How Do Emotions Affect Work?

Emotions can affect the behavior of employees in the workplace. The feelings and general character of a collaborator have a significant impact on their work performance, decision-making skills, team spirit and leadership and productivity.

What employees feel and how they express their emotions directly affects their performance, creativity and interpersonal relationships. Therefore, at the business level, it is considered important that people try to keep their emotions out of the office.

The problem is that this is not really possible or useful for productivity. Human beings are emotional creatures, and they communicate their emotions constantly, whether they like it or not. Emotion appears in your body language, your choice of words, your tone of voice and your actions. It is part of who they are and, if asked to review their emotions before entering the office, can they really work fully? According to many experts and various studies carried out over the years, the answer is “no.” For this reason, instead of trying to eliminate them, companies must strive to understand and use them to increase the productivity of employees.

Understand Team Emotions

In the field of psychology, it is considered that there are eight main emotions: anger, fear, disgust, surprise, sadness, confidence, anticipation and joy. But how do we see them expressed in work tasks?

In theory, the most common emotions that people express in their team projects are trust and anticipation, valued as positive signs of staff productivity. When teams trust each other and look forward to the tasks they must do, everyone is very motivated to do a great job.

Surprise and fear are shown through ignorance about certain issues, insecurity and worry. These kinds of emotions are natural for teamwork, since as they work, they will discover new challenges to face. However, every time a challenge arises, it must be taken as a new growth opportunity.

On the other hand, anger also comes out in team projects. According to various analyzes, employees can experience this negative emotion for 16-30% of their work time.

How Does Mood Affect Work Performance?

All employees go through various productive phases: some in which you want to achieve everything you can in just one day, others in which problems of personal life interfere with the work routine and fade the desire and motivation to work. The fault lies in thinking that these phases really exist, since what influences work performance is the mood of each of the employees. There is no human that can have the same mood 24/7/365.

Basically, there are many reasons that can affect people in their emotions and feelings. In order for companies to truly understand the impact of employee engagement on performance, they must focus on the individual experiences of employees and the factors that influence daily work life.

As human resources professionals adapt their engagement strategies to the experience of the individual collaborator, two things must be taken into account. Human relationships have a profound effect on the emotions that people experience at work and the impact of collaborators’ commitment to performance.

What Positive Emotions Affect Work Performance?

1) Trust: Trust is the trust we put in others. For organizations, it is the basis of their culture. When trust in an organization is high, employees innovate more, work more productively and have lower levels of stress. On the contrary, when confidence is low, or even absent in a workplace, negativity abounds. Mistrust can have a negative impact on the commitment of employees. When companies make relationships the center of their employees’ engagement strategy, trust flows freely and strengthen the bonds of the team.

2) Achievement: Human nature is to fight for achievement and desire recognition. The emotions we feel when we achieve our goals, and when others recognize those achievements, are powerful. Recognition has the greatest individual impact on employee job satisfaction, both for intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. In the workplace, promoting recognition is synonymous with promoting relationships. When employees recognize each other, the bond between them is strengthened.

3) Happiness: Happiness is not a singular emotion and varies from person to person. It is a major influence factor when it comes to the concerns of the company’s leadership: employee retention, absenteeism and productivity. The happiness of employees contributes to the impact of their commitment on performance. Leaders who advocate labor relations show their employees that they prioritize and value their well-being.

4) Altruism: One of the most powerful symptoms of trust is altruism. Although we tend to think of altruism in terms of philanthropy, in the workplace (as in our personal lives) it is as simple as putting the needs of others before ours. At work, altruism is more likely to be seen when employees help their colleagues with something outside their responsibilities or sacrifice resources that could benefit their project or department for the good of the organization. “Altruists” tend to be more committed to their work, fulfill all the responsibilities of their job, and are less likely to leave an organization. In summary, the stronger the relationships in your workplace, the more collaborators will practice altruism.

5) Belonging: Belonging is the need to feel connected to other people. When membership is absent, mental health suffers. People who feel out of place not only show lower levels of happiness and adaptation, but also are more prone to mental and physical illness. In this sense, human relationships are the key to the sense of belonging. This, by definition, can only be developed through frequent and positive interactions between individuals who show respect and mutual care. It is impossible to feel belonging without the presence and support of other people. Thus, the sense of belonging produced by human relationships at work is beneficial for the well-being of employees and for their general attitude towards their work experience.

What Negative Emotions Affect Work Performance?

1) Anger: Anger in the workplace can be the result of frustration, interpersonal conflicts with bosses or colleagues and unfair treatment. A key to managing anger in the office is to move away from the situation and let it gradually diminish. Then, from tranquility, more rational measures can be taken to deal with the situation that caused the anger in the first place.

2) Envy: It is very common to envy the achievements and rewards given to other coworkers. Equity theory says that all employees are motivated by a sense of equality, and that this can encourage them to work harder to achieve a specific goal, such as a raise or promotion. Unfortunately, rewards in the workplace are not always distributed fairly, and this can lead to negative emotional reactions, including envy. The key to dealing with envy is to analyze the situation and not compare with others, since not all employees have the same experience, knowledge or are trained to perform certain tasks.

3) Fear: It can be disconcerting to think that fear could be a common emotion in the workplace, but the risk of losing a job can cause that uncertainty. Keeping the curriculum updated and continuing to train to expand knowledge can help keep that fear at bay, which in most cases can be fictitious. On the other hand, having a problem with a supervisor or a co-worker can also cause a sense of distress or anxiety in the office.

4) Blame: If a collaborator feels guilty for unfinished tasks (stress related to office projects and deadlines), or because we have somehow offended a partner (personal stress), the fault, even if it seems contradictory, may be a positive and motivating force. The best way to eliminate guilt is to meet (or exceed) demands and take steps to repair interpersonal conflicts in the workplace.

5) Impotence: A feeling of incapacity or worthlessness at work, or a feeling of anxiety, is a warning sign that should not be ignored, since it may indicate that you are worried about the career and where you are going, or could even be a sign of depression. In any case, these feelings should not be ignored if they persist. Seeking advice (inside or outside the workplace), either to control feelings or to eliminate those negative emotions, which could be false, is essential in these cases.

Help Employees Manage Emotions

That is what we do in masvoz. In the end, collaborators are not robots; C-Level members and our people manager understand this factor. But we also know that it is important to know how to manage the spectrum of emotions and moods that a collaborator experiences.

In masvoz we care about the well-being of our collaborators because we are aware of the influence that feelings can have on people. Therefore, we organize workshops focused on maintaining team cohesion, collective and responsible leadership or emotion management with specialists in these fields. Because we know that it is our responsibility to maintain a positive and motivating environment in the office.

For this reason we strive to have a basic understanding of the emotional health of our team, since we are aware of its impact on productivity. To take advantage of the emotions of the staff and use them to do an even better job, in masvoz we try to:

• Recognize that emotions are an important part of work and we try to create an open work culture where people can express themselves.
• For tasks in which people express emotions such as anger or fear, we provide clarity to resolve those feelings.
• We avoid any sarcastic or negative comments, since it can have a long-term impact on interpersonal relationships.
• Positive emotions are very important for team productivity, so we make sure they experience them and celebrate achievements together.
• We do not allow any of our departments to feel uncertain about how to do a task for too long: it increases anxiety and decreases productivity.
• We focus on the success of the individual and not only on the completion of tasks. After all, we know that the best asset of our team is people!