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

an article by Caroline Lloyd (Cardiff University, UK) and Jonathan Payne (De Montfort University, UK) published in Human Relations Volume 67 Number 4 (April 2014)

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 centralised 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.

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Low-wage service occupations in Europe: an inevitable underclass?

NEUJOBS Working Paper 3.7 by Moira Nelson (Lund University) published by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (March 2013)

Abstract

Low-wage service occupations occupy an important part of the employment structure of post-industrial labour markets and this transformation raises alarms about inequality since employment in such occupations arguably depends on weak working conditions.

This study examines trends in low-wage service employment across 19 European countries between 1992 and 2010 in order to get leverage on whether their expansion and poor quality are both as inevitable and inter-related as the literature suggests.

Full text (PDF 26pp)

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Speaking allowed? Workplace regulation of regional dialect

an article by Elizabeth Eustace (Cardiff Metropolitan University) published in Work Employment & Society Volume 26 Number 3 (April 2012)

Abstract

This article addresses speech as an aspect of aesthetic labour. It demonstrates that, because speech is bound up with identity, attempts to enforce appropriacy in the speech of service sector workers may generate dilemmas and resistance.

The article offers empirical ethno-linguistic data from Glasgow in Scotland.

The data suggest that proscriptive approaches deny the linguistic identity and agency of the speaker and do little to enhance the work experience of employees or their communicative relationships with customers in service environments.

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