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Emotional labour within the personal tutor role

Emotional labour within the personal tutor role . Angela Williams Lecturer Department of Nursing School of Health Science. AIM. To identify and discuss emotional labour within the personal tutor role. Structure. Introduction & Background Organisational structure and process

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Emotional labour within the personal tutor role

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  1. Emotional labour within the personal tutor role Angela Williams Lecturer Department of Nursing School of Health Science

  2. AIM • To identify and discuss emotional labour within the personal tutor role

  3. Structure • Introduction & Background • Organisational structure and process • Emotional labour within the Personal Tutor role • Implications

  4. Introduction & background • Implications of widening access to higher education: • Nature of students (diversity in age, gender, culture, qualifications, experience, expectations, commitments) • Increased numbers of students • Challenge is to address the needs of large numbers of students with varying needsin a personalised way

  5. Organisational structure and process • Significant emphasis and value is placed on the personal tutor role within Swansea University and within the School of Health Science

  6. Organisational structure and process • Consistent, branch specific personal tutoring throughout the programme • Personal tutor time is mandatory, structured and supportive in purpose • Personal tutor role incorporates group reflection with personal tutor students following each clinical placement

  7. Emotional Labour (Hochschild 1983) • Based on flight attendants, emotional labour described as, • “the induction or suppression of feeling in order to sustain an outward appearance that produces in others a sense of being cared for in a convivial safe place” (p7)

  8. Work requiring emotional labour (Hochschild 1983) • Face or voice contact with the public • Requires the worker to produce an emotional response in another e.g. gratitude • Enables the employer through training to exercise a degree of control of employees’ emotional activities

  9. James (1989) emotional labour • “labour involved in dealing with other people’s feelings, a core component of which is the regulation of emotions” (p15)

  10. Key features of emotional labour (James 1992) • Hard work • Regulation and management of feeling • Action and reaction • Doing and being • Demanding, skilled work • Personal exchange • Can be used for commercial purposes • A pretence • Response to common situations • Subject to gender discussions

  11. James (1989) • “Emotional labour is hard work and can be sorrowful and difficult. It demands that the labourer gives personal attention which means they must give something of themselves, not just a formulaic response” (p18)

  12. Emotional labour within the personal tutor role • Working with our emotions in dealing with student’s emotions: • Dealing with student’s feelings relating to study (anger, disappointment, grief, frustration, elation) • Dealing with student’s problems (mental/physical illness, isolation, abuse, bereavement, divorce, relationship problems)

  13. Emotional labour within personal tutor role • Working with our emotions: • Students who are ‘difficult’ to manage (demanding, lack commitment, reluctant to take responsibility - may be ‘unpopular’) • Relationship has potential for attachment and emotional involvement (Menzies 1960) • Personal tutors can experience a range of feelings such as care, concern, protection, responsibility, empathy and frustration • These feelings have to be managed

  14. Implications of emotional labour • Smith (1992) highlighted the importance of: • supportive environment • effective leadership • role modelling and • valuing of emotion work • as crucial for student nurses to care for patients.

  15. Support for personal tutors • Needs to be recognised and supported through formal and informal organisational mechanisms (e.g. clinical supervision, mentorship)

  16. Research • Research is crucial to illuminate the facets of emotional labour specifically within the personal tutor role

  17. References • Hoschild A.R (1983) The managed heart: commercialisation of human feeling, Berkeley, University of California Press • James N. (1992) Care = organisation + physical labour + emotional labour, Sociology of health and illness, 14 (4) 489-509 • James N. (1989) Emotional labour: skill and work in the social regulation of feelings, Sociological Review, 37, 15-42 • Smith P. (1992) The Emotional Labour of Nursing, London, Macmillan

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