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Economic and Industrial Democracy
34(1) 161 –182
© The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0143831X12444934
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More than a ‘humpty dumpty’ 
term: Strengthening the 
conceptualization of soft skills
Scott A Hurrell
University of Stirling, UK
Dora Scholarios
University of Strathclyde, UK
Paul Thompson
University of Strathclyde, UK
Abstract
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.
Keywords
Contextual knowledge, meaning of skill, service work, soft skills, worker discretion
Introduction
The nature of skills – their formation and utilization – has been one of the core issues for 
the sociology of work and indeed for sociology more widely given the implications for 
public policy on education and social inequality. Many economies now rely on service-
based occupational structures and expansion in low-level service jobs (Appelbaum et al., 
Corresponding author:
Scott A Hurrell, Institute for Socio-Management, Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, Stirling, 
Scotland, FK9 4LA, UK. 
Email: s.a.hurrell@stir.ac.uk
444934 EID34110.1177/0143831X12444934Hurrell et al.Economic and Industrial Democracy
2012
Article
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162 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
2003; Gatta et al., 2009). Given the nature of such occupations popular conceptions of 
‘skill’ have moved away from the traditional concern with trades, and their associated 
technical knowledge, job control and extended training (see, for example, Braverman, 
1974). There has instead been considerable focus on what are commonly termed ‘soft 
skills’, which are seen as essential across service organizations, especially in customer-
jobs (Grugulis, 2006; Nickson et al., 2005). Soft skills involve dealing with others and 
managing oneself and one’s emotions in a manner consistent with particular workplaces 
and organizations. Within this article we define soft skills as: non-technical and not reli-
ant on abstract reasoning, involving interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities to facilitate 
mastered performance in particular contexts.
This shift in focus has only reconfigured and extended conceptual and empirical 
divides on what skill and skilled work is and is not. In recent years, the most complex and 
contentious issue is that of the character and content of soft skills, to the extent of ques-
tioning whether such skills are worthy of the ‘skilled’ label, or are just a meaningless 
‘humpty dumpty’ term. This term is used because of the tendency of Lewis Carroll’s 
(1998 [1872]) Humpty Dumpty to nonsensically use words exactly as he pleased, regard-
less of their actual meaning.
The aim of this article is to strengthen the conceptual understanding of soft skills 
through an examination of how these skills are used in different contexts, concentrating 
on customer-facing hotel workers. Even among sociologists who differ in their interpre-
tation of whether or not soft skills should be considered skills, there is agreement that 
skill cannot be discussed without reference to the work in which these skills are used 
(see, for example, Bolton, 2004; Gatta et al., 2009; Grugulis and Vincent, 2009; Hampson 
and Junor, 2005, 2010; Lloyd and Payne, 2009). However, such accounts do not satisfac-
torily resolve the conceptual confusion around soft skills, as they do not systematically 
examine how dimensions of skill are played out in differing organizational contexts. 
Instead, the tendency is to imply that work reliant on soft skills is either ubiquitously 
skilled (see, for example, Bolton, 2004) or unskilled (Lloyd and Payne, 2009).
This article seeks to add nuance and depth to the soft skills debate and in doing so 
extend our understanding of when it may and may not be appropriate to describe work 
reliant on soft skills as skilled work. It begins with a brief account of the debates surround-
ing the conceptual and policy paradoxes concerning soft skills in particular, and skill more 
generally, before discussing the analytical framework used within this article. It then pre-
sents empirical data on soft skill formation and utilization from within the interactive 
service sector, specifically from two hotel establishments. These distinct contexts are used 
to illustrate the relevance and interplay of worker-, job- and contextually-based notions of 
soft skill, and suggest the need for an expanded understanding of skilled work.
Skill paradoxes and the risk of the ‘humpty dumpty’ 
effect
Contrasting perceptions of the changing content and boundaries of skill exist even among 
like-minded communities such as labour process researchers, and this can be illustrated 
in a volume from Warhurst et al. (2004). Its title – The Skills That Matter – was in fact 
hotly contested. The introduction set out some of the key issues and tried to take a 
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Hurrell et al. 163
balanced view. Traditional ‘technical’ definitions of skill may be being superseded as 
new categories of what are variously called generic, core or basic skills emerge, which 
include recognition of soft or social skills (Grugulis et al., 2004). The authors note, how-
ever, that, ‘many of these “new” skills are similar and most are problematic’ (2004: 6) in 
terms of whether or not they fit established conceptions of ‘skill’.
In the same volume Bolton (2004) takes a positive view of soft skills and employs two 
types of argument in favour of describing ‘emotion workers’ as skilled workers. Bolton 
defines emotion workers as those who regulate their own and others’ feelings as a core 
job competence through ‘excitement, calm, deference, congeniality and even persuasion’ 
(Bolton, 2004: 19). Such workers are thus germane, given the emphasis on interpersonal 
and intrapersonal abilities in our earlier definition of soft skills. First, Bolton utilizes 
Littler’s (1982: 18) conception of skill to make a conventional claim that emotion work 
contains ‘recognisable elements of discretionary content, task variety and employee con-
trol’ (Bolton, 2004: 32). Second, she argues that even when employers design jobs to 
constrain skills and script performance, emotion workers have to develop reflexive self-
awareness of their social skills and make choices about how and where to deploy them. 
This argument builds on Bolton’s (2000) ‘four Ps’ of organizational emotion manage-
ment: ‘pecuniary’ (emotion work performed for commercial gain to the employer, more 
correctly termed emotional labour); ‘prescriptive’ (performed so as to be consistent with 
organizational or professional rules of conduct); ‘presentational’ (performed in accord-
ance with general social rules); and ‘philanthropic’ (given as a ‘gift’ to the recipient). 
Thus, for example, even where employers try to remove skill through prescriptive emo-
tion management to meet pecuniary ends (as in many interactive service workplaces) a 
worker may still use their wider knowledge of presentational emotion management to 
depart from organizational prescriptions and skilfully adapt to situations as they occur. 
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Author biographies
Scott A Hurrell is Lecturer in Work and Employment Studies in the Institute for Socio-
Management, University of Stirling. His research interests include skills and work 
organization, recruitment and selection and labour market issues. He has published in 
academic journals including the Human Resource Management Journal and Non-Profit 
and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.
Dora Scholarios is Professor of Work Psychology in the Department of Human Resource 
Management at the University of Strathclyde. She has researched and published in the 
areas of employee well-being and recruitment, assessment and selection, and been 
involved in several studies of call centres, software professionals and service work.
Paul Thompson is Professor of Organizational Analysis in the Department of Human 
Resource Management at the University of Strathclyde. A leading contributor to labour 
process theory, he is co-editor (with Chris Smith) of Working Life: Renewing Labour 
Process Analysis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
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http://eid.sagepub.com/that contradict organizational rules.
Bolton’s concept of ‘multi-skilled’ emotion workers is applied by Jenkins et al. (2010: 
561) to a high commitment, mass customized call centre setting in which management 
capitalized on the knowledgeability and the ‘skilfully deployed different emotional per-
formances’ of workers. Supportive claims can also be found in Hampson et al. (2009: 52), 
who argue that ‘thinned-out’, behavioural definitions of ‘quality customer service’ from 
management cannot deal with the unpredictability and variability of customer interac-
tions. Hampson and Junor’s (2005, 2010) related discussion of interactive service work as 
articulation work puts more emphasis on overall and interconnected processes of learning 
over time. They argue that much of the skill in articulation work lies in workers maintain-
ing the ‘fragile social order’ between management, customers and themselves, while 
sometimes also simultaneously negotiating technology. Much of this work is said to be 
invisible and, importantly, non-routine. Taking all these points together, the conclusion of 
such arguments appears to be that even the most routine of jobs involving emotion work, 
or other soft skills, have some elements of uncertainty, complexity, variety and discretion 
that require more than spontaneous, natural qualities (Bolton, 2004: 28).
In The Skills That Matter, Lafer (2004) offers the most sceptical view of the nature 
and employer use of soft skills. Academic and managerial references to the need for 
potential employees to demonstrate appropriate grooming, enthusiasm, positive attitudes 
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164 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
and willingness to turn up on time and follow instructions are less soft skills than behav-
ioural requirements. Such behavioural requirements are neither new, nor distinguishable 
from the standard requirements of the discipline of wage labour and Lafer goes on to 
argue that, ‘such qualities are measures of commitment that one chooses to give or with-
hold based on the conditions of work offered’ (2004: 118).
Elsewhere, Lloyd and Payne (2009) make an explicit attack. They highlight the prac-
tical and analytical dangers of conflating social competencies with ‘real’ skills, and rela-
belling as ‘skills’ what in the past may have been considered personal attributes, 
dispositions or behaviours. Such a shift may also allow employers to undermine the 
expertise of groups of employees, as in the housing benefit caseworkers studied by 
Grugulis and Vincent (2009), where soft skills were promoted as an alternative to exist-
ing ‘technical’ knowledge. Payne also raises the question of whether it is even possible 
to train the ‘genuine empathy and compassion’ that underlies soft skills given that these 
are ‘deeply wired in the brain through a combination of genetic imprinting and primary 
socialisation’ (2006: 20). These concerns highlight the risk of divesting the concept of 
skill of any real meaning, and turning it into a redundant ‘humpty dumpty’ term (Oliver 
and Turton, 1982: 198), as described in the introduction to this article. Furthermore, 
meaningless extensions of the concept of skill allow policy-makers to make hollow 
claims about universal upskilling in a new economy (Lloyd and Payne, 2009). After 
considering the contradictory perceptions of skill among managers and workers in their 
call centre case study, Lloyd and Payne conclude by defending a more traditional con-
cept of skill that retains a ‘a clear link to technical competence and knowledge’ (2009: 
631).
Both the negative and positive views of soft skill have limitations. On the positive 
side, merely identifying emotion work, cognitive or communication processes does not 
necessarily mean that they are taking place in a context of skilled work. While Bolton’s 
use of ‘multi-skilled emotion workers’ is directed towards describing the variety of 
demands and practices that arise from the emotional effort bargain, it is too loose, and 
multi-skilled is not the same as a skilled job – it frequently implies fragmented tasks and 
competencies. In general terms, the logic appears to be that as managing emotions appro-
priately is a skill, then all emotion workers are skilled workers. The fact that employers 
cannot design jobs that completely eliminate uncertainty and variety, or that workers 
choose to fill gaps in service delivery via their soft skills, does not make a job de facto 
skilled. We have to have a means of distinguishing between and among various kinds of 
soft skills and their utilization. As Grugulis et al. (2004) note, many workers have little 
discretion about the form emotional and aesthetic labour should take and product knowl-
edge in many service contexts, such as retail, is minimal.
The central problem with negative views of soft skills is that while the critique of 
ambiguous positions and hollow claims is persuasive, their own conceptual ground is, in 
some respects, shaky. The term ‘technical’ skill is too wedded to the experience of trades 
with defined bodies of knowledge. It is neither descriptively robust nor versatile enough 
to handle contemporary questions of skill and skill formation in a largely service-based 
economy. Employers are seeking qualities in labour power that it did not do, or do exten-
sively or intensively, previously (Thompson and Smith, 2009). Our definitions and 
understandings of skill must reflect that.
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Hurrell et al. 165
Reconciling the conceptual dimensions of skill
Though Grugulis et al. (2004) do not reach any definitive conclusions, their invoking of 
a ‘consensus’ approach to defining skill is useful. Drawing on Cockburn’s (1983) widely 
used dimensions of skill, they distinguish between the skill that resides in the worker; the 
skill that is required in the job; and socially constructed skill through which economic 
actors utilize power resources to define skill content and determine outcomes. Such a 
threefold conceptualization considers that skilled work depends not only on the level of 
a person’s ability, but also the work, organizational and social context in which skills are 
deployed. Despite the potential analytical power of Cockburn’s typology, neither 
Grugulis et al. (2004) nor other studies of interactive service work citing Cockburn (for 
example, Lloyd and Payne, 2009; McBride et al., 2005) systematically analyse soft skills 
using her dimensions of skill. If we apply these dimensions to soft skills and engage with 
a wider range of literature, what, therefore, might we get?
Defined as a quality of individuals, within the individual differences psychology lit-
erature, skill is what is required of workers for performing a specific task and describes 
processes leading to relevant performance in particular situations. Fundamentally, skill 
develops over time, with practice; involves cognitive processes and manipulation of 
knowledge, both ‘knowing-that’ (declarative knowledge) and ‘know-how’ (procedural 
knowledge); and includes an element of discretion that allows performance with econ-
omy of effort (Kanfer and Ackerman, 1989; Proctor and Dutta, 1995). Soft skills encom-
pass a range of interpersonal, self-management and service orientation skills, often 
referred to collectively as social skills (Peterson et al., 2001), which facilitate perfor-
mance across job contexts involving social interactions. Some have conceptualized 
social skills as overlapping with personality traits like empathy (Nezlek et al., 2001), but 
most recent approaches emphasize their learned nature, which allows them to be acquired 
through training and experience, and distinguishes them from stable personality con-
structs (Hogan and Shelton, 1998). As a personal quality, social skill reflects knowledge 
combined withexperientially learned responses to environmental cues, as well as a will-
ingness to exert effort towards displaying a particular response (e.g. Klein et al., 2006; 
Meichenbaum et al., 1981).
Second, soft skill requirements in the job can be found in the labour power strategies 
and practices of employers, manifested primarily in recruitment, selection, training and 
work organization. This includes the structure of the work itself (e.g. the need for social 
skill or the degree of social interdependence required); the wider work context (e.g. 
incentives or support structures for displaying soft skills or providing cues about their 
value); and recruitment, selection and training practices (which condition what is consid-
ered effective performance in social settings and encourage or constrain expression of 
particular personal attributes in work performance). Definitions of soft skill that focus on 
the work itself show that skilled performance depends on an interaction between the 
person and the environment (Hochwarter et al., 2006). In highly prescribed environ-
ments, workers have limited scope in determining how they should apply their social 
skills, behaviour that is also reinforced by the reward structure. Greater worker control, 
however, allows more role flexibility and hence greater motivation to try out and master 
new tasks. Again, this emphasizes that soft skills are not purely fixed personal attributes, 
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166 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
but are context-specific. Work organization and employer actions play a role in allowing 
skill to be displayed or acquired through practice, and subsequently performed with 
economy of effort in order to reach what might be called skilled performance. However, 
where high levels of prescription and codification occur, as in the case of organizational 
feeling rules, for example (Bolton, 2000), less individual ‘skill’ may be required. 
‘Mastery’ is, therefore, not simply an outcome of the predispositions of individual actors, 
and soft skills may be more adaptive and ‘trainable’ than some commentators believe.
Third, soft skills exist through the varied social constructions of economic actors. 
Cockburn’s (1983) original emphasis was on the power to define what is worthy of being 
labelled as skilled work, illustrated through the manner in which patriarchal societies 
value (masculine) manual work more highly than ‘female’ work. Such social construc-
tions caution us with respect to the coded meanings in employers’ use of soft skills, for 
instance, in hiring practices, where attributes such as attitude or interpersonal skill are 
used to justify decisions based more on tractability or obedience (Lafer, 2004). Social 
construction of soft skills can even directly discriminate, as, for example, in Moss and 
Tilly’s (1996) finding that some US employers automatically profiled young black men 
as not possessing soft skills or work readiness. The power inherent in social construction 
also has implications for assessment of economic policy, with Lloyd and Payne (2009: 
631) highlighting how expanding notions of skill have been carelessly used by UK gov-
ernments in a discourse of ‘universal upskilling’, which ignores the skills content of 
many service sector jobs.
In summary, therefore, some workers will be able to demonstrate better soft skills 
than others, partly because of what they bring to the work situation; partly as a result of 
the requirements, constraints and opportunities of that situation; and also as a reflection 
of which particular skills are valued.
How might these distinctions inform an expanded definition of skill? In The Nature of 
Work, Thompson (1989) defined skill as ‘knowledgeable practice within elements of 
control’. In other words, skill referred primarily to knowledge, applied effectively under 
conditions of discretion, in a work context. Such discretion need not imply total auton-
omy, but is instead a sliding scale of the degree of control workers have over how they 
conduct their job. Building on conceptualizations of skill as a combination of cognitive, 
knowledge-based and dispositional attributes, but also context-dependent and experien-
tially developed, we could argue that this applies equally well to soft skills. Returning to 
the call centre example, if management in mass service call centres trained employees to 
have substantive knowledge of products and allowed discretion in word and deed, that 
could then be described as skilled work, a situation reported by Jenkins et al. (2010).
Analytically, this perspective would mean that soft skills in themselves do not consti-
tute skilled work. It is when they are combined with knowledge and discretion that a 
potential is created. A good example is problem-solving, which can be complex or rela-
tively routine depending upon the context and engagement with bodies of knowledge. 
Furthermore, it is not enough to refer only to ‘the skill in the person’, such as when call 
centre or other workers ‘philanthropically’ donate emotion work outwith, or against, 
managerial prescriptions (as demonstrated in Callaghan and Thompson, 2002; see also 
Bolton, 2004). While that may be skilled behaviour, it is not skilled work and could even 
simply reflect Bolton’s (2000) category of socially expected ‘presentational’ emotion 
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Hurrell et al. 167
management. For example, it would seem counter-intuitive to redefine a fast food con-
text as skilled, just because some employees are prepared to depart from a script. This 
distinction removes the fear that, in Lloyd and Payne’s words, soft skills ‘float freely 
across a vast sea of human behaviours’ (2009: 631). Focusing solely on call centres and 
other interactive service work can, however, be misleading. As Lafer (2004) notes, 
‘interactive skills’ also include mentoring, negotiating, instructing, supervising and per-
suading. Though it is beyond the scope of this article, higher-level interpersonal skills 
should be included in analytical frameworks, and are argued to be important qualities for 
effective performance across job contexts (e.g. Marks and Scholarios, 2009; Riggio 
et al., 2003; Witt and Ferris, 2003).
The conceptualization of skill proposed here also has policy implications. Most of the 
perceived skills deficits reported by British employers reflect the oft-heard argument that 
employees across the occupational spectrum are not ‘work-ready’ because they lack lit-
eracy and numeracy, work discipline and personal, problem-solving, communication and 
teamwork skills (Westwood, 2004: 40). The blame game in public policy is directed 
towards the individual or other ‘suppliers’ such as the family and education system, as 
evidenced in Moss and Tilly’s (1996) account of soft skills and young black workers in 
entry-level jobs. If we accept that skills are, in part, in the person, then such factors must 
feature in the explanation. But if soft and other skills are also, and we would argue, pri-
marily, determined in the labour process, then we have to base our explanations in the 
employment relationship as well as employability, in demand as well as supply. We now 
explore these analytical and policy issues around the conceptualization of soft skills in 
two case studies, each representing different work contexts for the utilization of soft skill.
Methods
Cockburn’s (1983) three dimensions of skill identified in the literature – as residing in 
the individual, as residing in the job context and as social construction – were used as an 
analytical framework for exploring the formation and utilization of soft skills in two, 
anonymized, hotel case studies – ‘Fontainebleau’ and ‘Oxygen’. Both hotels were located 
in Glasgow and were part of international chains – Fontainebleau wasa four star hotel 
employing approximately 135 staff and Oxygen a five star hotel employing approxi-
mately 220 staff. Both catered for the business, events and leisure markets although 
Oxygen was positioned more towards the business market and Fontainebleau the leisure 
market. The largest occupational group in the hotels was elementary staff (including, for 
example, bar and waiting staff, housekeepers and junior kitchen positions) categories of 
workers, who are typically low paid (Siebern-Thomas, 2005) and traditionally classified 
as low skilled (Gatta et al., 2009).
These case studies were chosen to represent an industry in which soft skills are 
regarded as important (Grugulis, 2006) and to reflect what is often referred to as a ‘low’ 
skill setting (Gatta et al., 2009; Grugulis, 2006; Payne, 2006) in order to interrogate the 
true level of skill required. The two hotel establishments were selected using the 2004 
Scottish Employers Skills Survey (SESS) database (FSS, 2005). In order to obtain an 
intra-industry comparison of different skills contexts in ostensibly similar work from this 
aggregated sampling frame, the hotels were differentiated depending on whether or not 
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168 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
managers reported soft skills gaps in their staff (i.e. that some members of staff were not 
fully proficient in their work). Fontainebleau reported such gaps at the time of the 2004 
survey and Oxygen did not. The case studies were further filtered to represent multi-site 
establishments employing over 100 employees and drawing from the same labour 
market.
A mixed methods approach using surveys, interviews and focus groups was used. The 
analysis reported here draws predominantly on qualitative data, supplemented by survey 
data where appropriate. The decision to prioritize the qualitative data is commensurate 
with our aim to examine alternative notions of skill, as a property of the individual, as 
contained in employer/work practices and as the social constructions of economic actors. 
The contested nature of soft skills that this proposes requires a qualitative approach to 
understand the perceptions, social processes and contextual influences brought to bear 
on these skills. Indeed the analysis that follows highlights marked differences in actors’ 
perceptions of soft skill in different contexts.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the HR representative in each estab-
lishment alongside line managers responsible for each major employee group (such as, 
for example, food and beverage [F and B], housekeeping, kitchen, front office [recep-
tion] and the hotels’ management teams). These were ‘key’ respondents who were in the 
best position to comment upon the policies and practices of each establishment. To gain 
an understanding of employees’ perceptions of their soft skills and relevant organiza-
tional practices, non-managerial employee interviews and focus groups were conducted. 
These interviews were confined to customer-facing staff including those working in F 
and B, conferences and events and reception, as soft skills are arguably most integral to 
the work of these employees. Six managers and 12 employees (eight as a focus group) 
were interviewed in Oxygen and five managers and seven employees were interviewed 
in Fontainebleau, with staffing issues making it impossible to organize a focus group 
within Fontainebleau. The surveys were distributed to all managers and employees in 
each establishment, with back of house workers also included in the survey sample to try 
and maximize response rates. The realized sample sizes were 29 in Fontainebleau and 50 
in Oxygen, translating to response rates of approximately 23%. Given the low survey 
response rates and the focus on the contested nature of soft skills reported above, the 
surveys are used here for contextual data only.
Areas covered by the interviews included the skills and attributes sought during 
recruitment and selection; the skills, attributes and knowledge that were important for 
employees in their work; the nature of training provision; and work organization. 
Relevant areas within the surveys reported here include the importance of certain skills 
to the respondent’s work and training provision.
Our analytical strategy was to use the three notions of skill discussed above to explore 
soft skill formation and utilization within each case study. The analysis went beyond 
content analysis, however, to allow a deeper understanding of the nature of soft skills 
within the given contexts. As the interviews were semi-structured, certain themes of 
interest were predetermined prior to analysis while emergent themes were latently coded 
(Neuman, 1997) ‘quasi inductively’ as general patterns emerged from the data (McGuire, 
2007: 128). The findings thus reflect the general patterns that were identified.
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Hurrell et al. 169
Results
The findings from each hotel are summarized in Table 1. This illustrates the status of soft 
skills in Fontainebleau and Oxygen according to the three dimensions of skill. The first 
column considers the attributes that managers and employees believed were necessary to 
do the job; for example, what was sought during recruitment or what employees reported 
as important on the job. We acknowledge that this is only a partial account of the skills 
that reside in an individual, but this is consistent with job analytic techniques for identi-
fying worker characteristics, and recognizes also personal characteristics, education and 
experience. The skills, knowledge and attributes identified in the first column are sepa-
rate from the manner in which the work itself allowed skill to be manifested through 
work organization, training and the requirement for knowledge (column 2). This distinc-
tion between skill identified in the individual and that allowed on the job thus acknowl-
edges that contradictions may be apparent between espoused and actual skill requirements. 
The third column considers the social construction of skill in each hotel. Social construc-
tion is ascertained through the value that each employer placed on soft skills, alongside 
the manner in which managers constructed certain attributes as ‘skills’. The final column 
synthesizes the findings of the three elements of skill to suggest categorizations for each 
hotel.
Worker characteristics perceived as necessary to do the job
As is to be expected of these interactive service settings, the individual attributes empha-
sized as important for effective performance were consistent with what we recognize as 
soft skills. Ten of the 11 hotel managers interviewed confirmed that soft skills and per-
sonal characteristics were the focus of recruitment. All managers responsible for front-
line staff identified interpersonal skills as the most important requirement: ‘You can find 
out if they’re bubbly, they’re cheery . . . obviously if they’re outgoing and whatever you 
know they’re going to be able to deal with a guest, compared to someone that’s really shy 
and withdrawn’ (Fontainebleau front office manager).
Fontainebleau managers responsible for customer-facing staff were looking for those 
who could display a polite and professional air and were ‘presentable’, ‘bright’ and 
‘articulate’. In Oxygen the managers whose staff were concentrated in front of house 
functions were more specific about the type of self-presentation that was sought during 
recruitment, stating that they were looking for individuals who were ‘warm’, ‘genuine’, 
‘articulate’, ‘polished’, ‘eloquent’ and ‘stylish’. Self-presentation, consistent with their 
‘style’ brand, was especially important for Oxygen.
Four of the five Fontainebleau managers also identified ‘reliability’ and ‘work ethic’ 
as important qualities,while the fifth (front office manager) expressed a requirement for 
‘maturity and responsibility’. Fontainebleau’s F and B manager looked for people who 
could ‘hold down a job’ and who were not ‘trouble makers’, while the head chef sought 
something bordering on obedience for apprentices; ‘eyes open, ears open, mouth shut’. 
The importance attached to these qualities in Fontainebleau was associated with apparent 
applicant apathy towards the job at the interview. Oxygen managers, however, attributed 
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170 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
T
ab
le
 1
. 
C
on
ce
pt
ua
liz
at
io
n 
m
at
ri
x 
of
 e
le
m
en
ts
 o
f s
ki
ll 
in
 e
ac
h 
ho
te
l.
W
or
ke
r 
ch
ar
ac
te
ri
st
ic
s 
pe
rc
ei
ve
d 
as
 n
ec
es
sa
ry
 
to
 d
o 
th
e 
jo
b
Sk
ill
 a
llo
w
ed
/r
eq
ui
re
d 
on
 
an
d 
by
 t
he
 jo
b
So
ci
al
 c
on
st
ru
ct
io
n/
va
lu
at
io
n 
of
 s
ki
ll
So
ft
 s
ki
ll 
en
vi
ro
nm
en
t
Fo
nt
ai
ne
bl
ea
u
M
an
ag
er
ia
l d
em
an
d 
pr
im
ar
ily
 fo
r 
so
ci
al
 s
ki
lls
 
es
pe
ci
al
ly
 c
us
to
m
er
 s
er
vi
ce
, t
ea
m
w
or
k 
an
d 
co
m
m
un
ic
at
io
n.
 A
dd
iti
on
al
ly
, e
m
pl
oy
ee
s 
re
po
rt
ed
 t
he
 im
po
rt
an
ce
 o
f p
la
nn
in
g 
an
d 
or
ga
ni
zi
ng
 s
ki
lls
.
M
an
ag
er
ia
l d
em
an
d 
fo
r 
w
or
k 
et
hi
c,
 p
os
iti
ve
 
at
tit
ud
es
 a
nd
 s
om
et
hi
ng
 b
or
de
ri
ng
 o
n 
ob
ed
ie
nc
e 
in
 t
he
 k
itc
he
n.
R
eq
ui
re
m
en
t 
fo
r 
‘b
ub
bl
y’
, ‘
br
ig
ht
’ e
m
pl
oy
ee
s.
Li
tt
le
 d
em
an
d 
fo
r 
te
ch
ni
ca
l s
ki
lls
 a
lth
ou
gh
 
in
cr
ea
se
d 
te
ch
ni
ca
l r
eq
ui
re
m
en
ts
 fo
r 
ch
ef
s 
an
d 
m
an
ag
er
s.
Li
tt
le
 r
eq
ui
re
m
en
t 
fo
r 
fo
rm
al
 e
du
ca
tio
n.
K
no
w
le
dg
e 
ge
ne
ra
lly
 li
m
ite
d 
to
 p
re
sc
ri
be
d 
br
an
d 
st
an
da
rd
s 
al
th
ou
gh
 in
cr
ea
se
d 
de
m
an
ds
 fo
r 
ch
ef
s 
an
d 
m
an
ag
er
s.
Be
lie
f t
ha
t 
so
ci
al
 e
xp
er
ie
nc
es
/p
er
so
na
lit
y 
an
d 
to
 a
 le
ss
er
 e
xt
en
t 
w
or
k 
ex
pe
ri
en
ce
 a
id
ed
 t
he
 
de
ve
lo
pm
en
t 
of
 s
of
t 
sk
ill
s.
Pr
es
cr
ib
ed
 a
dh
er
en
ce
 t
o 
ex
ac
tin
g 
br
an
d 
st
an
da
rd
s.
In
du
ct
io
n 
an
d 
tr
ai
ni
ng
 
pr
es
cr
ip
tiv
e 
to
 r
ei
nf
or
ce
 
ab
ov
e.
T
ra
in
in
g 
w
id
es
pr
ea
d 
an
d 
pr
ed
om
in
an
tly
 in
 s
ta
tu
to
ry
 
is
su
es
 a
nd
 s
of
t 
sk
ill
s.
Ev
id
en
ce
 o
f p
oo
r 
se
le
ct
iv
en
es
s 
an
d 
as
se
ss
m
en
t 
of
 a
pp
lic
an
ts
’ 
sk
ill
s.
 S
om
et
im
es
 h
ir
ed
 o
n 
w
ill
in
gn
es
s 
to
 d
o 
jo
b 
al
on
e.
So
ci
al
 s
ki
lls
 
os
te
ns
ib
ly
 v
al
ue
d 
hi
gh
ly
 t
hr
ou
gh
ou
t 
or
ga
ni
za
tio
n.
M
an
ag
er
s 
pr
es
en
te
d 
de
m
an
d 
fo
r 
pe
rs
on
al
ity
 
as
 m
an
ife
st
at
io
n 
of
 
co
nt
ex
tu
al
 ‘s
ki
ll’
.
Po
si
tiv
e 
at
tit
ud
es
, w
or
k 
et
hi
c 
an
d 
co
m
pl
ia
nc
e 
so
m
et
im
es
 c
on
fla
te
d 
w
ith
 ‘s
ki
ll’
.
‘D
ir
ec
te
d 
en
vi
ro
nm
en
t’ 
– 
lo
w
 
di
sc
re
tio
n.
 L
ow
 s
ki
ll.
So
ft
 s
ki
lls
 d
em
an
de
d 
in
 in
di
vi
du
al
s 
as
 o
f 
hi
gh
es
t 
im
po
rt
an
ce
 
bu
t 
no
t 
tr
ul
y 
ut
ili
ze
d 
th
ro
ug
h 
w
or
k 
or
ga
ni
za
tio
n 
or
 e
vi
de
nt
 in
 
se
le
ct
io
n 
pr
ac
tic
es
. 
Lo
w
 r
eq
ui
re
m
en
t 
fo
r 
co
nt
ex
tu
al
 
kn
ow
le
dg
e.
 at The University of Iowa Libraries on April 19, 2015eid.sagepub.comDownloaded from 
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Hurrell et al. 171
W
or
ke
r 
ch
ar
ac
te
ri
st
ic
s 
pe
rc
ei
ve
d 
as
 n
ec
es
sa
ry
 
to
 d
o 
th
e 
jo
b
Sk
ill
 a
llo
w
ed
/r
eq
ui
re
d 
on
 
an
d 
by
 t
he
 jo
b
So
ci
al
 c
on
st
ru
ct
io
n/
va
lu
at
io
n 
of
 s
ki
ll
So
ft
 s
ki
ll 
en
vi
ro
nm
en
t
O
xy
ge
n
M
an
ag
er
ia
l d
em
an
d 
pr
im
ar
ily
 fo
r 
cu
st
om
er
 
ha
nd
lin
g,
 t
ea
m
 w
or
ki
ng
, o
ra
l c
om
m
un
ic
at
io
n 
an
d 
pl
an
ni
ng
 a
nd
 o
rg
an
iz
in
g 
sk
ill
s.
 S
up
po
rt
ed
 b
y 
em
pl
oy
ee
 d
at
a.
R
eq
ui
re
m
en
t 
fo
r 
ou
tg
oi
ng
 p
er
so
na
lit
ie
s,
 
‘g
en
ui
ne
ne
ss
’, 
‘w
ar
m
th
’, 
‘s
ty
le
’, 
‘c
on
fid
en
ce
’, 
sp
on
ta
ne
ity
 a
nd
 e
ru
di
tio
n.
D
em
an
d 
fo
r 
w
el
l-e
du
ca
te
d 
em
pl
oy
ee
s 
an
d 
th
os
e 
w
ith
 o
ut
si
de
 in
te
re
st
s 
(e
.g
. t
ra
ve
lli
ng
).
Li
tt
le
 d
em
an
d 
fo
r 
te
ch
ni
ca
l s
ki
lls
 a
lth
ou
gh
 
in
cr
ea
se
d 
te
ch
ni
ca
l r
eq
ui
re
m
en
ts
 fo
r 
ch
ef
s 
an
d 
m
an
ag
er
s.
R
eq
ui
re
m
en
t 
fo
r 
kn
ow
le
dg
e 
of
 b
ra
nd
 
ph
ilo
so
ph
y/
ae
st
he
tic
 a
nd
 h
ow
 t
o 
in
te
ra
ct
 w
ith
 a
 
ra
ng
e 
of
 c
us
to
m
er
s.
 S
om
e 
in
cr
ea
se
d 
kn
ow
le
dg
e 
re
qu
ir
em
en
ts
 fo
r 
m
an
ag
er
s/
ch
ef
s/
te
ch
ni
ca
l 
po
si
tio
ns
.
Be
lie
f t
ha
t 
so
ci
al
 e
xp
er
ie
nc
es
/p
er
so
na
lit
y/
so
ci
al
 b
ac
kg
ro
un
d 
an
d 
ed
uc
at
io
n 
ai
de
d 
th
e 
de
ve
lo
pm
en
t 
of
 s
of
t 
sk
ill
s.
 M
an
ag
er
s 
di
d 
no
t 
se
ek
 w
or
k 
ex
pe
ri
en
ce
.
Br
an
d 
ph
ilo
so
ph
y 
an
d 
br
oa
d 
gu
id
el
in
es
 
em
ph
as
iz
ed
. E
m
pl
oy
ee
s 
gi
ve
n 
a 
ro
le
 in
 in
te
rp
re
tin
g 
an
d 
en
ac
tin
g 
th
es
e 
(r
eq
ui
re
m
en
t 
fo
r 
co
nt
ex
tu
al
 k
no
w
le
dg
e)
.
In
du
ct
io
n 
an
d 
tr
ai
ni
ng
 
to
ok
 a
 b
ro
ad
er
 
‘s
oc
ia
liz
ed
’ a
pp
ro
ac
h 
al
lo
w
in
g 
em
pl
oy
ee
s 
a 
ro
le
 in
 e
xp
er
ie
nc
in
g 
an
d 
in
te
rp
re
tin
g 
br
an
d 
ph
ilo
so
ph
y.
 E
m
pl
oy
ee
s 
ap
pr
ec
ia
te
d 
di
sc
re
tio
n.
T
ra
in
in
g 
w
id
es
pr
ea
d 
an
d 
m
os
t 
w
id
el
y 
re
po
rt
ed
 in
 
st
at
ut
or
y 
is
su
es
, s
of
t 
sk
ill
s 
an
d 
pr
od
uc
t 
kn
ow
le
dg
e.
H
ig
h 
se
le
ct
iv
en
es
s 
an
d 
as
se
ss
m
en
t 
of
 ‘f
it’
 o
f 
in
di
vi
du
al
 a
nd
 t
he
ir
 s
ki
lls
 
w
ith
 t
he
 o
rg
an
iz
at
io
n 
an
d 
br
an
d.
So
ci
al
 a
nd
 s
el
f-
pr
es
en
ta
tio
na
l 
sk
ill
s,
 v
al
ue
d 
hi
gh
ly
 t
hr
ou
gh
ou
t 
or
ga
ni
za
tio
n 
at
 a
ll 
le
ve
ls
 
of
 h
ie
ra
rc
hy
.
D
em
an
d 
fo
r 
pe
rs
on
al
ity
/a
tt
ri
bu
te
s 
m
an
ife
st
ed
 a
s 
co
nt
ex
tu
al
 ‘s
ki
ll’
.
So
m
e 
ev
id
en
ce
 o
f a
 
de
m
an
d 
fo
r 
w
or
k 
et
hi
c 
bu
t 
m
an
ag
em
en
t 
aw
ar
e 
of
 p
oo
r 
jo
b 
fe
at
ur
es
 
th
at
 c
ou
ld
 a
ffe
ct
 
m
ot
iv
at
io
n.
D
em
an
d 
fo
r 
‘m
id
dl
e-
cl
as
sn
es
s’
 a
nd
 ‘p
ol
is
h’
. 
A
pp
lic
an
ts
 p
re
fe
rr
ed
 
fr
om
 t
er
tia
ry
 
ed
uc
at
io
na
l i
ns
tit
ut
io
ns
.
‘E
m
po
w
er
ed
’ 
en
vi
ro
nm
en
t 
– 
hi
gh
 
di
sc
re
tio
n.
 H
ig
h 
sk
ill
.
So
ft
 s
ki
lls
 d
em
an
de
d 
in
 in
di
vi
du
al
s 
as
 o
f 
hi
gh
es
t 
im
po
rt
an
ce
 
an
d 
ut
ili
ze
d 
th
ro
ug
h 
w
or
k 
or
ga
ni
za
tio
n 
an
d 
se
le
ct
io
n 
pr
oc
es
se
s.
 H
ig
h 
re
qu
ir
em
en
t 
fo
r 
co
nt
ex
tu
al
 
kn
ow
le
dg
e.
T
ab
le
 1
. (
C
on
tin
ue
d)
 at The University of Iowa Libraries on April 19, 2015eid.sagepub.comDownloaded from 
http://eid.sagepub.com/
172 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
any insouciance to applicants’ belief that jobs in the hotel industry were easy to obtain, 
rather than apathy.
Technical and ‘hard’ skills or specific work experiences were less important in each 
hotel because of the customer-focused nature of the work, and reserved primarily for 
managerial positions (e.g. strategic planning), senior chef positions (e.g. the ability to 
cost a menu) or skilled trades people, such as electricians. There was no specificrequire-
ment for work experience for front-line staff. In Fontainebleau, the F and B manager 
believed that work experience in hospitality produced more cynical employees, and only 
two of five Fontainebleau managers believed that work experience was beneficial in the 
development of soft skills. None of the Oxygen managers believed work experience to 
be especially beneficial. General life experiences (for example travelling and tertiary 
education) were seen as valuable, with Oxygen managers in particular believing that the 
social experiences gained from being a student were especially beneficial in the develop-
ment of soft skills.
The data from managers on the qualities they sought during recruitment and selection 
were supported by the survey and interview responses of employees. Table 2 shows the 
three most important skills which employees surveyed in each hotel reported that they 
used in their daily work. Team working and customer handling were among the most 
important skills in both hotels, as was oral communication in Oxygen. Soft skills thus 
dominated the most important skills used by employees in both establishments.
The employee interviews supported the view that soft skills were the most important 
skills in the hotels, especially dealing with customers, while the requirement for techni-
cal skills and knowledge were limited. For example, in Fontainebleau waiting staff 
received no training in wines while receptionists in both hotels reported that the technical 
aspect of using the room booking systems was limited as, ‘it’s basically two buttons you 
need to press’ (Fontainebleau receptionist).
Skill allowed/required on and by the job
Identifying desirable worker attributes, in itself, does not indicate the level of skill truly 
required or allowed by the work. The first issue is whether despite their stated demand 
for skills, management actually used selective hiring to identify these qualities. This was 
not necessarily evident in Fontainebleau, where the HR representative described some 
managers as making hiring decisions based on the person’s willingness to do the job 
rather than their appropriate skills. Three of the seven employees interviewed reported 
that their interviews had been cursory, informal and unstructured, and some had been 
Table 2. Three ‘most important’ skills used on a daily basis; all survey respondents.
Skill (1) % Skill (2) % Skill (3) %
Fontainebleau 
(n = 29)
Planning and 
organizing
57 Team 
working
57 Customer 
handling
53
Oxygen (n = 50) Team 
working
61 Customer 
handling
60 Oral 
communication
38
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Hurrell et al. 173
told that they had the job before the interview. One restaurant employee revealed, ‘He 
[the restaurant manager] was quite willing to take me on as long as I was happy with 
what he was offering [in terms of hours and pay]’; while his co-worker believed that at 
interview managers, ‘were seriously just looking for a pair of hands!’
For these reasons, Fontainebleau’s HR representative had recently restructured the 
selection process to include two interviews, one with the line manager and one with her-
self. All managers had also been offered training in competency-based interviewing.
In Oxygen, managers reiterated the importance of always being selective, ‘cherry 
picking’ the best applicants for all positions (deputy general manager) and never revert-
ing to ‘desperation stakes’ in hiring applicants who did not have the correct skills (F and 
B manager). Employee data confirmed that interviews had been in-depth and rigorous.
A second, and perhaps more important issue was the organization of work, specifi-
cally with respect to soft skills. Here, the two hotels diverged. This is best illustrated 
through examination of the service encounter. Fontainebleau’s service encounter was 
dictated by prescribed brand standards which stipulated the exact steps and stages 
required. This was evident, for example, in front office where each ‘check in’ encounter 
involved a checklist of behaviours displayed prominently behind the desk. Although 
employees felt that they were not simply enacting a script and could take time to ‘chat’ 
with customers if circumstances allowed, there remained specific behaviours that had to 
be used for each service encounter. The receptionist remarked jokingly that she some-
times felt a bit like a ‘robot’. The waitress and all four conference and banqueting 
employees also reported that taking a customer’s order and serving at functions was sup-
posed to be done in a strictly regimented sequence in line with the brand standards. This 
prescription was not only confined to the customer-facing staff. The head chef reported 
that all dishes were made according to strict protocols with little creative licence allowed.
Fontainebleau’s appearance policy and dress code provide further evidence of the 
prescribed nature of the work. Staff uniforms were standardized and purchased from an 
industry clothing supplier. Strict guidelines also existed regarding hair length and style, 
an absence of facial hair and visible tattoos and the fact that only one pair of earrings and 
a wedding ring could be worn as jewellery. Employees were not permitted to personalize 
their uniforms in any way. Overall, therefore, Fontainebleau can be described as a 
‘directed’ environment.
In Oxygen, employees had considerably more freedom over their use of soft skills. 
Rather than prescribed brand standards Oxygen had a clear service philosophy; ‘nae 
bother’. When discussing this philosophy all employees and managers stated that Oxygen 
was a very ‘informal’, ‘young’, ‘fresh’ and ‘stylish’ hotel. Oxygen maintained the ‘nae 
bother’ approach to customer service through genuine friendliness on the part of the 
employees rather than over-prescription of brand standards. Employees were also 
encouraged to be polite yet informal with the guests. It was believed that employees 
should maintain freedom over the service encounter as, ‘You can’t have genuine people 
if you tell them what to say’ (Oxygen HR representative). Oxygen’s employees sup-
ported this high level of discretion:
Our management won’t come over and say that you shouldn’t have given them, like you were 
wrong to say that . . . they stick by you . . . if you were to make a decision and management was 
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174 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
to come up and say that you shouldn’t have said that, you were wrong to say that, then it makes 
you feel really rubbish basically, and it makes you look stupid I think. So it’s really good the 
fact that you’ve got the ability to do that here [act with discretion]. (Oxygen restaurant 
employee)
In keeping with the empowered ‘nae bother’ philosophy Oxygen employees were 
allowed discretion in interpreting broad appearance guidelines in a manner consistent 
with the brand of the hotel. Although employees had a uniform (by a London designer) 
they were allowed bodily and uniform adornments, ‘crazy’ hairstyles (Focus group 
respondent 6) and facial hair as long as it was viewed as ‘stylish’, did not contravene 
health and safety legislation and fit with the style of the Oxygen brand. Oxygen, there-
fore, can be described as an ‘empowered’ environment.
The third issue that emerged was the nature of training and induction, which followed 
both the predominant skills requirements and the nature of work organization. Training 
in Fontainebleau began with a three-day group induction for all new employees. Induction 
covered company information, the brand, job duties, equal opportunities and health and 
safety. Much of this initial and subsequent training involved Fontainebleau’s brand 
standards and the way in which these were to be implemented by employees in the some-
what prescriptive and standardizedmanner described above. Subsequently, training was 
offered as and when required to all occupational groups in both soft and hard skills, 
either on-the-job (often through shadowing) or refresher courses (on customer service 
and brand standards). In total 93% of Fontainebleau survey respondents reported receiv-
ing training in the previous 12 months. When looking at the most widely reported topics 
of training, 66% of respondents reported receiving health and safety training; 41% 
reported receiving training in induction, team working, customer service and product 
knowledge; and 38% in grooming and self-presentation.
Oxygen’s HR representative described induction as a three-day process covering an 
introduction to the company, ‘statutory stuff’ such as health and safety, customer service 
and product knowledge. Employees were required to attend the first of these days before 
starting in the hotel. Oxygen’s ‘nae bother’ empowerment philosophy was strongly 
emphasized. Employees were also given a free dinner, bed and breakfast stay in the hotel 
that had to be taken in their probationary period, during which they were treated like any 
other customer. This free stay in the hotel was specifically included as part of the induc-
tion process to familiarize the new employees with the company’s brand from a customer 
point of view.
Discussion of training activity in Oxygen also focused on the ‘nae bother’ philosophy, 
especially among the managers who were primarily responsible for customer-facing 
staff. According to the managers, this was not simply about telling employees what to 
say and how to say it, but was instead about allowing employees to conduct the service 
experience, as they felt best, within broad guidelines. For example, employees were 
informed of the maximum possible offer that they could make in the face of a complaint 
(free food and beverages and nights in the hotel) but were encouraged to use their initia-
tive to meet customer requirements, in the knowledge that managers were, in the eyes of 
the HR representative, ‘not bothered’ if someone provided an apparently disproportion-
ate recourse to a complaint. All employees supported managers’ assertions with one 
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Hurrell et al. 175
reporting that, ‘They [managers] just expect you to do what feels comfortable I think.’ Of 
the employees surveyed 86% reported receiving some form of training in the past 12 
months. The most widely reported training content was in health, safety and first aid and 
product knowledge (reported by 58%); customer service (42%); and induction and team 
working (36%). Given the regularity with which ‘nae bother’ training was reportedly 
conducted, the customer service figure appears low, although as the philosophy was 
inexorably linked to the hotel’s brand, the extensively reported product knowledge train-
ing may also have included ‘nae bother’.
In contrasting the two hotels, it is apparent that each required different degrees of 
contextual knowledge. Although Fontainebleau exerted considerable effort to ensure 
employees were familiar with brand standards, they were then subsequently also told, 
with a fair degree of precision, how they should behave to ensure they were meeting 
these standards; this reduced the requirement for knowledge. In Oxygen, however, train-
ing and induction followed a broader socialization approach allowing employees to 
develop knowledge of the brand to self-direct their actions accordingly. The high propor-
tion of Oxygen employees reporting training in product knowledge is testament to this 
point, as was the requirement to familiarize themselves with the brand from a customer’s 
point of view, during their induction hotel stay. Thus, although the content of training 
followed the primary skills requirements of the hotels (i.e. in soft skills) alongside statu-
tory and health and safety issues, the nature of training differed alongside the require-
ment for contextual knowledge.
The social construction of skill
Implicit in the findings so far we can detect the value placed upon soft skills in each 
establishment and the characteristics considered by managers to be skills. First, soft 
skills were highly valued as an integral skill set in both hotels. Moreover, when discuss-
ing their demand for ‘personality’, managers in both hotels manifested this in terms of 
the extent to which applicants and employees could interact with people (especially cus-
tomers), thus apparently taking the form of interpersonal skill. That is not to say, how-
ever, that skill was always allowed by the job itself.
Within Fontainebleau there was also evidence that some managers, when talking 
about soft skills, were looking for a willingness to do the job, positive attitudes or even 
obedience. Although the requirement for such attitudes was also apparent to some extent 
in Oxygen, these were not viewed as skills in quite the same way. For example, managers 
in Oxygen did report a problem with a lack of enthusiasm in some staff but reported that 
the repetitive yet tiring nature of some work, such as housekeeping, meant that this was 
almost inevitable over time as, ‘housekeeping’s a job which you couldn’t get any more 
disenchanted with if you do it’ (Oxygen HR representative).
What was apparent in Oxygen was that the demand for style and eloquence was associ-
ated with certain class and educational backgrounds, and especially with tertiary educa-
tion. Indeed, managers responsible for customer-facing staff appeared to be looking for a 
certain style of speech and deportment that may be seen as reflecting ‘middle-class’ 
socialization. Oxygen’s front office manager, for example, stated a problem with local 
non-student applicants who ‘speak very Glasgow’, while the HR respondent believed that 
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176 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
as many of the hotel’s business guests were middle class, those from similar backgrounds 
found it easier to interact with them. Indeed, even employees believed that in order to 
truly represent Oxygen’s brand people should not come from disadvantaged areas of 
Glasgow and should be ‘beautifully educated’ (focus group respondent 2). The deputy 
general manager summed up Oxygen’s demands for erudition and eloquence thus:
I know I sound like somebody from Hitler Youth, but yes I do [think social background matters] 
. . . unless people are polished there is no hope for them. And yes we’ll employ them in back of 
house areas, but then they’re trapped, and they’re not trapped because they’re not capable 
they’re trapped because they’re not articulate.
While the social construction of skills partially represents the demands of particular 
contexts, essentially it also represents a power dynamic. Those that determine demand 
(i.e. employers) have the power to define what is and what is not considered a skill. It is 
partially this definitional power which risks divesting the concept of skill of real mean-
ing and can also create labour market inequalities, as is discussed below.
Discussion and conclusions
The authors agree with Lloyd and Payne (2009: 630) that a ‘much more demanding defi-
nition of skilled work’ is needed than is sometimes offered in new debates on skill in 
interactive service settings. The aim of this article was to strengthen the conceptual 
understanding of soft skills through an examination of how these skills are used in differ-
ent contexts, concentrating on customer-facing hotel workers. Such a strengthening is 
essential given the limitations of traditional, technical notions of skill in a service econ-
omy. If one accepts that skill reflects the appropriate application of knowledge over time 
and within context (e.g. Proctor and Dutta, 1995), as well as the discretion to practise this 
knowledge (Thompson,1989), we must examine the extent to which particular contexts 
truly allow ‘skilled’ behaviour.
The two interactive service case study contexts examined here represented contrast-
ing environments in terms of the specific nature of demand for soft skills and the influ-
ence of work organization and employer practices on the emergence of skill. Employees 
were allowed significantly more control over their labour process in Oxygen than 
Fontainebleau, with Oxygen employees also requiring a greater degree of contextual 
knowledge in order to conduct their work skilfully.
The comparison between the two hotels suggests that despite similar espoused demand 
for soft skills, the contexts allowed different degrees of skilled performance. Fontainebleau’s 
service encounter was reduced to fragmented behaviours limiting the extent to which 
soft skills were required at all for effective performance. Managers’ apparent demand for 
social and interpersonal skills was not reflected in the arbitrary recruitment process or the 
organization of work. Fontainebleau employees did report that they could depart from 
strict prescriptions and interact socially with customers if time allowed, possibly repre-
senting ‘philanthropic’ emotional ‘gift’ donations or simply ‘presentational’ emotion 
management in line with expected social norms of behaviour (Bolton, 2000). Work in 
Fontainebleau, nonetheless, was organized to allow little discretion in the interpretation 
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Hurrell et al. 177
of brand standards, which were rigorously prescribed through induction and training. 
Fontainebleau, thus, may partially represent Bolton’s (2000) combination of ‘prescrip-
tive’ emotion management in order to fulfil ‘pecuniary’ emotional labour. However, 
Fontainebleau’s directed environment did not just relate to emotion management but also 
to physical self-presentation and other elements of the labour process, including those 
unrelated to soft skills. Furthermore, we may expect most organizations to have some 
form of prescriptive emotion management in place (e.g. even Oxygen had some loose 
and amorphous feeling and display rules) but it is the degree of prescription and discre-
tion that are important factors in considering whether a work environment can be 
described as ‘skilled’, moving beyond the concept of prescriptive emotion management. 
Little knowledge was required in Fontainebleau as actions were tightly controlled. 
Furthermore, there were clearly occasions where managerial demand for ‘skills’ consti-
tuted little more than a requirement for enthusiasm, work ethic and even obedience. Such 
a demand reflects Lafer’s (2004) concerns that soft skills may effectively be used as a way 
of expressing a demand for discipline and submissiveness. There were inconsistencies, 
therefore, in the level of skill socially constructed through management rhetoric and the 
reality of the job itself, with management definitions of skill lacking any significant con-
ceptual meaning. Fontainebleau can thus be characterized as a ‘low skill’ environment.
Oxygen, in contrast, provided a high discretion environment both for self-expression 
(the aesthetic and emotional labour of service performance) and for delivery of the ser-
vice brand, reinforcing this with product (brand) knowledge through induction, training 
and other socialization processes. In terms of opportunities for skilled performance, 
Oxygen expected the presence of certain interpersonal qualities and service orientation 
at the recruitment stage, and selected individuals accordingly. They also provided the 
means for the translation of knowledge into skilled action by providing discretion and 
the motivation for this to happen. Skill in customer service in this particular hotel became 
attainable with greater economy of effort through the application, over time, of knowl-
edge of the brand, the customer and how best to accommodate service needs. Essentially, 
the discretion that Oxygen employees were allowed was explicitly built into the work 
context by management and went beyond the philanthropic or presentational emotional 
exchanges evident in Fontainebleau. While no managerial regime will ever completely 
remove worker discretion, there is a vast difference between informally initiated 
employee action as they chafe against scripts and other boundaries of control, and sub-
stantive, formal discretion designed into work by management.
Conventional notions of skilled performance may thus define Oxygen as a ‘high skill’ 
environment, at least for customer-facing employees. This description remains even with 
the relative absence of any technological demands, which, where they existed, were min-
imal for front-line workers, as they were in Fontainebleau. This does not, however, mean 
that employees (particularly in front-desk positions) may not have sometimes had to 
negotiate the demands of technology while simultaneously trying to appease both the 
customer and organizational agents, as in Hampson and Junor’s (2005) articulation work. 
Technology itself did not, however, contribute to skilled work in these contexts and, if 
anything, operated as a deskilling device (for example, generic room booking systems 
and kitchen protocols). We would argue, therefore, that soft skills alone can constitute 
skilled work in the absence of complex technological demands, but such requirements do 
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178 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
not constitute skilled work in the absence of discretion and the need for contextual 
knowledge.
One caveat was that Oxygen managers perceived those from middle-class back-
grounds and certain educational institutions to possess a ‘polish’ that was linked to skill, 
thus risking the conflation of social advantage with skill. Oxygen managers demanded a 
manifestation of cultural capital in their employees, which has been linked previously 
with middle-class socialization and subsequent success in the employment sphere 
(Bourdieu, 1984). It may be that those from more affluent backgrounds simply have the 
access to the resources needed to develop and practise these abilities outside the work-
place in a number of settings (Bourdieu, 1984; Brown and Hesketh, 2004), which height-
ened the chance of being able to skilfully adapt to Oxygen’s environment. This advantage 
alone does not, therefore, nullify the argument that these remain skills. The caution 
remains nonetheless that employer demand for soft skills may privilege those from cer-
tain class backgrounds (Hurrell and Scholarios, 2011; Nickson et al., 2003; Payne, 2006), 
which may eventually require intervention in the form of government social inclusion 
policy.
Taken together, the evidence suggests that considerable heterogeneity exists in the 
amount of skill allowed, even in ostensibly similar work. Just as it is incorrect, therefore, 
to refer to all interactive service work as equally highly skilled (Payne, 2006) it is also 
incorrect to describe all interactive service work as unskilled and devoid of discretion. 
We thus concur with Hampson and Junor (2005) that low-level service work is not ubiq-
uitously routine, repetitive and tightly controlled. It is also incorrect to state that just 
because employers minimize discretion in some settings, workers themselves necessar-
ily lack skill; rather, in certain contexts the potential to display skill is designed out of the 
job and workers’ skill, therefore, may remain latent.
The variability in employer-facilitated discretion as with the variability in people’s 
ability to perform such skills may indeed add extra weight to the argument that soft skills 
are skills. If similar service work settings can be delineated into those that are more and 
less skilled, the true degree to which individuals can really displayskill can be assessed. 
Once the requirement for knowledge is added to this (Thompson, 1989) the argument 
that soft skills can indeed be skills in certain contexts is strengthened further.
In terms of the conceptualization of soft skill it is perhaps, therefore, heterogeneity 
in individual ability, work organization and knowledge requirements which offers an 
effective riposte to those who doubt that these are actually skills (for example, Lloyd 
and Payne, 2009; Payne, 2006). Individuals’ qualities brought to the job are transformed 
into skills on the job, with the level of ‘skill’ indicated by whether they have mastered 
a particular context. Of course, where employees are tightly controlled with little 
requirement for knowledge, this mastery requires considerably less skill than in estab-
lishments where greater discretion and knowledge are required. As such, soft skills are 
not only distinct from inherent traits and attitudes, as has already been acknowledged by 
others (e.g. Meichenbaum et al., 1981), but are also more than individualized learned 
abilities.
That is not to say that considerable caution should not be applied when assessing 
employer demand for skill in interactive service settings, as the manner in which skills 
are socially constructed can indeed bear the risk of turning skill into a meaningless 
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Hurrell et al. 179
‘humpty dumpty’ word. Some employers classify a generic requirement for positive atti-
tudes and even submissiveness as skill, which can in fact be used to reinforce compliance 
within low skill settings, consistent with Lafer (2004). Furthermore, it is also evident 
from the research presented here that where some interactive service employers espouse 
a demand for skill, this is then not reinforced by either their selectiveness of potential 
employees nor the true degree of skill actually required on the job.
Caution in interpreting skills demand also has policy implications. If some employ-
ers are seeking compliance (socially constructed as ‘soft skills’) in low skill settings, 
alongside questionable employment conditions, then responsibility for addressing any 
associated skills deficits should not rest with the government. Given that employers 
have proved proficient at shifting the blame for skills shortages onto the government 
(Westwood, 2004), for example through vocational education and training, govern-
ment needs to carefully assess the exact nature of skills demand before responding to 
employer wishes. Second, if some jobs upon closer inspection do not require the level 
of skill that is espoused then government claims about universal upskilling may indeed 
appear somewhat hollow, as Lloyd and Payne (2009) suggest. Indeed, government 
policy may be better directed at working with employers to design better quality, more 
highly skilled jobs that contain significant worker discretion. Payne (2004: 517) does 
highlight the difficulty of implementing such policies and measuring their outcomes, 
even in ‘relatively advanced social democratic’ countries such as Finland. It would be 
expected, therefore, that similar difficulties in policy implementation and evaluation 
would be even more pronounced in less regulated, more explicitly neoliberal econo-
mies such as the UK. This article has nonetheless strengthened the link between 
employer-facilitated worker discretion and skill and believes that policy designed to 
improve the former will impact beneficially upon the latter. Third, as noted above, if 
employers deem those from certain class backgrounds as possessing an inherent advan-
tage in acquiring certain soft skills, questions are raised about social exclusion. Such 
detailed appraisal of skills demand and the skills content of jobs has implications for 
assessing the success of supply-side skills formation policies and indeed for future 
policy directions.
In conclusion, this article has strengthened the conceptualization of soft skills by 
showing how, in certain settings, it is correct to label work reliant on soft skills as skilled. 
However, for such a label to apply, the work context itself needs to be ‘high skill’; that 
is, to contain employer-facilitated worker discretion and requirements for extensive con-
textual knowledge, in order to transform workers’ qualities and abilities into soft skills. 
In assessing whether work is truly skilled, employer and government rhetoric about soft 
skills should not be taken at face value as the degree of skill actually required in certain 
settings may be minimal or even mask more pernicious demands (e.g. for submissive-
ness). Future research may also be able to elucidate further on the nature of worker dis-
cretion and particularly whether brand knowledge and socialization, here described as an 
element of soft skill, is itself a form of normative control, but this is beyond the scope of 
this article. What is proposed here is not a monistic solution to the soft skill debate. By 
not throwing the contextual baby out with the bath water, however, real conceptual 
weight can be added to the premise that ‘soft skill’ is not simply a ‘humpty dumpty’ term, 
but can instead have real meaning.
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180 Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(1)
Funding
This work was funded by ESRC CASE studentship award PTA-033-2003-00043.
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