This document discusses three emotion measurement services used by knowledge workers and the results of user experience studies. The services measured emotions using daily surveys, a wearable ring, and an emotion tracking application. Users found that measuring emotions increased self-awareness but that the usefulness of emotional data in work was unclear. Managerial guidelines for implementing emotion measurement include clarifying the goal, ensuring voluntary participation, addressing data ownership concerns, and making tools easy to use. While emotion measurement provides novel insights, the benefits depend on employees' motivation to develop emotional intelligence through self-reflection.

1. EMOTION MEASUREMENT SERVICES FOR
KNOWLEDGE WORKERS
MaijuVuolle, Henna Salonius, Johanna Lintinen & Julia Mäkinen
R e s e r 2 0 1 5 conference - September - Copenhagen

2. AGENDA TODAY
• Background of the paper
• Emotions and their measurement at work
• Emotion measurement services
• User experiences
• Summary

3. How are you
FEELING at the moment?

4. BACKGROUND – EMOTIONS MATTER
Interest in everyday emotions of employees – how to
support well-being and performance?
• Measuring emotions is one approach to increase awareness.
• Need for more research on emotions at individual level
(within person) and at real life work context.
• User experiences of three emotion measurement services and
their usefulness in daily knowledge work.
• Managerial guidelines for planning and executing emotion
measurement.

5. Exited
Enthusiastic
Energized
Happy
Pleased
Content
Relaxed
Calm
Sad
Gloomy
Fatigued
Tense
Angry
Irritated
Hostile
Agitated
WHAT are emotions - Circumplex model
PLEASANTUNPLEASANT
HIGH
ACTIVATION
LOW
ACTIVATION
(adapted from Russell, 1980;
Shaufeli & Salanova, 2014)

6. MEASURING EMOTIONS AT WORK
Experience
Self-reporting tools
Surveys
Diaries
Physical reaction
Skin conductance
Brain activity
Heart rate variation
Expression
Facial and vocal

7. RESEARCH METHODS
Daily experience
survey
- 22 participants
- 2 intensive weeks
- 3 months once a week
- 10 interviews
Emotional
intensity
- 8 participants
- One working week
- Questions in daily
report
Tracking
emotions
- 8 participants
- One working week
- Questionnaire

8. EMOTION MEASUREMENT SERVICES
UNPLEASANT
HIGH
ACTIVATION
PLEASANT
LOW
ACTIVATION

9. USER EXPERIENCES: IPOS SENSOR
• Interest in reflecting overall company pulse regulary, not daily or
weekly
• Higher completion rate during intensive weeks – questioning the
actions after testing period, lack of time, technical problems
• Simple application with
straightforward questions desired,
technical suggestions made
1.Communicate purpose
2. Collect data periodically
3. Make sure the results
can be utilized
4. Communicate and take
actions on the results

10. USER EXPERIENCES: MOODMETRIC
• Technical issues, linkability to other applications or
devices and self-awareness
• The ring measures emotional intensity quite accordingly
and helped improving self-awareness on emotions and
behavior
• However, the usefulness of emotional data remained
unrecognized
• Is the link between emotional wellbeing and work
performance recognized?
• Emotional intelligence and emotion regulation
processes may be well developed and self-evident?
• Surprising emotional reactions was revealed
• Ring measures only one dimension (arousal); cannot tell
the difference between negative and positive emotions
Be the situation positive or negative, it is important
to recover from situations that are high in activation.

11. USER EXPERIENCES: EMOTIONTRACKER
• Tracking emotions was easy (50 %)
• 63% did not agree or disagree that tracking emotions is useful
in daily work
• However, 50 % of the respondents reported they had learnt to
identify & understand emotions better
• Somewhat half of the respondents would recommend tracking
for knowledge workers
• Always on voluntary basis
• For personal development and self-management purposes
• Occupational health service?
• Data ownership - personal and private information
The benefit of reporting would be realized if
people want voluntarily to learn about their
emotional information and develop emotional intelligence.

12. TO CONCLUDE
• Purposes for emotion measurements: self-management tools,
company pulse
– Unique and novel possibilities to monitor one’s own wellbeing and
performance in real time
– Getting immeadiate feedback can be highly motivating – more
proactive actions by the employees?
• Managerial guidlelines
– Goal and purpose
– Frequency and length
– Data ownership and ethical concerns
– Ease of use
– Employee’s motivation towards measuring emotions

13. MaijuVuolle, D.Sc.Tech. Henna Salonius
Novi research center – Turning knowledge into value
@Noviresearch
www.tut.fi/novi
Tampere University ofTechnology, Finland
@MaijuVuolle
maiju.vuolle@tut.fi
@Henna Salonius
henna.salonius@tut.fi
THANKYOU!
How are you FEELING now?
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