This study conducted a questionnaire survey against 400 beauty salon employees across the country in order to find out the effects of job stress and emotional labor on job satisfaction. Then, the study results found the followings:
First, in demographic characteristics, ‘women’, ‘age 30 to under 40’, ‘single’, ‘high school graduates or below’ and ‘Honam area’ accounted for 86.8%, 31.1%, 63.2%, 47.6% and 35.0% respectively.
Second, in terms of job stress factors, ‘conflict with customers’ was the highest, followed by ‘job demand’, ‘organizational system’, ‘inappropriate compensation’ and ‘peer conflict’.
As age increased, ‘job demand’ and ‘peer conflict’-related job stress was high. In addition, job stress caused by ‘organizational system’ and ‘inappropriate compensation’ was higher among single beauticians in Honam region. In the category of work environment, ’11 or more’ was the highest in terms of the number of the respondents stressed with ‘job demand’ while ‘5 or less’ was the highest in terms of the number of the employees stressed with ‘peer conflict’. The ‘job demand’-related stress was high in ‘10 hours or more’ in terms of work hours. The ‘conflict with customers’-related stress was in ‘less than KRW 3 million’ in terms of monthly income. In addition, the stress caused by ‘organizational system’ and ‘inappropriate compensation’ was the highest in ‘less than KRW 1 million’ in terms of monthly income. The ‘conflict with customers’-related stress increased as the length of employment increased. The ‘conflict with customers’-related stress was the highest among the salon owner and manager. In addition, the stress caused by ‘organizational system’ and ‘inappropriate compensation’ was the highest in the designer.
In terms of emotional labor factors, ‘emotional labor’ was the highest, followed by ‘extrinsic behavior’, ‘diversity’ and ‘intrinsic behavior’.
In terms of differences in emotional labor, emotional labor was high or diverse in ‘age 25 to under 30’ and group of high education. In addition, as the differences increased, the frequency of emotional labor increased as well. As pay increased, furthermore, more diverse emotional labor was observed. In fact, the diversity of emotional labor was the highest in ‘3 to under 5 years’ and ‘salon owner/manager and designer’ in terms of the length of employment and job title respectively.
In terms of job satisfaction factors, ‘job itself’ was highest, followed by ‘interpersonal relationship’, ‘economic factor’ and ‘work environment’. Regarding job satisfaction with work environment, as age increased, satisfaction was high in ‘economic factor’. The overall job satisfaction was the highest in ‘single’ and ‘Chungcheong’ in terms of marital status and region respectively. The satisfaction with interpersonal relationship was high as its scale increased.
The overall job satisfaction was high in ’less than 10 hours’ in terms of work hours. Job satisfaction increased as pay was high (‘KRW 3 million or more’). The overall job satisfaction was the highest in ‘10 years or more’ and ‘salon owner/boss’ in terms of the length of employment and job title respectively.
Third, correlations were observed among job stress, emotional labor and job satisfaction in beauticians. Job satisfaction increased as the stress associated with ‘conflict with customers’, ‘job demand’, ‘organizational system’, ‘inappropriate compensation’ and ‘peer conflict’ increased, emotional labor became diverse, and intrinsic behavior decreased. In addition, emotional labor was high as the stress caused by ‘job demand’ and ‘conflict with customers’ increased.
Based on the said results, therefore, this study suggests the following improvement plans:
First, to improve relational conflicts among job stress-related factors, the causes of the conflict are communicated through monthly intern, designer and manager meetings. To correct ‘job demand’ and ‘inappropriate compensation’-related matters, in addition, this study suggests the handling of the complaints on work hours through the introduction of incentive system, monthly reward through internal performance rating and double-shift system.
Second, to improve emotional labor factors, the management should make investments to analyze and cope with emotional labor scales through professional institutes such as Emotional Labor Research Institute and offer an opportunity to watch movie, theater and fine arts quarterly.
Third, in a further study, it is necessary to expand the subjects to the entire nation and investigate more diverse emotional labor factors. In addition, it is required to enhance completeness through various methods such as in-depth interview, group debate and observation.