Employee experience of aesthetic labour in retail and hospitality

Abstract

Interactive service job growth in the UK is significant.Analysis of labour within these services has tended to focus on employee attitudes, framed through emotional labour. Such analysis is not incorrect, just partial. Some employers also demand aesthetic labour, or employees with particular embodied capacities and attributes that appeal to the senses of customers. Reporting survey and focus group data, this article explores aesthetic labour as it is experienced by interactive service employees in the retail and hospitality industries. Issues examined are recruitment and selection; image and appearance; uniforms and dress codes; skills and training. By extending awareness of aesthetic labour so that both employee attitude and appearance are empirically and conceptually revealed, the article extends understanding of the job demands made of employees in interactive services

Employment experiences of Polish migrant workers in the UK hospitality sector

“…The notion of 'skilled' or 'unskilled' jobs have been discussed by Burns (1997) who argues that: "labelling the majority of the workforce as 'semi-skilled' or 'unskilled' (as Furthermore, Burns (1997) argues that tourism 'skills' are not only rooted historically in the occupational classification as being low but are used as a justification for low wages. This issue has been raised in other studies and many report that the perceptions of 'unskilled' labour became a stereotypical model and such views are rather out of date and unjustifiable (Choy, 1995;Baum, 1996Baum, , 2007Burns, 1997;Nickson, Warhurst, & Dutton, 2005;Warhurst & Nickson, 2007). Such understanding of hospitality work "neglects dimensions of service and communication within hospitality work, arguably today the critical component at the international level" (Baum 1996:207).…”

Good looks and good practice: the attitudes of career practitioners to attractiveness and appearance

“…This concept has been contested by those such as Green (2013) who noted that it divorces the advantages a good image can bring from Bourdieu's concepts of social, cultural and financial capital (Bourdieu, 1985 and1993). In contrast the literature around aesthetic labour (Hall & van den Broek, 2012;Sheane, 2012;Warhurst & Nickson, 2007) situates these issues of appearance, attractiveness and charm squarely within broader power relations, viewing them as at least in part a manifestation of social, cultural and financial capital.…”

Performance, labour flexibility and migrant workers in hotels: An establishment and departmental level analysis

“…Nickson (2010) also found the main focus was on numerical flexibility and that functional flexibility mainly provided short term labour cover. Warhurst and Nickson (2007) also provide evidence of the importance of numerical and functional flexibility in their research on housekeepers. None of these studies had access to data on actual hours worked, and instead utilised secondary sources or ad hoc surveys which mostly relied on annual means or the simple absence or presence of such practices, rather than capturing the actual implementation of flexible working.…”