1. What soft skills were required in the two organisations? What sort of balance was there between soft skills and technical skills? 

2. What effect did this have on (a) the workers, (b) their work and (c) their employers? Whom did the soft skills benefit? 

3. How does knowing about workers’ technical skills help us to understand this? 

4. Think about another job that you are familiar with. What soft skills and what technical skills are required? Do they advantage the employee or the employer?

5. What effect does an emphasis on soft skills have on workers? 

Every job demands a combination of ‘soft’ and technical skills. We all need to get on with our workmates, turn up on time and work conscientiously; equally, workers may require substantive knowledge of their work (a TV repairman or woman who knew too little of TVs to repair them would not be particularly effective). However, the soft skills demanded to vary from job to job; they may be an aspect of the relationship a worker has with his employer rather than an individual quality; and they may be valued far more in rhetoric than in the reality of pay rates. This case study is intended to check some of the enthusiasm for soft skills: when they are assumed to be a ‘cure all’ for organizational ills for both parties to the employment relationship and when work is only about soft skills. It is taken from an article in Work, Employment and Society which provides a more detailed assessment of both case study companies.