Examination of deep acting in retail disability service training

The quality of retail service delivered to disabled customers is affected by employees’ behaviour and attitudes. These behaviours are related to employees’ ability to manage their emotional reactions (referred to as emotional labour) to disabled customers’ varied and personalized needs. Although retailers provide disability training, employees utilize varied levels of emotional labour skills (referred to as deep acting) in interactions with disabled customers. Studies call on employers to improve disability training for employees, so that they can manage their emotional labour and disabled customers can receive higher quality service. This study addresses the question of whether training activities influence retail employees’ deep acting skills at various levels when providing services to disabled customers. By adapting Brotheridge & Lee's (2003) Emotional Labor Scale and Saks and Belcourt's (2006) Training Activities Scale, 150 participants filled a questionnaire and were grouped into three categorical levels based on their deep acting skills prior to training. The results show a positive influence exists between activities during and after training and deep acting skill levels. This study calls on retail organizations to identify employees with positive refocus and basic levels of deep acting and invest more in during and after training stages to facilitate the transfer of deep acting skills.