A Diary Study on the Effects of Supervisor-Directed Emotional Labour on Emotional Exhaustion, Work Engagement, and Job Performance Among Customer Service Employees

Contemporary workplaces are often characterised by the presence of emotions in daily interactions, which can affect employees’ well-being and job performance. However, emotional labour research has primarily focused on employee–customer interactions or work in general, leaving the equally influential supervisor–subordinate relationship underexplored. Using Conservation of Resources theory, this study aims to examine the relationships between emotional labour strategies (i.e., deep and surface acting), work engagement, emotional exhaustion, and job performance in supervisor–employee interactions on a daily basis. A total of 104 participants from the United States working under customer service sectors participated in the 5-day diary study, resulting in 422 data points. Multilevel analyses using Mplus found that, at the within-person level, daily surface acting was associated with lower job performance through lower work engagement, whereas daily deep acting was associated with higher job performance through higher work engagement. At the between-person level, higher average surface acting was associated with lower job performance through higher emotional exhaustion. These findings highlight differences in the mechanisms underlying the associations between supervisor-directed emotional labour and job performance at the within- and between-person levels. This underscores the importance of examining both levels when investigating how supervisor-directed emotional labour relates to employees’ internal processes and work outcomes.