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.
Our analysis is based on the French DARES Working Conditions survey which contains a very large sample of individuals representative of the French working population. We demonstrate that employees working in the cleaning sector report significantly higher levels of satisfaction than the other employees. This statistical result is robust; it persists when we introduce a large number of control variables. This result is puzzling insofar as it is generally agreed that these workers hold ‘poor quality’ jobs: low pay, an abnormal pattern of work, arduous working conditions. We suggest that cleaners’ expectations and standards are influenced by an adaptation process. Their job satisfaction needs to be considered in the light of their past experience. Their employment history shapes their wants and needs and thus affects the way they evaluate their work.
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