The importance of attitude and appearance in the service encounter in retail and hospitality

Abstract

For service organisations the interaction between front-line personnel and the customer is crucial as they aim to create high quality service encounters. Much research has focused on attempts by organisations to inculcate the "right" kind of attitude in their front-line employees. This paper seeks to extend this analysis by pointing to the increasing importance not just of having employees with the "right" attitudes, but also possessing aesthetic skills. The emergence of aesthetic skills reflects the growing importance of aesthetic labour in interactive services. That is, employers' increasingly desire that employees should have the "right" appearance in that they "look good" and "sound right" in the service encounter in retail and hospitality. The evidence from the questionnaires suggests that employers in the retail and hospitality industries are not generally looking for "hard" technical skills in their front-line personnel, but rather "soft" skills. Such "soft" skills encompass attitude and, importantly, appearance - what we term "aesthetic skills" - and the latter is often underappreciated in academic and policy-making debates

‘If you look the part you’ll get the job’: should career professionals help clients to enhance their career image?

“…This is obviously the case in the sex industry (Hakim, 2012;Voracek & Fisher, 2006) and in much of the entertainment industry (Dean, 2005). Nickson, Warhurst, and Dutton (2005) suggest that this is also the case in retail and hospitality. They note, for example, how requirements for attractiveness in the retail and hospitality industries are often signalled through the use of phrases like 'well-spoken' (interpersonal skill) or 'well turned-out' (aesthetic presentation) in job advertisements and policed through requirements to submit photos with job applications (beauty).…”

Employment experiences of Polish migrant workers in the UK hospitality sector

“…Such a perception of tourism and hospitality employment is not only inaccurate but also creates a negative image of the industry. A study by Nickson et al (2005) conducted in Glasgow in the retail and hospitality industries confirm the importance of 'soft skills'. They revealed that employers look for skills which encompass the social, interpersonal and aesthetic skills that are related to appearance.…”

Does Service Employees’ Appearance Affect the Healthiness of Food Choice?

“…Public opinion generally associates being healthy with being thin, such that being thin seems normative for citizens and employees (Madden & Chamberlain, 2010;Nickson, Warhurst, & Dutton, 2005;Smeesters, Mussweiler, & Mandel, 2010), though the gap between this cultural norm and biological reality is widening (D'Alessandro & Chitty, 2011). Many overweight or obese people regularly suffer from social stigma and personal dissatisfaction (Dehghan, AkhtarDanesh, & Merchant, 2005;Madden & Chamberlain, 2010).…”

“…Then they consume their meals in the presence of strangers, including other guests and service employees. Several studies suggest that overweight people can have negative influence on others' food choice behaviors (e.g., Christakis & Fowler, 2007;McFerran et al, 2010aMcFerran et al, , 2010b, leading to further stigmatization and even discriminatory hiring practices that select employees on the basis of their appearance (e.g., Nickson, Warhurst, & Dutton, 2005;Warhurst, van den Broek, Hall, & Nickson, 2009). Warhurst et al (2009) note that employees' looks are increasingly important in interactive service jobs and caution that it might be the "next frontier in the struggle against discrimination in employment" (p. 132).…”