Employee experience of aesthetic labour in retail and hospitality

2007-02-27articleWork Employment and Society376 citationsclosed

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Emotional Labor in Professions Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior Employment, Labor, and Gender Studies

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.

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2013Performing Sales: Material Scripts and the Social Organization of Obligation

2017Body art as branded labour: At the intersection of employee selection and relationship marketing

2014Employers’ and employment counselors’ perceptions of desirable skills for entry-level positions for adolescents: how does it differ for youth with disabilities?