Whose skill is it anyway?

Irena Grugulis and Steven Vincent
Additional contact information
Irena Grugulis: Bradford University, i.grugulis@bradford.ac.uk
Steven Vincent: University of Leeds, sv@lubs.leeds.ac.uk

Work, Employment & Society, 2009, vol. 23, issue 4, 597-615

Abstract: The skills that employers require are changing, with soft skills replacing technical ones. This article draws on two detailed case studies of outsourced public sector work, where these changes were particularly marked. Here, the new skills polarized the workforces. Highly skilled IT professionals were advantaged as soft skills gave them an additional dimension to their work, while benefit caseworkers with intermediate skills were disadvantaged since soft skills were presented as an alternative to technical competences. Women caseworkers suffered a double penalty, as not only were their technical skills devalued but many were confined to traditionally ‘feminine’ and unskilled work at the reception desk. Soft skills certainly aided the acknowledgement of women’s skills but they did nothing to increase their value.

Keywords: customer service; gender; management skills; outsourcing; public sector; skill; soft skills; skill polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017009344862 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:23:y:2009:i:4:p:597-615

DOI: 10.1177/0950017009344862

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().