Emotional Labour, Emotional Intelligence and Professional Growth in Service Work: Analysis of Fast-food Workers’ Experience

Emotional labour has been widely accepted in the scientific discourse as an essential part of service work, and recently, researchers have shown an increased interest in emotional labour. These skills of social interactions are essential because nowadays occupations involving emotional work become increasingly widespread at the labour market and the role of emotional intelligence and skills related to emotional management is being significantly recognized by more and more employers. Thus, emotional intelligence is becoming a crucial factor giving a competitive advantage to employees possessing it. Therefore, employees possessing soft skills and especially abilities to manage their emotions may be in a rather advantageous position at the labour mark. However, potential positive effects of emotional labour have not been fully evaluated yet in scientific discourse, and there can be many issues regarding professional and social life that may be positively influenced by emotional management skills. The purpose of current study is to examine the influence of emotional labour on the well-being and career development of fast-food restaurant workers as well as explore how emotional labor skills of such workers could be developed while performing their work. The relevance of this study is due to the rapid development of service industry in Russia and abroad and increasing importance of emotional labour. The study applies a qualitative research design.