Emotion work and its relation to job burnout and job satisfaction among call center agents in Iloilo City

Abstract

The current study aimed to describe the level of emotion work among call center agents in Iloilo city including the differences in their levels of emotion work between sex groups and types of call center work. It also attempted to show the relationship of emotion work to job burnout and job satisfaction.

The design of the study was descriptive-correlational. Analyses were based on a sample of thirty available male and female (30) inbound and outbound call center agents from selected call centers in Iloilo city. Three data gathering instruments were used in this study, namely: Emotional Labour Scale (ELS), Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), and Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS). Statistical tools employed in the study were means for descriptive analysis, Mann - Whitney U for tests of difference and Spearman’s rho for correlations. Level of significance was set at 0.05 for both tests.

The findings revealed that call center agents occasionally have intense experience of emotion work, whereas they sometimes experience a variety of emotion work. Moreover, they used deep acting regulation of emotion more compared to surface acting . Emotion work is correlated with job satisfaction while no relationship was found between emotion work and job burnout. Significant differences in the levels of emotion work existed both for groups based on sex and type of work.