Reducing service agents’ emotional labor by emotion-focused human resource management practices

To uncover the effectiveness of human resource strategy for emotional labor, this study was designed to explore the relationships between human resource management practices and the consequences of emotional labor of service agents in Taiwan’s service industry. Results indicated that all human resource practices (recruitment, selection, socialization and training, performance appraisal, and reward systems) can reduce emotional exhaustion and enhance the feelings of personal accomplishment for service agents.