Customer service and the changing nature of work: social and technical skills in conflict Irena Grugulis and Steven Vincent
Abstract submitted to ‘A Critical Turn on HRD’ for the Third Critical Management Studies Conference
Contact information: Dr Irena Grugulis, Reader in Employment Studies, School of Management, University of Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4WT e- mail:
[email protected] Tel: 0161-295 5804
Acknowledgements The three- year research project associated with this paper is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council Future of Work Programme, grant number L212252038. The project is investigating ‘changing organisational forms and the reshaping of work’. It involves a number of in-depth case studies of a variety of organisational forms, including franchises, employment agencies, Private Finance Initiatives, partnerships, supply chain relationships, and outsourcing. The full research team is Mick Marchington, Jill Rubery, Hugh Willmott, Jill Earnshaw, Damian Grimshaw, Irena Grugulis, John Hassard, Marilyn Carroll, Fang Lee Cooke, Gail Hebson and Steven Vincent. Word count: 1,493
Customer service and the changing nature of work: social and technical skills in conflict One of the most remarkable features of the debate on workplace skills over the last few years has been the increasing emphasis placed on soft skills and attitudes. In part this is because work itself is changing. The rise of the service sector has meant that increasing numbers of people in employment are (at least in part) delivering a service and are themselves part of the process being sold. This is perhaps most dramatically apparent where the ‘service’ is itself entertainment. In Disneyworld staff are expected to be physically attractive, friendly, helpful, smiling and able to follow scripted exchanges (Van Maanen, 1991). But these dramatic elements and the emphasis on aesthetic and emotional ‘skills’ are not restricted to the entertainment industry, rather they are increasingly accepted as a ‘normal’ aspect of service work (Hancock and Tyler, 2000). So staff in restaurants, bars and hotels are hired on (and groomed in) aspects of their looks (Nickson et al., 2001); flight attendants are monitored on looks, weight and consistent helpfulness (Hochschild, 1983); and call centre workers are expected to infuse their voice with appropriate emotions (Callaghan and Thompson, 2002; Wray-Bliss, 2001; Taylor and Tyler, 2000). Even official reviews of the state of the nation’s skills emphasis personal qualities and attributes (Skills Task Force). Work, it seems, is increasingly about appearing, being and feeling as well as doing. To a certain extent presentation of the self has always been part of work. The idea of ‘good’ domestic service and notions of ‘professionalism’ in medicine mix elements of appearance, emotion and technical skills. In 1956 Wright Mills wrote of the commodification of emotions in the increasingly consumer-oriented US middle classes. Managers have long been rated on looks, conformity and reputation as well as ability (Dalton, 1966; Barnard, 1962; Jackall, 1988; Lewis and Stewart, 1958) and both construction and auto workers are ‘socialised’ in to required personal behaviours as part of the apprenticeship process (Thompson et al., 1995; Steiger, 1993). Latterly however the rhetoric of customer service and soft skills have come to dominate employment practices. Such a development might be positive. Traditionally social skills, when exercised by women, have been undervalued in the labour market (Horrell et al, 1994). It may be that a growing rhetorical emphasis on these aspects of work, coupled with a shortage of customer service skills (Hillage et al, 2002) will lead to them being more highly valued. In practice however, the evidence is mixed. Some social skills, such as the ability to give presentations, are indeed positively correlated with high skilled work (Felstead et al, 2002); research into workplace innovation suggests that it relies on social networks (Martin et al., 2001) and Darr’s work on technical salespeople notes the close relationship between their social and technical skills (2003, 2002). However, when unrelated to high levels of technical skill, soft skills rarely attract either status or pay (Bolton, 2003); their deployment at work may lead to emotions and attitudes being treated as commodities (Thompson and McHugh, 2002; Grugulis, 2002) with a correspondingly negative impact on employees (Hochschild, 1983). This paper explores the way that an increasing emphasis on customer service affected the work and skills of employees in two organisations. It draws on research funded by the ESRC’s Future of Work programme on Changing Organisational Forms and Organisational Performance under which work was conducted into eight case study
companies over three years. Around forty interviews and observations were conducted in each (often more for research on multiple sites). Two cases are considered in detail here, both taken from the (increasingly flexible) boundary of the public sector, each of which claims to be changing in response to customer needs. In the first case study the change is a dramatic one: services have been out-sourced to a private sector company which changed the way that work was organised and managed. In the second, change is incremental with increasing emphasis placed on customer service skills and an appropriate culture. Both stress the importance of customers to their ‘business’ and both claim to have made substantive changes. Yet a closer review reveals certain problems. In each case ‘customer service’ is a fluid term whose common usage suggests greater consensus than the various different interpretations warrant. Here, as elsewhere, emplo yees and employers define ‘quality’ in very different ways. The organisation and reorganised observed has a strongly bureaucratic element with performance monitoring featuring strongly. New managers, who could boast greater ‘customer service’ skills lack technical expertise and subordinates often have little recourse to advice in case of queries. Finally, the value placed on the technical skills of employees (still needed to complete the work) seems to have declined with serious implications for training and development. The picture presented in these organisations is not one of opening the public sector to market forces or responsiveness to customers but of confusion. Here additional levels of monitoring and new performance measures are introduced and customer service was emphasised often over areas where those serving have little control. As might be predicted, the implications for employee skills are also mixed. At one level training, at least in areas relevant to customer service, is increasing at others technical skills still needed to complete the work are not being reproduced and it is difficult to see, rhetorical or structurally, many incentives for them to be developed in the future. References Barnard, C. (1962) The Functions of the Executiv e Cambridge (Mass.):Harvard University Press Bolton, S.C. (2003) ‘Conceptual confusions: emotion work as skilled work’ in Warhurst, C., Keep, E. and Grugulis, I. (eds.) Skill Matters Palgrave (forthcoming) Callaghan, G. and Thompson, P. (2002) ‘We recruit attitude: the selection and shaping of routine call centre labour’ Journal of Management Studies 39 (2) pp. 233 – 254 Callaghan, G. and Thompson, P. (2002) ‘We recruit attitude: the selection and shaping of routine call centre labour’ Journal of Management Studies 39 (2) pp. 233 – 254 Dalton, M. (1966) Men who Manage New York and London:Wiley Darr, A. (2002) ‘The technicization of sales work: an ethnographic study in the US electronics industry’ Work, Employment and Society 16 (1) pp. 47 – 65 Darr, A. (2003) ‘Social skills in technical sales work: the case of markets for emergent technology’ in Warhurst, C., Keep, E. and Grugulis, I. (eds.) Skill Matters Palgrave (forthcoming)
Felstead, A., Gallie, D. and Green, F. (2002) Work Skills in Britain 1986 – 2002 Nottingham: DfES Publications Grugulis, I. (2002) ‘Emotions and aesthetics for work and labour: the pleasures and pains of the changing nature of work’ Working paper, University of Salford Hancock, P. and Tyler, M. (2000) ‘“The look of love”: gender and the organisation of aesthetics’ in Hassard, J., Holliday, R. and Willmott, H. (eds.) Body and Organisation London:Sage Hillage, J., Regan, J., Dickson, J. and McLoughlin, K. (2002) Employers’ Skill Survey 2002 Nottingham:DfES Research Report 372 Hochschild, A.R. (1983) The Managed Heart, University of California Press:Berkeley Horrell, S., Rubery, J. and Burchell, B. (1994) ‘Gender and skills’ in Penn, R., Rose, M. and Rubery, J. (eds.) Skill and Occupational Change Oxford:Oxford University Press Jackall, R. (1988) Moral Mazes New York and Oxford:Oxford University Press Lewis, R. and Stewart, R. (1958) The Boss London:Phoenix House Martin, G., Pate, J. and Beaumont, P. (2001) ‘Company-based education programmes: what’s the pay-off for employers?’ Human Resource Management Journal 11 (4) pp. 55 – 73 Nickson, D., Warhurst, C., Witz, A. and Cullen, A-M., (2001) ‘The importance of being aesthetic: work, employment and service organisation’ in Sturdy, A., Grugulis, I. and Willmott, H. (eds.) Customer Service: Empowerment and Entrapment London:Palgrave Taylor, S. and Tyler, M. (2000) ‘Emotional labour and sexual difference in the airline industry’ Work, Employment and Society 14 (1) pp 77 - 96 Thompson, P. and McHugh, D. (2002) Work Organisations: a critical introduction 3rd edition Basingstoke:Palgrave Wray-Bliss, E. (2001) ‘Representing customer service: telephones and texts’ in Sturdy, A., Grugulis, I. and Willmott, H. (eds.) Customer Service: Empowerment and Entrapment London:Palgrave Wright-Mills, C. (1956) White Collar: the American middle classes New York:Oxford University Press
