The personification of the service labour process and the rise of soft skills: a French case study

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the consequences of the increasing prominence of soft skills, focusing specifically on the production of these skills and their recognition and recruitment.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on interviews conducted with managers in the service sector in France. Two types of services are covered: large‐scale retailing and hotel and catering services.FindingsThe paper shows that the demand for soft skills has caused the service labour process to become highly personified and underline the risks this entails.Practical implicationsThe personification of the service labour process encourages the development of specific human resource management practices in the spheres of recruitment, pay and training.Social implicationsThe results underline the need for institutional mediation in the regulation of the labour market. The personification of skills has many social implications in terms of discrimination and policies on training and skill recognition.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper lies, first, in the fact that the results relate to France, whereas most of the literature on soft skills has focused on the UK, the US and other English‐speaking countries. Furthermore, the article emphasises that managers’ practices are shaped by their attitudes towards soft skills, and in particular whether they believe them to be acquired or innate.

How resilient is the (future) workforce inChina? A study of the banking sector and implications for human resource development

“…Since the 1990s, the notion of ‘soft skills’ has become an important dimension in HRM in part due to the increasingly interpersonal nature of the workplace, the growth of the service industry, and the intensifying globalised competition in which good customer services have become essential (e.g. Bailly and Léné ; Cooke ; Robles ; Sturdy, Knights and Willmott ; Weber, Crawford and Dennison ). As Robles (, 459) argues, an employee requires two types of skills to perform their work: technical skills ‘to perform technical duties’ and soft skills ‘to approach work with a positive attitude’.…”

“…In a similar vein, what constitute ‘soft skills’ appears to be somewhat fluid, although the emphasis on interpersonal qualities and the ability to exercise them in the work context is a common aspect (e.g. Bailly and Léné ; Muir ; Robles ). The Collins English dictionary defines soft skills as ‘desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude’ (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/soft+skills).…”

“…However, despite the growing needs for soft skills for productive performance at workplaces (e.g. Bailly and Léné ; Grugulis and Vincent ), the development of soft skills has yet to feature more prominently in business education curriculum (e.g. Nealy ) and in organisational training programs (Muir ) as part of strategic human resource management (HRM).…”

Vol 9 No 2 (2019)

“…Women are more likely to feel uncertainty, negative emotions and inadequacy due to being young and inexperienced (Cottingham & Dill, 2019). This may be particularly the case for young women today as notions of identity, professionalism, and skills expand to cover personal attributes, behaviours, and attitudes (Bailly & Léné, 2013;Choroszewicz, in press;Grugulis & Vincent, 2009). Emotional labour-and manifesting the appropriate feeling states on the job-is more pronounced and explicit today (cf.…”

Feeling the Right Personality. Recruitment Consultants’Affective Decision Making in Interviews With Employee Candidates

“…The primacy of person-to-person skills in the labor market (e.g., Bailly & Léné, 2013;Nickson et al, 2003) easily leads one to believe in the inevitable triumph of extraversion. However, as our interviewees explained, one can be too social: a 'piece in a wrong place', 'like a fish on dry land', or a 'nightmare', and even 'get fumigated' out of the team.…”