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Soft (e.g. interpersonal and social) skills are receiving ever more attention with employers frequently reporting that employees lack these skills. The 'blame game' for these skills deficits is frequently directed at the individual, family or government. Scant attention has been paid to the possibility that people may possess soft skills but decide to withdraw them because of disaffection with their employer. Taking a critical perspective and drawing on three case study establishments, this article finds that some managers blamed soft skills gaps on skills withdrawal. The employee data did not, however, reveal greater employee disaffection in the establishment worst affected by soft skills gaps. Investigation of withdrawal instead revealed more about employees who had left the organizations and the propensity for employers to blame employees for soft skills gaps. The study also affirmed that organizations may be to blame for their soft skills gaps if they do not contextually integrate selection, induction and training practices with their skills needs.

PurposeTo investigate the impact of the working time regulations (WTR) in the hospitality industry and dynamics of the employment relationship within the case study firms.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative case study approach was used, interviewing 18 respondents over two case study organisations. Line managers, personnel specialists, employees and trade union representatives were interviewed in each case.FindingsBoth case studies were largely unaffected by the WTR. This was due to both the high amount of numerical and temporal flexibility afforded by large part‐time workforces and to harmonious employment relations. The design of the Regulations also brings the Government's commitment to the WTR into doubt. On rare occasions where there was a departure from the basic regulations these were generally accounted for by the many derogations contained within the legislation and were with the full consent of employees.Research limitations/implicationsIt is hard to generalise from this research alone which is relatively small‐scale. The study suggests reasons for the unproblematic nature of the WTR which could be tested using large‐scale statistically representative methods. The occurrence of "accidental compliance" is of particular interest for future research.Practical implicationsIdentifies the way in which the WTR allow "accidental compliance" and would be useful for review by policy makers.Originality/valueThe WTR remains relatively under‐researched and the study draws interesting comparisons with earlier research. The qualitative approach allows the role of the actors to be identified in determining the effect of the dynamics of the employment relationship on compliance patterns, which covers an empirical "gap" in the literature.

Fit between an organization's brand and its employees, sometimes referred to as employee brand identification, has been highlighted as an important element in delivering service quality. This article examines the people management practices directed both at potential and current employees which enhance this "person-brand fit" and proposes that effective management of this can help reduce the persistent problem of social skills gaps in service organizations. A study of managers and customer-facing employees in two hotel case studies—one reporting significant social skills gaps and the other reporting few gaps—showed that the hotel reporting fewer gaps had achieved greater employee identification with the brand. This hotel conducted recruitment and selection around person-brand fit, while the other hotel did not. The hotel reporting fewer social skills gaps also allowed greater employee agency in brand socialization, training, and in the enactment of the brand on the job. The article discusses the relevance of these findings for theory on how human resource management practices may be linked to service brands in order to reduce social skills gaps.

There is an ongoing sociological debate regarding which work activities can be considered 'skilled'. In recent years, this debate has become increasingly controversial due to the growing prominence of so-called 'soft skills', especially when used in interactive service work. This article seeks to strengthen the conceptualization of soft skills, through case study investigation, to determine whether or not they are worthy of the 'skilled' label. An expanded notion of skill is supported, recognizing that in service contexts displaying employer-facilitated worker discretion and requirements for contextual knowledge in the use of soft skills, the term can indeed have real meaning.

The voluntary sector in Scotland, as in many other countries, is becoming increasingly business like. Resultantly, there is an increasing demand for graduates to work in business and support functions. In Scotland, however, despite an oversupply of graduates in the labor market, the voluntary sector reports skills shortages for graduate-level positions. Through exploratory, mainly qualitative research, this article demonstrates that one reason for this mismatch between the supply of and demand for graduates is a systems failure within the sector. Many graduates and university students remain unaware of potentially suitable paid job opportunities, in part because of the sector's voluntary label. To rectify this systems failure, thought needs to be given to the sector's nomenclature and the manner in which voluntary sector organizations attract graduate recruits, for example, through levering value congruence in potential recruits.

The interest in educational and professional aspirations of students transiting to post-secondary education has gained prominence in academic debates and policy agendas internationally. Political interventions for raising aspirations quite often draw on narrow instrumental and rationalistic assumptions of individual decision-making that, as we will argue, do not capture adequately the meanings students attribute to these aspirations. By means of in-depth interviews and combining a critical realist approach to social action with capabilities approach, the paper explores the educational and professional aspirations of students at the end of secondary TVET in Chile. We consider that high educational aspirations of secondary TVET students in Chile need to be understood as a reflexive response to significantly high social inequalities in the country, the precarity of working conditions in a highly liberalised labour market, and the enduring neoliberal tenet of meritocracy. We also argue that understanding aspirations is key to reimagine TVET's roles and purposes at individual, institutional and national levels, towards fairer opportunities for human development.

This article contributes to ongoing debates about soft skills in front-line interactive service work in considering employability in the UK retail sector. It recognizes how UK government policy has emphasized the importance of qualifications in enhancing employability. However, it suggests that for front-line work in retail it is soft skills that are required to access entry-level jobs. The article notes how these soft skills have traditionally been dominated by debates about emotional labour. Drawing on a survey of 173 clothing, footwear and leather goods retailers, the article argues for a need to recognize the broadening of soft skills to also include aesthetic labour. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the broadening of soft skills with regard to policy initiatives to encourage the long-term unemployed into the retail sector.