Towards a Structuring of the Emotional Process at Work: The Case of Anti-crime Squad Agents in France
Occupational health and safety, and quality of service issues raise questions about the role of emotions at work and the work of emotions. What are the components of the emotional process at work? What are their implications for the professional’s health and the quality of service and intervention? In order to provide initial insights into these theoretical and managerial questions, a specific context has been studied as part of a qualitative research project: the case of a French anti-crime police unit. As in any service activity, there are emotional social rules ; these anti-crime police officers assume them, in front of the public. In this job, which involves physical and psychological risks, the raw emotions and the objects of work have to be managed by the professional in order to fulfill his/her mission. As a way of managing these emotional burdens inherent in the activity, specialized unit police officers use work tools involving emotions: for instance, emotional labour techniques and activation of emotional competencies. Emotional objects of work and tools to counter them produce effects upon the professional, who must regulate them most of the time in his/her personal life. Whether they are objects, tools or work effects, the emotional component impacts the professional’s health and the quality of his or her intervention. This paper puts forward a theoretical model that dissociates emotional objects, emotional resources (emotional work tools), and emotional consequences of the activity studied (emotional effects of work), completing and enriching the theoretical framework in this research field. This decomposition of the emotional factor offers a perspective that allows HRM professionals to consider the emotional phenomenon at work beyond the original issues of occupational health and quality of service and intervention.