Emotional labour: the case of a call center workers

Abstract

The aim of this empirical study is bring evidences about emotional labor requirements during tasks execution in a call center. The idea of emotional labor was initially described by Hochschild (1983), but there isn't much about this in Brazil. The study made an association of activities analysis and speech analysis. Dialogues in real situation and letters sent by the workers to their syndicate were evaluated to find out what they thought about their work, good values, troubles and, use of emotions like a work instrument. The obtained results lead to attendant work description from the workers vision, presenting emotional labor evidences and focusing the need of humans to control and change emotions during contact with clients. The use of emotion became part of the job like a task demand, and could bring fatigue and emotional exhaustion.