This article critically explores whether the positive attitudes that companies force on their employees actually work, and whether they are beneficial to employees and organizations given the side effects associated with emotional labor.
In our daily lives, we often encounter store clerks or phone agents who are always smiling and overly friendly to customers. Is it healthy for us to accept and take for granted this positive attitude towards customers, and is it right for organizations to demand that their employees always be positive? There may be great absurdity in our lives in the things we take for granted. I’m not saying we should live negatively, but I think our system of enforcing this positivity is wrong. A forced positive is no longer a positive.
In the book Bright-sided, author Barbara Ehrenreich claims that large corporations in the U.S. lose an average of $3 billion a year because their employees have negative attitudes, which causes them to work less efficiently and make mistakes. For this reason, companies believe it’s so important for employees to think positively about everything that they do, they force them to be positive and even make them read books or bring in speakers to train them. They obsess over positivity because they believe it’s in the company’s best interest to keep employees motivated. But once this demand began, and motivation was used as a whip, positivity became the quality assurance of a compliant employee. In fact, as the employment situation worsened after the 1980s, as companies profited from downsizing, they pushed positivity even harder on their employees. It’s as if employees are being turned into machines, parts of the company, and forced to feel a certain way.
But before I get to this point, I want to define what I mean by positivity and what Barbara Ehrenreich is referring to: it’s not true positivity in the sense that people usually think of it. It’s forced positivity that’s wrapped up in corporate interests, positions, grievances, and hypocrisy. It’s not pure positivity, it’s a mixture of many things.
First of all, I would like to criticize the very idea that companies require employees to be positive, that forcing them to be positive will make them work more efficiently and make fewer mistakes. Does having people think positively have the effect that companies want? It’s possible that being positive can have some good effects. There are many papers and experimental results on this. For example, the placebo effect during World War II when relief medicines were in short supply. But there’s a big difference between feeling genuinely positive and pretending to be positive. The positivity required by a company or any organization is an arduous emotional labor that prevents you from saying exactly what you think, which can be very taxing on employees. Repeatedly demanding this, Ehrenreich writes in the book, can lead to low self-esteem and negative internal changes. In addition, as companies have downsized since the 1980s, they have put unspoken pressure on employees to be positive or risk being let go. In practice, companies have fired people for being positive, forcing them to think: “It’s your fault you got fired, don’t blame the system, don’t blame your boss, just work harder and pray harder!”
You can find examples in the book that justify this kind of corporate behavior. Again, they are justifying their own interests under the guise of the aforementioned affirmations. But is it right that everything should be solved by company-speak positivity, and should we be so comfortable with companies taking advantage of their employees and making demands that ignore their individual feelings?
Rather than forcing employees to think positively, I think it’s better for companies to create the conditions for or encourage them to think positively naturally. The main reason for this is that if employees don’t think positive themselves, they won’t have the impact that companies are looking for. When people take pride in their work, are happy and feel rewarded, they experience true positivity. Although customers have taken for granted the positivity that is forced on employees, and employees have taken it for granted, it’s time to rethink that.
Related to this issue is the rise of “smile mask syndrome,” also known as “masked depression,” which is a growing epidemic among modern workers. It’s a syndrome that’s prevalent in service industries, where people often have to deal with people while hiding their emotions, and it stems from the inability to release frustration or anger, which then builds up into stress. It gives me the creeps to imagine a bakery worker smiling and ringing up the check or bagging items, while behind the scenes he or she is struggling and hiding a sullen expression. This causes the person to feel self-conscious, demotivated, and withdrawn, which is the exact opposite of the attitude you want your organization to have. The greatest irony of all is that it’s the organization that is causing this syndrome. The very existence of this syndrome shows how painful and dangerous the mismatch between inner feelings and outer attitude can be.
But we also need to look at the smile mask syndrome from a professional ethics standpoint. One could argue that it’s because the very nature of service jobs involves emotional labor. You could even say that people who do this job in the first place have to put up with the emotional twists and turns. There’s no denying this, of course, but I’m not talking about all service industries, just a few that are particularly egregious. As such, it’s within a person’s right to opt out of labor that causes severe depression or feelings of hopelessness.
Also, the problem is that being asked to have a prepackaged positive attitude can make people conformist. What’s the most important thing when working on any project or coming up with an idea in a company? It’s probably the fact that everyone, regardless of their status, contributes their ideas, gives and receives feedback, discusses the pros and cons, and adopts the best option. In this atmosphere, a company should grow. Gone are the days when the boss makes all the decisions and everyone else follows. The more people who take a critical look at everything and offer advice, the more different ways and better results will come out of it. But does the positive attitude that companies demand help this process? The demand to always smile, treat people with a smile, and be positive no matter what is wrong. It only hinders the critical thinking that companies want. Critical thinking is difficult to exist for someone who is asked to be positive all the time, and even if they are critical on the inside, it will be difficult for them to express it on the outside. For example, if a department head sees an error in something they’ve been working on all night, it will be difficult for the junior staff to point it out. Being positive can act as a framework that stifles creative thinking, which can be detrimental to the company in the long run.
Having a job is hard and challenging in many ways, not just emotionally, but people often say that dealing with emotions is the greatest labor. Emotions can make us suffer and they can make us happy. Emotions are perhaps the greatest gift that God has given us. Nowadays, people are repressing and faking their emotions. What I’m advocating is not that employees shouldn’t smile when they work, nor that companies should always be negative and look at everything critically. What I’m advocating is that we shouldn’t pretend to be positive and force ourselves to hold in our emotions. Emotions are not something to be suppressed, they are something to be expressed and resolved correctly. I think what we really want for our workers is to provide them with an environment where they can enjoy their work, and we should encourage them to do so.
