to a level that's so difficult for most people to accept, really. Every time we go to a restaurant, you get the, hello!
I'm happy to serve you. My name is Hayoung. It's great to have you, blah, blah. But you can see in their eyes, they're just waiting for the tip. Yeah. You can feel it. So it's not, I understand it's tough. Everybody needs to make a living. It is tough, yeah. But you know that this is not,
Honest? No, this is manufactured? It might be for some people. I've known people in the service industry where that's actually, they really love, they really love their job. But for others, obviously, it's going to be a little bit forced. But can I also just quickly ask you a question here, since you brought up the Western perspective or the situation. Circles back to that coffee example we gave from the top of this discussion.
They don't do it here in China. The same exact global conglomerate does not do this in China. And I wonder whether it's because they have been considering it's a different set of customers with a different cultural background. Or maybe, you know, that writing your name on a coffee cup in China, I don't see any...
Or correct me if I'm wrong. I don't see any coffee shops do that. It's common that, yes, you're expecting a smile and a gentle greeting, but it doesn't go that far. So do you think that there might be something different going on? About the writing your name thing, I think five years ago, they still do that on your coffee cup. Yeah, and they will call your name differently.
Grande Latte for blah blah blah so they did do that but I think after a lot of this digitalization of ordering things on your app they've already developed these things into you will say a motivational catchphrase and to get your drink so maybe different situation of online payment and online
ordering kind of thing and we have developed into another situation. Is this good news for the baristas or the coffee shop employees that they're not expected to know the name, scribble, draw a picture, or do that extra stuff, but you
you're still expected to be nice, to greet. And I think it's also kind of interesting that, you know, what you just mentioned with the motivational message in a catchphrase that pops up in the user's app is personalized, but it's digital at the same time. And that is so Chinese in the 21st century. As we sit here and talk about this, though, it sounds like we're saying, oh, poor employees. They have to be nice.
How exhausting. There's got to be another side of this. Of course, if you're a customer-facing business, right, and you have your employees dealing with customers, this is make-or-break time for your business, the interactions that your staff have with the customers. So to me, it makes complete sense. You know, call it emotional labor, unpaid emotional labor. Well...
Sorry. There are certain industries and certain jobs where that's part of the job description. Disney, my sister applied to Disney many, many moons ago, many, many moons ago. And she, I still make fun of her for this. She was told at the end of the interview, oh, you seem like a lovely person. We just don't think you're happy enough. Oh.
Yeah, I see what you mean. Right? Well, how common is emotional labor? How is it manifested in work conditions? Well, we mentioned consumer-facing coffee shops, Disneyland. Oh, my. You have to be so happy eight hours a day. That's the happiest place on Earth. On Earth. Yes. Yeah. What about other scenarios? What do you have for us? So.
So specific service roles where certain emotions are expected as we listed some of them including store clerks, they have to be patient and friendly, flight attendants, they kind of require to be enthusiastic and also nurses to be caring, doctors to be calm, funeral home workers to be sad, and Disney actors to be happy and surprised.
And also roles in high consumption venues like luxury hotels, which often provide significant emotional value by creating pleasant emotional experiences for your customers. But that's my point, right? Imagine walking into a luxury hotel to check in and you were greeted by someone who was like.
Very sad. Yeah. Hey, show me your ID. Immediately, you're going to have a bad opinion about that business, about that hotel, right? I agree. And I think to a certain extent, emotional labor is largely inevitable and often central to professions like we listed, precisely because they revolve around human interaction. And as AI continues to automate routine, cognitive, or even creative tasks, as
We've discussed on this show what remains irreplaceable in many service and education sectors is the authentic emotional engagement that only humans can provide. But the problem is, where do you draw the line as opposed to what extent should that be a requirement? Yeah. And whether that's being compensated as well. Well, yeah, I mean, you're right. I presented.
I'm of two opinions on this topic because I presented what I think from a business point of view before. But from a humanistic point of view, from the employee's point of view, think about this. If you're working in customer service and you're working for a call center, for example, and you are constantly...
Taking calls all day long from angry customers. I mean, that's going to take an emotional toll on you. And you're probably not being compensated anymore. There's a psychological toll there. There's a physical toll too, right? The level of exhaustion. Do you remember? I think we talked about this on the show. This is from, well, this is from many media outlets.
from last year. The Japanese telecommunications company called SoftBank, they announced that they were developing emotion-canceling technology. It was AI tech.
that would alter the voices of angry customers to sound calmer during phone calls with customer service representatives. The story said they were planning to launch that by March of 2026. So what that means is if you're the customer service agent, Yushin, and I'm the customer, I'm calling you. I say, Yushin, I can't believe my phone service, blah, blah, blah, blah. AI will change my tone.
- So what I heard is a calm you. - You heard, "I can't believe that the telephone company changed my plan." Like something like that. So that the emotional and psychological toll on Yushun isn't as strong. - I think that's a very interesting invention, but I wonder if you being the angry complainer
would be satisfied with what you're getting as a response because it might not address the urgency. I wonder if this could work or maybe backfire. But these customer service, they are required to actually reply you calmly even when they're angry. So I think it could be a better situation. Well, let's talk about treatment for the workers who...
Yes, you can argue, yes, this is the job that they've landed. They know what they're walking into. But if it's eight hours of answering angry complaints and the easier ones are being handled by AI bots already, how do workers survive in a healthier way and not be exploited in face of this reality? Yeah, this is tough because this is what they call...
The impact of this is what they call invisible overwork, where employees might feel that emotional strain, and that emotional strain just makes you feel so exhausted. And even though you may not have felt like you did much that day, then you still feel that drain, right? So there are different strategies that can be put into place to
to help protect employees, to help eliminate this emotional labor. There's one called exercising empathy detachment. That's a method that's recommended to avoid being overwhelmed by others' emotions or unconsciously making decisions to please others. But this type of stuff is work, almost work, almost extra work that the employees have to do for themselves on an emotional level. Right.
Yeah, and also when you are putting these kind of requirements into this drop description, this becoming kind of the subtle and unsaid thing that you need to accomplish.
But the thing is that, as you said, some of these drop from a perspective of customers, like when you're visiting Disneyland or when you're getting service from the flight attendants, if they stopped offering any form of emotional service.
the experience you get as a customer would definitely be diminished. Of course. So the thing is that no matter if you are being an employee or a manager, the first step is to stop calling emotional labor a soft skill or recognize this kind of thing as a part of your job because it is often lumped together with soft skills like communication, adaptability, and teamwork. But this
classification under you know underestimates the complexity and psychological cost of having all of these emotional yeah and all of these skills require training and experience and company awareness so that companies are aware like you said don't just call it a soft skill you know recognize that employees are putting a lot more into their work than simply the nine-to-five yes and we only have
like 16 seconds, but I would still like to highlight, what about the, okay, we think these are everyday soft skills. We're, let's say, not directly customer-faced jobs that we're holding, but to have a career to survive in the workplace, it requires you to regulate your emotion. It requires you to be calm, implementative,
with your coworkers and to lead a team or whatnot. So that's also one quiet side. And super quickly, and we didn't have time to get to it, but shout out to the moms and dads out there and the grandparents and the emotional labor that they put into taking care of their kids and their family members too. That's a part of people's everyday lives. Absolutely. And that's the full-time unpaid work
often unrecognized hardest job that you can't quit in life. So kudos to you all who provide the calmness, the support that we all need. And that brings us to the end of today's roundtable. We'll see you next time.