The role of emotional resources in the daily working life of career counselors: Evidence from a diary study

Career counseling profession is emotional in nature. Indeed, when working as a career counselor, helping clients with their emotional difficulties is a central task as well as understanding and managing their own emotions to maintain one’s well-being and productivity. Thus, coping and regulatory process is an interesting entry point to understand how career counselors manage their daily experiences at work to foster career sustainability, that is to maintain their health, well-being, and productivity over time.

While the role of cognitive regulatory processes such as career adaptability have been well-studied in the career development literature, we know less about the role of emotional regulatory processes, especially among career counselors. For example, emotional labor could represent one of the keys to successfully facing the daily work or career-related challenges at work in addition to having positive effects on their health and well-being. Then, using the right emotional labor strategies becomes primordial in such a context. In the same vein, those regulation strategies could depend on more stable emotional components such as emotional intelligence.

Based on the affective event theory and the career sustainable framework, the present study aims to disclose how career counselors’ emotional experiences and the way they manage and regulate them influence one’s daily health, well-being, and perceived performance. It also aims to examine how emotional intelligence may moderate those relationships.

To that end, an experience sampling study was designed. Career counselors filled out a first general questionnaire–measuring stable characteristics (i.e., trait emotional intelligence)– and ten short diary surveys during their working days–measuring daily affective experience, emotional labor strategies, and work-related outcomes–. A total of 138 career counselors, 51 counselors in Switzerland and 87 counselors in Belgium took part in this study which was conducted between April and July 2023. The expected results from this study are that daily emotional experiences at work and emotional labor strategies will predict health, well-being, and perceived performance of career counselors. We also expect that trait emotional intelligence will buffer the effects of these relationships, in the way that high trait emotional intelligence individuals would experience fewer negative consequences than their counterparts with regard to negative emotional experiences and emotional labor strategies.

The present study has the potential to bring several important contributions to the literature. At the theoretical level, this study stresses the importance of emotional experience and resources for sustainable career development. It also contributes to a better integration of the sustainable career model among career counselors’ profession. At the practical level, this study aims to better understand the issues surrounding this theme and to guide career counselors in their daily practice to foster their career sustainability.