The mediating role of emotional labor on the effect of human resources practices on job engagement

In this study, the mediating role of emotional labor on the effect of human resources practices on job engagement was examined. In the study, the mediating role of the 3 sub-dimensions of the emotional labor scale (surface acting, deep acting and natural emotions) on the relationship between human resources practices and job engagement was examined. In this context, cross-sectional data was collected from a total of 261 employees, including 63 production sector and 198 service sector employees in Niğde province, using the human resources practices scale, job engagement scale and emotional labor scale. In total, 261 people, 134 men and 127 women, participated in the study. The collected quantitative data were evaluated using statistical analysis. Research results; showed that demographic factors such as gender, marital status, age, education level and company size did not have a significant impact on job engagement. On the other hand, it was found that the total working time and the time spent in the same position positively affected job engagement levels. The first finding obtained as a result of the research is that there is a positive significant relationship between human resources practices and job engagement. On the other hand, when the mediator variables of emotional labor sub-dimensions, surface acting, deep acting and natural emotional labor, were included in the analysis predicting human resources practices and job engagement, it was found that surface acting had a negative mediating role in the relationship between human resources practices and job engagement. It was observed that natural emotional labor had a significant positive mediating role. No significant mediating role of deep acting was detected. These findings show that it is necessary to focus on the management of human resources practices and emotional labor processes in order to increase employee engagement.