So much more than cheap labor! Volunteers engage in emotional labor

While volunteers provide the backbone for many nonprofits, the volunteer rate is the lowest it has been since tracking started in 2002. Among the many other duties of volunteers in various organizations, most volunteers are expected to provide good customer service to nonprofit organization clients. Emotional labor is a key aspect of good customer service encounters, and, following Hochschild’s model of emotional labor among employees, we propose that volunteers are aware of organizational display rules, engage in emotional labor, and experience emotional exhaustion. Using a sample of volunteers in nonprofit organizations, we found that volunteers do engage in emotional labor in response to organizational display rules, and surface acting mediates the relationship between display rules and emotional exhaustion in volunteers. Implications concerning emotional labor research as well as the similarities between volunteer and employee experiences with emotional labor are discussed.