‘It’s all hands-on, even for management’: Managerial work in the UK cafe sector

Abstract

The growth in managerial jobs is often presented by policy makers as evidence of the UK’s success in developing high-skilled, well-paid employment. At the same time, concerns have been raised that the lack of higher level qualifications in the managerial workforce has a detrimental impact on productivity and performance. This article focuses on the relatively neglected figure of the first line manager in private services through a study of the UK cafe sector. It explores the content and quality of the cafe manager’s job, and interrogates the purported benefits of upskilling through graduate level qualifications. The findings indicate that these jobs leave much to be desired in terms of pay and work content, and that managers are highly constrained by the degree of centralized control wielded by head office. Limited autonomy and, in many cases, poor job quality raise crucial questions about the ability of lower level managers to influence performance, even allowing for higher level qualifications.

Inequality – ‘wicked problems’, labour market outcomes and the search for silver bullets

“…What little we know about progression in low pay sectors and occupations suggests that a significant proportion of workers may become trapped (Cheung & McKay, 2010;Devins, Bickerstaffe, Mitchell, B., Halliday, 2014;Lloyd & Mayhew, 2010;Lloyd & Payne, 2012;Roberts, 2012;Sissons, 2011), and where the chance to move up and/or out is available, training and the acquisition of qualifications appear to play a relatively small role in deciding who progresses. Moreover, progression often occurs in relatively small steps, bringing with it quite limited advancement in levels of pay and conditions (Lloyd & Payne, 2014). Add to all of this the fact that, as the economy recovers, youth unemployment remains disturbingly high, whilst controversy remains about the impact of immigration on pay and employment opportunities at the low end of the labour market, then it is hard to be optimistic about this section of the workforce.…”

Front-line service managers’ misbehaviour and disengagement: the elephant in the store?

“…. Some authors have usefully located the powerlessness of front-line managers as a central theme in their analysis in relation to top-down centralized control systems and competing demands within the service triangle (Bolton and Houlihan, 2010;Lloyd and Payne, 2014;Lopez, 2010).…”

“…Yet, the complexity of the front-line management position within the social relations of interactive service work and their 'logic of action' within their labour process remains a relatively marginal theme in research. Indeed FLSMs' position within the triangle, where managerial work is subject to degradation and trilateral conflicting dynamics (Lloyd and Payne, 2014) and their battles within their own labour process (Bolton and Houlihan, 2010), still remain under-explored. To contribute to these two theoretical and empirical lacunas this study has two research objectives: (1) To examine the organization of front-line managerial service work and (2) To understand how FLSMs express agency over their intensified role in service organizations.…”

“…They have to maintain cooperation with their subordinates, and at the same time meet the top management requirements. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 The picture however becomes even more complex in the context of services, such as food retailing front-line service, where managers mediate between the head office/senior management, the employees, and the customers (Bolton and Houlihan, 2010;Lloyd and Payne, 2014). The involvement of the customer in the labour process (Lopez, 2010), the sovereign customer (Korczynski 2013;Korczynski and Evans, 2013) and the triangular conflicting dynamics are sources of pressure for both employees and managers (Lloyd and Payne, 2014).…”

“…Surprisingly academic debate on resistance and recalcitrance has tended to neglect FLSMs' responses to these pressures and the organizational control, especially in the contemporary service economy, where managerial work is subject to degradation and trilateral conflicting dynamics (Bolton and Houlihan, 2010;Lopez 2010;Lloyd and Payne, 2014).…”