Much Federal Work Called ‘Emotionally Laborious’

MSPB: Patient care; law enforcement or corrections, and customer service can be particularly draining. Image: Air Images/Shutterstock.com

By: FEDweek Staff

Federal employment commonly requires “emotionally laborious” work in which an employee’s duties require handling emotionally difficult situations, the MSPB has said, adding that such work puts is especially tiring and draining and runs a higher risk of burnout.

It said that occupations with such demands include for example medical professionals involved in direct patient care; law enforcement or corrections officers interacting with victims or alleged perpetrators of crimes; and customer service representatives dealing with requests for benefits such as housing, disability, food or medical care.

MSPB said that in its 2016 government-wide “merit principles” survey, 32 percent of employees said their work fits that category, with high levels of emotionally laborious work reported by 52 percent at SSA and 48 percent at the VA, for example. On the low end were SEC, 15 percent and Commerce, 17 percent.

MSPB added that “often, in order to effectively perform these duties, an employee must pretend to have feelings they do not actually feel or hide true feelings”—a phenomenon it called “feelings pretense” that requires employees to cope with their own, personal feelings “and either suppressing them or expressing a modified version of them in order to complete the task at hand.”

For example, an employee may need to try to de-escalate a situation with an aggressive member of the public “even if it means suppressing the employee’s own frustrations at such behavior.”

Such stress can show itself in lowered performance, MSPB said, saying that the most common step that agencies take in response is to refer employees to the employee assistance program for counseling and other assistance. Several also are starting programs for family members of employees performing such work, it said.

Agencies should be up-front about the demands of such jobs when filling them, it added, by including information in vacancy announcements about the personality types that would or would not be a good fit, and by using job simulations if possible before hiring.