The focus of this study is to reveal the impact of emotional labor (deep acting and surface acting) on health care workers’ performance. The mediating role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between emotional labor and health care workers’ performance is also examined. Data collection was conducted through an adopted questionnaire from health care workers of reputed hospitals. Out of 250 distributed questionnaires 230 were fully responded. SPSS and Smart PLS version 4 were used to analyze the respondents’ feedback. Results proved that current study provided a better knowledge of emotional labor, performance and its outcomes on employee’s attitude and job outcomes. However, hypothesis testing proved that emotional labor dimensions can have positive and negative outcomes on employee performance and it depends upon the categorization into surface acting and deep acting. Also, emotional exhaustion plays partial mediation. This study aims to unfold the challenges faced by the hospital employees regarding choice of emotional labor dimensions, their positive and negative outcomes and support from supervisors to manage the situation. Similarly, there are very limited studies conducted with the mediating role of emotional exhaustion in previous literature Future research is required to find out the other determinants of health care worker performance. Also, studies should examine the other intervening variables between emotional labor and employee’s performance and also between emotional exhaustion and employee performance. Current study will examine the antecedents and consequences of emotional labor on employee performance.  The outcomes of study will give practical insights to hospitality industry. Following are a few areas in which study findings will be implicated practically and socially like selection of employees, training, team harmony, and compensation.

Keywords

Emotional labor, deep acting, Surface acting, Emotional Exhaustion, Health care workers’ performance.