Kelly Cherwin 0:03
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs podcast. I'm Kelly Cherwin, the Director of Editorial Strategy at HigherEdJobs. And today we are joined by a friend of the podcast, Matt Trainum, who is sitting in for Andy while he is away. Thank you, Matt, for joining us today as the co-host.

Matt Trainum 0:19
You know how much I enjoy being here.

Kelly Cherwin 0:21
It's always great to have you, especially on the other side of the table. So Matt, would you start us off and introduce who we're going to be talking to and what the topic is today?

Matt Trainum 0:28
I'd be happy to do that. We are joined by Alicia Grandey. Alicia is a distinguished award professor who runs the Workplace Emotional Labor and Diversity Lab at Penn State University. I love that -- W.E.L.D., the Workplace Emotional Labor and Diversity Lab.

Alicia's research interests include emotions and emotional labor, job stress and burnout, customer service, sexual harassment, gender, racial, cultural, political diversity, and women's health. There is a lot in there.

Alicia, I also know that you are the co-author of a new book, Emotionally Charged: How to Lead in the New World of Work. And we are here today -- hey, I love it, she's holding it up y'all, so we have a visual on a podcast -- I love it. It is a beautiful cover and it really cues us up for our conversation today, which is on emotional labor in higher education.

Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Grandey, and I'd love if you could get us started by just telling us more about your research on emotional labor: what it is, what it has to do with higher ed, and why we are here today. Give us some background.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 1:40
Oh, thank you. Thank you, Matt. You can call me Alicia, please.

So, I started studying emotional labor about 25, 26 years ago, and it was originally focused on customer service. That was because that was what I knew. I was a restaurant server and a retail clerk, and it's basically the idea that to perform your job, you have to regulate your emotions. You have to do something with your feelings and your expressions to perform your job well.

In customer service, that's really clear. “Service with a smile” is fairly direct and straightforward. It's directly related to tips and performance outcomes, satisfaction from customers. But it really affects anyone that does people work -- any kind of interactions with people.

So, the original idea of emotional labor is that you interact a lot with the public or others outside of your immediate group. You have expectations for certain types of emotions and not others. That’s called display rules -- rules about what you're supposed to show. And thirdly, there's some kind of incentive, reward, or monitoring of your emotions. Somebody is aware of how well you're doing this, and it's maybe tied to some kind of career performance outcomes.

When you think about it that way, it covers a broad range. Professors or deans or provosts -- anyone that is trying to deal with a lot of difficult situations, triggering events, people in conflict, students in mental health crises -- any of that would probably require some amount of emotional labor to perform the job well.

Matt Trainum 3:26
Alicia, that's a perfect setup and it already has me completely interested.

Kelly Cherwin 3:29
Yeah, so thank you so much for that background. That's fantastic. As you said, there's a lot going on now in higher ed. Can you dig a little bit deeper? What are some more examples of emotional labor that higher ed professionals might be feeling? And what advice -- what steps -- can professionals use to identify if they're experiencing emotional labor?

Dr. Alicia Grandey 3:48
Yeah, so emotional labor is a variety of things. I want to say this because there's a lot out there right now about emotional labor. People are using this term in a lot of different ways. I know there are some books that define it as any kind of gendered work, or like office housework, and things like that.

I want to be clear. Emotional labor is both the type of job -- emotional labor jobs, which is what I just described -- and then there's emotional labor, the effort. So we're laboring with our emotions.

The examples when emotional labor is most necessary are when you have positive display rules: you're expected to be approachable, friendly, welcoming, or to set people at ease. There are events or situations that make you feel the opposite of that.

A professor dealing with the expectation to be professional would also fall into that. That's another kind of display rule: act professional. “Don't show a lot of emotion” is often what that means.

If you're dealing with events in your own life, or in the political situation, or in student interactions that create a really emotionally charged situation, that's going to require some amount of emotional control.

You know you're experiencing emotional labor when you start to feel a couple of things. You feel alienated or separated from your feelings because they're not all yours. You can't show them the way our bodies are naturally wired to show or feel emotions. You have to put on a certain mask or expression. That alienation of self is one cue.

The biggest one is burnout. It is exhausting to hold in our emotions. I've done decades of research on the depletion -- the burnout -- we feel from holding emotions in, even if we're not aware that we're doing it.

In the book, we describe it as holding a beach ball underwater. You can do it. People can suppress their emotions. And then you have more than one -- you’re trying to juggle, right? So now you're holding three beach balls under the water. Over time, that will pop up and hit you in the face -- or someone else.

We have lots of research showing the costs of doing it that way: just holding it all in. There are relational markers. If you're holding it in and not being authentic with people, then there can be a sense of distrust. People don’t feel as close to you. They can't quite tell what's going on, but they can tell something is.

There are performance implications. If we’re focusing on our feelings, we may not have as much energy or attention to give to other things because it takes effort.

And there are health implications. I actually did a study that showed it's linked to heavy drinking. The more we're holding our emotions in and putting on a mask, the more likely people were to drink heavily -- more than three to five drinks a night -- especially when their emotional demands were particularly high.

It’s a lot of different types of costs when you're doing emotional labor jobs in an effortful and not adaptive way. Those are the markers.

Kelly Cherwin 7:17
Thank you for that. I was going to ask you a question. Obviously, there's one thing to be "on" and required at work and have the relationships at work, but it obviously bleeds over into your personal life as well. And you were talking about the implications of drinking or how it affects relationships on your personal side as well.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 7:36
I actually have another study with managers showing that more surface acting meant they felt more depleted and kind of tense. They get home, and not only were they less able to perform home stuff -- they didn’t have as much energy to help out around the house -- but also their spouses wanted them to quit. Their spouses were more likely to want them to leave their jobs. So even from someone else's perspective, it comes home and has implications.

Matt Trainum 8:06
Alicia, I want to ask a little bit about terminology. You've just talked some about this. I'm going to kind of broaden the question a little bit, but first, just a setup. I was on a call yesterday with about 30 C-suite leaders in higher ed. We had administrative tasks to manage, but I thought, “Hey, real quick -- how's everybody doing?” Just drop in the chat a word about how you're doing because I wanted to do that check-in.

Being that we were there for an administrative moment, I was surprised—maybe I shouldn't have been -- by the number of “exhausted” comments. I mean, it was “exhausted,” and “exhausted,” and “exhausted,” and I would say 90% of the room was responding in that way. It was a safe space to do that.

So there's a little bit I'm wondering about. We know professionals in higher ed are burnt out. We know there is compassion fatigue. I'm wondering a little bit about the difference between burnout, compassion fatigue, and emotional labor. You were just talking about that, but I want to give you more space in the answer.

Looking at the book -- as you talk about the book -- there’s this concept of an “unrecognized burden.” You were just talking about surface acting. I like that terminology.

So I think what I’m wondering is: What does the elevation of this term “emotionally charged” give us access to? How does it help us in this moment figure out where we're sitting? How do we distinguish it between these other terms we've had?

You're giving us a gift. You're giving us a terminology that lets us place focus on something. What are you hoping we can focus on and hear more?

So I just wanted to give that big gestalt of a question in your direction and see what you think.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 9:46
Oh, there’s so much in what you just said. Let me see if I can unpack a few of them.

First of all, it was a great idea to ask, “How is everybody doing?” I’ve done this. I had an online Zoom about the book for higher ed folks at Penn State -- people in the Dean’s office and Provost’s office. Same. They were just feeling very, very tense or very exhausted. And those are just different sides of the same coin, right? After you feel a lot of tension, you’re going to feel exhausted. They’re connected.

So I think the first thing your listeners need to hear is: You’re not alone if you're feeling this. That’s so important. You’re not crazy, and you’re not faulty or broken in some way. What’s going on right now is making us all feel exhausted because it's a constant feeling of tension, and we still have to deal with it and do our jobs.

If we’re leaders -- leaders of the classroom or leaders of an organization -- we have to act cool, calm, and collected. Like we’ve got it all together, right? That’s what we heard when we did interviews for our book. That was the display rule for leaders: cool, calm, and collected. Act like you’ve got it all under control. Don’t let them see you sweat -- all that kind of thing. In an emotionally charged environment, that’s a tall order.

So I think you asking -- or any leader asking -- “How’s everybody doing?” and really meaning it, really wanting to know -- but not taking a whole hour for therapy, right? You did it in a way that had a boundary: “Put it in the chat.” That’s a way of creating that safe space. It’s a way of saying how you’re feeling is valid and it’s important that we acknowledge where we are. Once we can do that, then we can move forward and deal with the task at hand.

I think that step is often missed. We don’t take time to sit with, “How am I doing?” And just someone asking that question gives us that moment.

We have a lot in the book about this -- about just being more aware. People who have more emotional awareness and emotional processing tend to be healthier, have better relationships, and are better able to deal with emotions. Even though they’re more aware of them, they can recognize them and then set them aside and get the work done.

If I might share a personal story -- while I was writing this book with my co-author Dena Dunham Smith (who, by the way, is a former grad student friend of mine -- we go way back, like 30 years), we were going through very difficult family and personal issues. I was going through a divorce, she was dealing with a bunch of stuff, and it was really hard.

But we would meet every week to talk about what we were doing with the book. We would spend the first 10 minutes just sharing what’s going on in our lives. Once we had done that, and we had validated each other’s -- verbalized and validated each other’s -- feelings, then we were able to move forward. If we hadn’t done that, we would have spent the time acting like we were fine. And then we wouldn’t have been as creative and productive.

So that’s the first part of what I heard in your question.

The second part -- about burnout and compassion fatigue -- is super interesting. I really appreciate that question because it points to the balancing act of people work.

When we’re faking or surface acting or holding things in, we might become a bit burned out because of the effort. Like I said, you get a little depleted. You also tend to get a little detached, a little disengaged. You might feel a little numb to people. Those are all connected to burnout.

But on the flip side -- if we care too much, if we get wrapped up in everyone’s feelings all the time, if we sit with an upset student or professor, someone in our network, and we take on all their emotions and we’re feeling all their feelings and we carry those around with us -- that results in compassion fatigue.

So you see, either way, you can care not at all and just fake it -- and be burned out from the faking -- or you can care too much and be burned out from the fatigue of caring and never letting it go. It’s the challenge of being an emotion handler, which I think you alluded to.

Some people are more likely to take on that role. I don’t know if you have someone in your work circle who is the one everyone goes to to process their stuff.

Kelly Cherwin 14:31
It’s probably Matt. Yeah, you’re the one, Matt.

Matt Trainum 14:35
Historically, that’s been very true.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 14:36
Do you have a box of Kleenex on your desk?

Matt Trainum 14:39
I have probably three positioned throughout the office.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 14:42
Exactly. To me, that’s a proxy for who’s the emotion handler. And that role is often not explicitly recognized or given the value that it serves. The challenge is figuring out how to care -- and mean it -- genuinely, not fake it. But also not take it home with you, not carry it like a burden on your back, which I think is the picture you were alluding to in our book.

That requires some amount of awareness and emotional skills.

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Kelly Cherwin 15:41
So you've talked about being caught in the middle. If we are in that situation, how can we deal with that?

Dr. Alicia Grandey 15:49
Yeah, that’s the million-dollar question.

Whenever I do a workshop, I really try to be straightforward that, first of all, these are not soft skills. These are hard skills. Second, I don't have a magic bullet. I'm not going to give you something that immediately makes it all better. And third, all these skills take practice. It's about creating the habit of doing these steps with your emotions so that it becomes more automatic. Then you don’t have to spend as much time thinking about it -- and you're not suppressing it.

A couple different things to bring up here. One is, when you think about dealing with someone who is struggling -- and I know right now there’s so much more attention to mental health and awareness of concerns -- people might be more open about them. That means whoever they're talking to is now more likely to have to deal with that.

I think recognizing that if someone brings you a concern -- a personal issue, a mental issue, a substance abuse issue -- they probably don’t have anyone else to talk to. But you’re also not a therapist, right? So how do you do this without compassion fatigue and without seeming too detached?

One way is to keep in mind there’s a difference between emotional empathy -- where you take on the person’s feelings -- and perspective-taking, or cognitive empathy. You can listen to what they’re saying and understand it without taking it as your own. That requires keeping in mind you’re the problem solver. That’s why they’re bringing it to you, but they’re also sharing their feelings with you.

So your job is to listen. We actually have it as an acronym in our book: RAP. You’ve got to RAP with your people.

RAP:

R is for Recognize that they’re struggling.
If someone comes to you and they’re not performing well or not doing what they’re supposed to, you start with, “I notice you’re not acting like you normally do. Is everything okay?” Not, “You’re doing terribly, and I’m going to fire you.”

A is Acknowledge what they share with you -- make space for it. Like Matt, you did with the “Hey, how’s everyone doing?” and then made space for it to be discussed.

I tell people, if I ask you how you are and you say “fine,” that’s a four-letter F-word -- and I’m going to follow that, because I don’t believe you. Especially right now, when people say “fine,” I think there’s probably a better word that’s more accurate.

P is Process that and look for other resources.
You don’t have to have all the answers. I think sometimes we’re afraid to give space because we think we’re supposed to know what to do. It’s okay to say, “You know what, I’ve not dealt with this before, and I’m going to find some resources,” or, “I’m going to refer you to someone who has more expertise than I do.”

That, in itself, is a gift -- because you’ve validated how they’re feeling and said, “I’m going to help you find the tools you need. I don’t have all those tools.” That shows humility, which sometimes leaders feel like they’re not allowed to show. They feel like they’re supposed to have all the answers.

I think that’s faulty. It’s helpful to share that maybe you don’t know everything.

Matt Trainum 19:19
So Alicia, RAP -- I get it. It’s about responding to others. But I know you've also talked about how to respond for yourself. Internally, when emotions are coming up, what is your guidance? Give us some thoughts on that.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 19:34
Another thing we talk about in the book is the idea of BRAVE. So when you have a triggering event, what can you do to get through that situation in the moment?

I’ve done workshops where we describe BRAVE and walk through the steps. People say it seems obvious, but it’s so helpful.

Something happens that’s triggering -- a conflict, bad news, maybe your grant got cut. The first step of BRAVE is:

BREATHE.
It sounds so simple, but it is so necessary. When we’re anxious, we start shallow breathing or we hold our breath. Taking that beat to do deeper breaths -- I actually have people breathe for one minute. It’s not that long, but when you're sitting and just breathing, it actually is a long time.

It gives you time to decompress and tune in -- to get back to a normal state rather than fight-or-flight. Breathing is one of the few things we can control when we’re stressed. You can’t easily control your heart rate or your hormones, but you can regulate your breathing.

RECOGNIZE how you're feeling.
This is what you did, Matt, with your check-in: “How’s everyone feeling?” People tune in. We don’t often give time for that.

ACCEPT how you're feeling.
This, in my view, is the hardest. After you breathe and recognize, the third step is to accept. That doesn’t mean roll over and be passive or helpless. It means accepting: this is a difficult situation, and it is valid that I’m feeling upset.

Don’t suppress it or feel guilty. Don’t try to look for the bright side yet. Just say, “I accept that this is how I feel in this moment.” Emotional jujitsu: roll with the punch instead of fighting back. It’s less effortful.

VALIDATE.
Name it. When we name a feeling, something happens neurologically -- it switches us into a more cognitive, executive functioning mode and gets us out of fight-or-flight. Now I can say, “Okay, my feeling is more around anger. I’m anxious.” Now I can move forward.

ENGAGE.
That’s the fifth and final step. So if you think about it, each of those steps doesn’t take very long. It’s about taking a beat before you move forward -- instead of just suppressing.

Kelly Cherwin 23:32
I absolutely love that. That BRAVE is fantastic.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 23:35
We purposefully... Emotions get a bad rap in the workplace, right? They tend to be seen as feminine. They tend to be called irrational -- things that are the antithesis of the workplace. But again, emotions are just information. We wouldn’t want to ignore information, right? We don’t want to deny ourselves data.

We talk about it this way purposefully because we know half the population -- particularly men -- may not have as much experience processing and labeling emotions. It’s not always as socialized. So we wanted to make it clear: this is for you too. This isn’t just about women. It’s for everybody.

We purposefully gave it courageous-sounding names because, as Brené Brown says, it takes courage to be vulnerable. It takes courage to feel our feelings.

Kelly Cherwin 24:34
And I think you mentioned earlier, it takes practice to go through these steps and recognize this. But I love the fact that this is for everyone, so thank you for that. I was fascinated -- I'm going to implement this with people that I know as well.

Matt Trainum 24:48
Alicia, I'm really fascinated by all of this conversation. It's very engaging, it has me thinking about a lot of things. I also know that our national political environment is highly emotional for a lot of us. It's impacting the higher education community a lot.

What you're giving us here is a tool -- a lot of guidance -- on how to navigate this moment. I’d just love some further thoughts on that. Your advice for all of us as people, as professionals -- on how we get through the unknown, how we manage our emotions, the emotions of those around us. I know you've got science-backed research around this topic and would just love for you to give us some guidance and some inspiration as we move forward.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 25:29
Yeah, thanks for naming that.

I do think when we're in times of uncertainty, it's like we're constantly in a state of vigilance. We're constantly in a state of uncertainty, which creates anxiety because we don’t have control. We feel that lack of control.

At the simplest level, we have to figure out: What can we control? What can we do something about? And that’s our own behaviors. You can’t make someone else do something. You can’t necessarily change the situation. But we can take steps to take care of ourselves.

This often gets a bad rep too -- this idea of self-care. There are so many self-help books. But it’s like the idea of putting your own oxygen mask on first. You cannot be a good leader, professor, dean, or provost unless you are emotionally prepared to deal with the environment. That means having boundaries and taking time for yourself.

In the book, we're very specific about the science around this. There’s years of research on the benefits of certain experiences or activities. We've broken it down to be as easily remembered as possible, which is DARE. Dare to take care of yourself -- because it's hard. It's hard for us to give time to ourselves.

So DARE represents four experiences that years of science say help us recover and come back the next day refreshed and ready to deal with the next fire:

D is for Detach.
This doesn’t mean emotionally detach. It means detach from work. It’s so hard with 24/7 availability on our phones and computers. But if we can step back -- cognitively and physically -- from work and give ourselves some time to not be work-engaged, that’s the first thing we need to do.

A is for Autonomy.
This means you choose the activity that gives you these four experiences. When someone says to me, “Do mindfulness,” I’m like, “don’t tell me what to do,” right? So you have to pick the thing. That’s how it will work. Otherwise, it creates a sense of not being in control, which is the opposite of what we want.

R is for Rest.
This does not mean lying on a hammock eating bonbons. It means getting your body back to homeostasis -- whatever your natural arousal state is. Because we’re in that go-go-go hustle culture. We keep moving, we keep doing. If we never give our bodies time to just get back to baseline, then we’re overworking. Our bodies are not meant to stay at that high level of vigilance. That leads to burnout.

Burnout comes from both the arousal and the suppression of it -- together.

E is for Empower or Engage.
Engaging in things that empower you to feel like a whole person. This could be work-related -- maybe you're developing yourself to be a better employee. Maybe you're doing some workshops or personal development reading. But it could also be something completely unrelated to work.

Everybody has something -- I hope -- that is their “thing.” That gives them joy. That reminds them they are more than their jobs.

For me, I like to dance. I do some yoga -- not mindfulness, because that makes me upset -- but because everyone says it makes you feel good. It is really effective. Lots of science supports that. I'm half-joking. But finding that thing that helps you feel empowered -- as a whole person -- is what matters.

So daring to do these things, taking a beat away from work -- and also taking a break from technology -- is essential. Because it's so hard to be on our devices and not check email or see something work-related. And if you're on your device, you're going to see upsetting events. So doomscrolling? Not helpful. Especially not right before bed.

When should you do your information gathering -- the stuff that makes you feel like a good community member? Probably not right before bed. Probably in limited doses. Just like any social media -- we should not be on our phones looking at it for hours.

And the last thing I’ll put out as encouragement: verbalizing or sharing how you’re feeling. Either with yourself -- or journaling, which helps with self-reflection and noticing trends -- or with others.

We talk a lot in the book about noticing: What are your triggers? Being aware of them helps you prepare for them better. But also -- finding community. Matt, you brought up this safe space you created. Find people you can be real with. People you can verbalize things to and find support and validation from.

Whether that’s by yourself or with others -- whatever is more comfortable for you -- t’s critical in this crazy time.

Kelly Cherwin 30:35
I love that advice. Thank you so much. And I was laughing because I actually had a similar conversation with someone this weekend about, “Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t tell me how to relax or decompress.”

But like you were saying -- we all have to find our own thing, our own way to engage. What is unique to us that helps us do that. So yeah, I can appreciate that.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 30:56
And I should say -- if people right now are sitting there going, “I don’t have time for that,” I mean... I don’t have time for that... this is known as the recovery paradox.

When we most need to take a break is when we’re least likely to do it, right? When we’re most overwhelmed, we’re so overly busy, that’s when we most need to step back and do the thing -- whether it’s mindfulness or playing the piano or whatever.

It feels like a waste of time in that moment -- before you do it. But anyone who does it knows that afterward, you're like, “Wow, that was exactly what I needed.” Now I have the energy to move forward. It’s never a waste of time after you do it.

Kelly Cherwin 31:39
Yeah, I agree. And I must say -- what did you call it? Doom...

Dr. Alicia Grandey 31:44
Doomscrolling.

Kelly Cherwin 31:45
I have a boxer. I’ll just look at funny videos of boxers. You have to be happy looking at dogs.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 31:52
It’s real! Looking at bunnies and kitties and puppies actually induces positive emotions. For sure.

Kelly Cherwin 31:59
Yeah. Well, Alicia, I really enjoyed our conversation today. Matt, do you have anything to follow up with before we close it out?

Matt Trainum 32:06
I’d just add my thanks to yours. It’s been a great discussion.

Dr. Alicia Grandey 32:09
Thank you.

Kelly Cherwin 32:10
If anyone has questions for Alicia or on the topic we covered today, please email us at podcast@HigherEdJobs.com or message us on X @higheredcareers. Thank you, Alicia, and thank you, Matt, for joining us today. It was a great conversation.