Scott Hurrell

Soft skills and employability: Evidence from UK retail:

This article contributes to ongoing debates about soft skills in front-line interactive service work in considering employability in the UK retail sector. It recognizes how UK government policy has emphasized the importance of qualifications in enhancing employability. However, it suggests that for front-line work in retail it is soft skills that are required to access entry-level jobs. The article notes how these soft skills have traditionally been dominated by debates about emotional labour. Drawing on a survey of 173 clothing, footwear and leather goods retailers, the article argues for a need to recognize the broadening of soft skills to also include aesthetic labour. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the broadening of soft skills with regard to policy initiatives to encourage the long-term unemployed into the retail sector.

More than a ‘humpty dumpty’ term: Strengthening the conceptualization of soft skills:

There is an ongoing sociological debate regarding which work activities can be considered ‘skilled’. In recent years, this debate has become increasingly controversial due to the growing prominence of so-called ‘soft skills’, especially when used in interactive service work. This article seeks to strengthen the conceptualization of soft skills, through case study investigation, to determine whether or not they are worthy of the ‘skilled’ label. An expanded notion of skill is supported, recognizing that in service contexts displaying employer-facilitated worker discretion and requirements for contextual knowledge in the use of soft skills, the term can indeed have real meaning.

'The people make the brand': reducing social skills gaps through person-brand fit and human resource management practices

Fit between an organizations brand and its employees, sometimes referred to as employee brand identification, has been highlighted as an important element in delivering service quality. This article examines the people management practices directed both at potential and current employees which enhance this “person-brand fit” and proposes that effective management of this can help reduce the persistent problem of social skills gaps in service organizations. A study of managers and customer-facing employees in two hotel case studies—one reporting significant social skills gaps and the other reporting few gaps—showed that the hotel reporting fewer gaps had achieved greater employee identification with the brand. This hotel conducted recruitment and selection around person-brand fit, while the other hotel did not. The hotel reporting fewer social skills gaps also allowed greater employee agency in brand socialization, training, and in the enactment of the brand on the job. The article discusses the relevance of these findings for theory on how human resource management practices may be linked to service brands in order to reduce social skills gaps.

Giving Miss Marple a Makeover: Graduate Recruitment, Systems Failure, and the Scottish Voluntary Sector

The voluntary sector in Scotland, as in many other countries, is becoming increasingly business like. Resultantly, there is an increasing demand for graduates to work in business and support functions. In Scotland, however, despite an oversupply of graduates in the labor market, the voluntary sector reports skills shortages for graduate-level positions. Through exploratory, mainly qualitative research, this article demonstrates that one reason for this mismatch between the supply of and demand for graduates is a systems failure within the sector. Many graduates and university students remain unaware of potentially suitable paid job opportunities, in part because of the sector’s voluntary label. To rectify this systems failure, thought needs to be given to the sector’s nomenclature and the manner in which voluntary sector organizations attract graduate recruits, for example, through levering value congruence in potential recruits.

Rethinking the soft skills deficit blame game: Employers, skills withdrawal and the reporting of soft skills gaps

Soft (e.g. interpersonal and social) skills are receiving ever more attention with employers frequently reporting that employees lack these skills. The ‘blame game’ for these skills deficits is frequently directed at the individual, family or government. Scant attention has been paid to the possibility that people may possess soft skills but decide to withdraw them because of disaffection with their employer. Taking a critical perspective and drawing on three case study establishments, this article finds that some managers blamed soft skills gaps on skills withdrawal. The employee data did not, however, reveal greater employee disaffection in the establishment worst affected by soft skills gaps. Investigation of withdrawal instead revealed more about employees who had left the organizations and the propensity for employers to blame employees for soft skills gaps. The study also affirmed that organizations may be to blame for their soft skills gaps if they do not contextually integrate selection, induction and training practices with their skills needs.

Dilute to taste? The impact of the working time regulations in the hospitality industry

Purpose – To investigate the impact of the working time regulations (WTR) in the hospitality industry and dynamics of the employment relationship within the case study firms.Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative case study approach was used, interviewing 18 respondents over two case study organisations. Line managers, personnel specialists, employees and trade union representatives were interviewed in each case.Findings – Both case studies were largely unaffected by the WTR. This was due to both the high amount of numerical and temporal flexibility afforded by large part‐time workforces and to harmonious employment relations. The design of the Regulations also brings the Government’s commitment to the WTR into doubt. On rare occasions where there was a departure from the basic regulations these were generally accounted for by the many derogations contained within the legislation and were with the full consent of employees.Research limitations/implications – It is hard to generalise from this researc...

Recruitment and selection practices, person-brand fit and soft skills gaps in service organizations: the benefits of institutionalized informality

Explains recruitment and selection practices, person-brand fit and skills gaps in service organisations.

New Initiative, Old Problem: Classroom Assistants and the Under‐Valuation of Women's Work

Centred on classroom assistants in Scotland, this article examines the process by which an occupation dominated by female workers becomes under-valued. The qualitative data reveals the cognitive errors made by the key actors—government, employers and unions in this process.

Skill requirements in retail work: the case of high-end fashion retailing

This article considers skill requirements in retail work, drawing on the example of high-end fashion retailing. It considers debates about the required ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ elements of skill for such work. Drawing on Cockburn’s typology – skill residing in the worker; in what is required to perform a job; and as a socially constructed political concept – it seeks to offer a more nuanced discussion of the nature of skills in retail work beyond the usual characterization of such work as being inherently low skilled. Data are reported from 37 interviews with managers, supervisors and employees in a range of high-end fashion retailing outlets. The article recognizes how this work was seen as skilled by the interviewees, particularly with regard to the desired product knowledge and selling ability required for such work. Lastly, it seeks to refine Cockburn’s typology in understanding skill requirements in retail work.

Book Review: D. Muzio, S. Ackroyd, and J.F. Chanlat (eds) Redirections in the Study of Expert Labour Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007, £55.00 hbk (ISBN: 9781403998705), 272 pp

by which space and power are continually intertwined produce not only space itself, but contribute to the process of subjectification for those who encounter and inhabit them, particularly in the age of ‘corporate culture’ and the ‘new model worker’. In the second half of the book we are led into the realm of what the authors describe as spatial organization. Here, the range of ideas at play extend themselves beyond the factory and the office and onto the battlefield and into the home. Not that the realm of economy, and indeed capitalism, is left behind. Rather, what is revealed is the intimate nature of the relationship between apparently distinct spheres such as the spatial organization of war, the interior design of the perfect domestic kitchen, and the economic and political relations of capitalism, be it through the production practices and landscaping of the military arsenal, to the infusion of industrial spatial standards (particularly those associated with efficiency experts such as the Gilbreths) into the design of the modern fitted kitchen. While it is certainly an exciting journey, it does have certain flaws. For instance, what reveals itself as a predominantly structural analysis of the material exposes the lack of any meaningful engagement with the lived experiences of those who occupy the spaces and buildings under discussion; something notably at odds with the spirit of Lefebvre’s recognition of the importance of the lived and indeed imagined qualities of spatial production. Equally, its historical eclecticism, in many respects a strength of the book, can leave one’s head spinning on occasions as one attempts to regain a sense of location, not only spatially, but also temporally. Nonetheless, this is an important and timely contribution to the literature on work, organization and space. It provides a valuable starting point for those coming to the area for the first time, while enriching ongoing debates by ensuring an historical, and indeed critical set of voices are heard.