Flat whites: who gets progression in the UK café sector?

Flat whites: who gets progression in theUK café sector?Caroline Lloyd and Jonathan Payne

ABSTRACTirj_656 38..52

The article examines the opportunities for, and barriers to, career progression in theUK café sector. The research finds that some workers are able to move up withinorganisations to reach managerial levels, regardless of their qualifications. However,the limited positions available, the nature of the work and low rewards mean thatmost workers either do not want progression or feel that they are unlikely to succeed.

1 INTRODUCTION

There is a consensus among the main political parties in the UK around the need tocreate a society of ‘aspiration’ and ‘opportunity’ in which people are able to progressin working life. New Labour, when in government, had argued that future economicprosperity and social well-being depended upon ensuring that ‘everyone has theopportunity to work, to learn and to progress’ (DIUS and DWP, 2007: 29, 8), witheducation and training afforded a key role. The current Conservative–Liberal Demo-crat coalition government similarly aspires to ‘a Britain where social mobility isunlocked; where everyone, regardless of background, has the chance to rise as high astheir talents and ambition will allow them’ (HM Government, 2010). In a countrywhere 22 per cent of the workforce are low paid and where income inequality hasincreased significantly since the 1970s (Lloyd et al., 2008), the idea that people whowork hard and who have the necessary ambition can progress to better jobs is onewhich all of the mainstream political parties are keen to promote.

While the assertion that ‘work pays’ is central, there is a recognition of the barriersthat individuals face in trying to progress from the lower rungs of the labour market.Much of the focus is on the ‘supply side’; poor skills, lack of ambition, limitedgeographical mobility or difficulties faced by those with caring responsibilities (Craw-ford et al., 2011; HM Government, 2011; Ray et al., 2010). At the same time, recentresearch evidence highlights key problems with the structure of Britain’s labourmarkets which offer few progression opportunities for those in low-wage jobs (Lloydand Mayhew, 2010; Metcalf and Dhudwar, 2010). The breakdown of internal labourmarkets (ILMs) has been seen as one contributing factor (see Grimshaw et al., 2002).

❒ Caroline Lloyd is a Professor and Jonathan Payne is a Senior Researcher at the School of SocialSciences, Cardiff University. Correspondence should be addressed to Jonathan Payne, School of SocialSciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WT; email:[email protected]

Industrial Relations Journal 43:1, 38–52ISSN 0019-8692

© 2011 The Author(s)Industrial Relations Journal © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

The hospitality industry is generally characterised by low pay, high labour turn-over and limited progression opportunities (Baum, 2002). Nevertheless, someorganisations recruit from within and offer internal progression with training.McDonalds, for example, has been praised for providing extensive job ladders andinternal training that can enable someone flipping burgers to move up to seniormanagerial positions (Gould, 2010). Similarly, People 1st (2009: 14), the sector skillscouncil for the hospitality industry, insists that ‘not holding qualifications is not abarrier to entering the sector and that those with the “right” attitude and behaviourcan progress relatively quickly through the ranks.’ However, the expansion ofhigher education has seen increasing numbers of students and new graduates enter-ing the hospitality labour market raising concerns that they may be squeezing outthe young working class and/or the low qualified from these jobs (Nickson et al.,2003). Some commentators suggest that graduates may also be taking more of thejunior management positions which traditionally would have been open to lessqualified internal recruits (Canny, 2002).

Despite the centrality of upward mobility in work to government policies, there islittle empirical research on progression, particularly at the lower end of the labourmarket (Keep and James, 2010). This article uses qualitative empirical evidence fromthe UK café sector to examine the opportunities for, and barriers to, progression, andasks whether there is support for the idea of a graduate substitution effect. Section 1reviews the evidence from existing research on progression at the lower end of thelabour market and the role of student labour. Section 2 provides a background to thecafé sector prior to outlining the research methodology. In section 3, the main findingsfrom the research are presented. The article concludes with a discussion of the impli-cations of these findings, given the current policy ambition to create a society ofaspiration and opportunity for all.

2 PROGRESSION IN LOW END SERVICE JOBS

Much of the research on progression from lower-end jobs has focused on the barriersthat particular groups of workers face, especially women. The factors that hinderwomen moving up in the labour market (and can also lead to downward mobility) aremultifaceted (see Lloyd et al., 2008; Moore et al., 2005; Tomlinson, 2006). Theyinclude deficiencies in qualifications and training, lack of confidence, low aspirationsand expectations, the difficulty of combining work with childcare and other caringresponsibilities and the lack of part-time jobs available at higher levels. In addition,more senior positions often require long working hours and, in some cases, the abilityto relocate or be geographically mobile. Bukodi and Dex (2010: 431) find that whileboth men and women use entry-level jobs as a ‘stepping stone’, women’s progressionis typically more limited. In addition, women are more likely ‘to experience downwardmobility’ with these jobs often operating as a ‘trap’.

Other research has tended to focus more on the structural features of the labourmarket that hinder advancement rather than on individual characteristics. There hasbeen some evidence of a decline in ILMs, which traditionally provided some workerswith opportunities for upward career mobility with their employer. Grimshaw et al.(2002) illustrate how such possibilities were seriously eroded in a number of largeservice organisations throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as ‘de-layering’, ‘contracting-out’ and ‘out-sourcing’ took their toll. More recent case-study research looking at arange of sectors (Lloyd et al., 2008; Metcalf and Dhudwar, 2010) confirms that

39Flat whites: who gets progression in the UK café sector?

© 2011 The Author(s)Industrial Relations Journal © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

opportunities to move up are limited due to the relatively modest number of man-agement and supervisory positions available and the small additional increases in payon offer. While these studies find some evidence of progression opportunities, keybarriers are organisational size, lack of employer commitment and the wide dispersionof sites in multi-establishment organisations.

While there is research on the reasons why individuals fail to progress, there is littlefocus on those that are successful. Government policy has emphasised the importanceof qualifications to advancement in the labour market, yet research suggests thatneither qualifications nor training play a major role at the lower end (Cheung andMcKay, 2010; Lloyd and Mayhew, 2010). Instead, it seems that performance on thejob, attitudes and effort matter far more (Grimshaw et al., 2002; Kodz et al., 2000).Atkinson and Williams (2003) found that few of the organisations that they studiedoffered systematic development programmes with, in most cases, a ‘greater onus . . .placed on the employee to actively demonstrate zeal in the job and ambition for a

better one.’ Informality and the increasing role of the line manager in selectingindividuals for promotion can also lead to favouritism as well as race and sex dis-crimination (Broadbridge, 2007; Wright, 2007).

Although qualifications have not been seen as a central factor in terms of progres-sion, the expansion of further and higher education, coupled with the shifting of costsonto the individual, has led to increasing numbers of students working in entry-leveljobs. There is an emerging literature which suggests that students are attractive toemployers because they offer a relatively cheap, compliant and flexible source oflabour (Lucas and Keegan, 2008; Purcell, 2010). Other commentators have arguedthat students are often favoured in retail and hospitality because their ‘middle-class’socialisation equips many with the ability to manage emotions when dealing withcustomers, while also providing employers with a supply of ‘aesthetic labour’ with theability to ‘look good’ and ‘sound right’ (Warhurst and Nickson, 2007: 117). Theconcern is that students may be preventing those from more disadvantaged back-grounds from gaining access to ‘entry-level’ jobs.

Research on the extent of such displacement effects has produced mixed findings(e.g. Hofman and Steijn, 2003; Munro et al., 2009). Only Canny (2002) addresses theissue of whether students impact on the promotional prospects of other groups. Somepersonnel managers in the retail grocery sector were seeking to ‘identify future man-agers from their student workforce’ and were ‘actively encouraging these students tothink of applying for junior management positions’ (Canny, 2002: 292). Other evi-dence about the underutilisation of graduate skills (Felstead et al., 2007) and the moveof graduates into previously non-graduate jobs (Elias and Purcell, 2004), such as retailmanagement, might suggest that there is less room for those attempting to progressthrough the ranks.

While such studies have helped to inform our understanding of progression, it isstill the case that we know relatively little about the opportunities afforded to those inlow-end service jobs. The café sector presents a useful case in that it provides entry-level jobs, recruits students to part-time positions and has seen a growth in brandedchains which could potentially provide ILMs and careers.

3 THE UK CAFÉ SECTOR

The café sector has always been diverse, encompassing everything from the ‘Ritz’ andupmarket ‘tea shops’ to the traditional working-class ‘greasy spoon’ and ‘truckers

40 Caroline Lloyd and Jonathan Payne


drive-by’. Over recent years, the main change in the industry has been the rapidgrowth in the branded coffee shop, influenced particularly by the entrance of the USchain, Starbucks, into the UK in the mid-1990s. Along with other brands, such asCosta Coffee and Caffè Nero, these chains have established a near-universal presenceon UK high streets and retail centres, growing at the expense of small and indepen-dent operators. The branded chains are estimated to account for 35 per cent of the£1.2b coffee shop market (Keynote, 2009) and, in 2010, the largest four brands hadover 2,500 outlets (Mintel, 2011) with close to 20,000 workers. Since the recession, themarket has flattened out, although some companies continue to expand throughopening new outlets and taking over pre-existing cafés.

Coffee shops compete alongside sandwich shops which sell on-site preparedsandwiches. This sector has also experienced significant growth, with a turnoverestimated at £1.8b in 2009. The two market leaders, Greggs and Subway, share 61 percent of the market (Mintel, 2010) and, together with Pret a Manger, have over 3,000outlets and an estimated 35,000 employees. The rest of the sandwich sector is highlyfragmented and consists predominantly of small independent outlets.

As with the hospitality industry in general, the café sector is typified by low pay,high labour turnover, low levels of unionisation and a workforce in which the youngand poorly qualified are over-represented (People 1st, 2009). People 1st, the sectorskills council, and the employers’ group, the British Hospitality Association, areconcerned to challenge the stereotype of the hospitality industry as offering nothingbut ‘dead-end’ employment:

We want to see the industry held out as a great vehicle for social mobility . . . it is a huge engine forrecruiting people with few or no qualifications and giving the chance to progress. [BHA, 2010: 16]

Indeed, Fuller (2006) suggests that a number of branded coffee shop employers areshifting towards a model of greater internal opportunities through in-house trainingand upward progression from entry-level jobs.

In order to examine the extent and nature of progression opportunities within thesector, the article draws upon interviews with workers and managers in a range ofcafés located in the Midlands region of England. For the purposes of this research, a‘café’ is defined as an establishment selling predominantly sandwiches and non-alcoholic drinks, and offering a counter service, normally with a seated area availablefor consumption. The sample includes 16 outlets from 11 different companies, six ofwhich are the market leaders. Workplaces were selected to cover branded coffeechains (BrandA, BrandB, BrandC, BrandD), multi-brand companies (MultibrandA),franchises (SandwichA), combined bakery/sandwich outlets (BakerA, BakerB), inde-pendent cafés (IndCaf) and those located within major retail stores (RetailA,RetailB). The numbers employed in each outlet ranged from five to 24. Some of thekey features of these organisations are presented in Table 1.

In each case, semi-structured interviews were normally held with the café manager,team leader or supervisor and café assistants. Interviewees were asked about theirwork histories and qualifications, how they obtained their current job, the nature ofthe work, any training they had received and their career orientations and aspirations.In total, 54 interviews were conducted between April and June 2010. The followingsection briefly outlines the job of a café assistant before identifying whether any of thecompanies operated some form of ILM. The article moves on to explore the prospectsfor upward mobility for individuals, focusing in turn on café assistants and then



Tab

le1:

Key

feat

ures

ofth

eor

gani

sati

ons

Mar

ket

Caf

éas

sist

ant

pay

Supe

rvis

orpa

yM

anag

erpa

yP

rogr

essi

onop

port

unit

ies

Bra

ndA

(3ou

tlet

s)B

rand

edco

ffee

chai

n5.

80–6

.10

6.05

–6.2

58.

70Y

es—

stru

ctur

ed

Bra

ndB

(2ou

tlet

s)B

rand

edco

ffee

chai

n5.

85–6

.50

7.55

–7.7

511

.00

Yes

—st

ruct

ured

but

lack

ofav

aila

ble

posi

tion

sB

rand

CB

rand

edco

ffee

chai

n5.

80–6

.10

6.70

8.20

Yes

—st

ruct

ured

but

not

effe

ctiv

eat

this

outl

etB

rand

DB

rand

edco

ffee

chai

n—m

ainl

yfr

anch

ise

5.80

6.25

8.70

Lim

ited

Mul

tibr

andA

(2ou

tlet

s)B

rand

edco

ffee

chai

nan

dsa

ndw

ich

bar

5.80

6.50

8.00

Yes

—st

ruct

ured

Sand

wic

hA(2

outl

ets)

Fra

nchi

sesa

ndw

ich

bar

5.80

5.80

–6.7

56.

25L

imit

ed

Bak

erA

Lar

geba

ker/

sand

wic

hch

ain

6.20

6.70

9.50

Som

e—m

ore

info

rmal

,lim

ited

posi

tion

sB

aker

BM

ediu

m-s

ized

bake

r/sa

ndw

ich

chai

n5.

80n.

a.7.

00So

me—

mor

ein

form

albu

tve

ryfe

wpo

siti

ons

IndC

afIn

depe

nden

tup

-mar

ket

café

5.80

7.60

n.d.

Lim

ited

Ret

ailA

In-h

ouse

café

larg

ere

tail

chai

n6.

20–6

.53

7.00

8.70

Yes

—st

ruct

ured

wit

hin

the

stor

e,re

quir

esm

ovem

ent

out

ofca

féR

etai

lBSu

bcon

trac

ted

café

larg

ede

part

men

tst

ore

5.80

6.20

8.60

Som

e—m

ore

info

rmal

,req

uire

sge

ogra

phic

alm

obili

ty

Not

e:P

ayis

£/ho

ur.T

hena

tion

alm

inim

umw

age

atth

eti

me

was

£5.8

0.M

anag

ers’

pay:

self

-rep

orte

dor

typi

cals

tart

ing

pay

inth

ese

orga

nisa

tion

s.n.

a.,n

otap

plic

able

;n.d

.,no

tdi

sclo

sed.



supervisors and managers. It considers attitudes to progression as well as the oppor-tunities and barriers to upward mobility within the industry.

4 A CAREER IN CAFÉS?

The job of a café assistant is to serve customers at a counter, make and sell drinks,sandwiches and snacks, undertake some preparation, and clean tables and other areasof the workplace. In some coffee shops, workers trained on the coffee machines arecalled baristas, but for simplicity, the term ‘café assistant’ is used throughout. In tenof the 16 outlets, café assistants started on the national minimum wage, which was setat £5.80 at the time, with the highest pay (£6.30) found at one outlet from a brandedcoffee chain (BrandB). Tips were either negligible or non-existent. Staff normallyworked shifts of between six and ten hours, with either a 20- or 30-minute break. Mostcafés opened throughout the weekend, although in only one case were premiums paidfor working on Sundays. The work is physically demanding. In addition to servingcustomers, the job involves cleaning, bending as well as lifting and carrying heavyitems, with staff on their feet throughout the entire shift.

There is evidence that some of the organisations in the study were making consid-erable efforts to recruit internally for higher-level positions in order to motivate andretain staff and ensure that managers understood the nature of the business. Threeorganisations (BrandA, BrandB and MultibrandA), all large employers with manyoutlets, had highly structured systems of training and development, alongside clearpathways for progression. These appeared to operate relatively effectively at theoutlets visited. At BrandA, those wishing to progress to supervisor undertook sixweeks training in store which involved work shadowing and undertaking variouscourses. The chain also provided opportunities to progress to assistant manager,manager and district manager positions. The aim was to place new recruits onto asystematic programme of progression, with regular performance appraisals everythree months offering staff the opportunity to discuss with their line manger wherethey saw themselves heading. A similar pay and progression structure was found atBrandB.

At a third company, MultibrandA, which is a large organisation operating with arange of branded outlets, the senior HR manager stressed that the company was keento encourage progression, with a clear pay and career structure that begins withcustomer service assistant and provides steps through to unit manager and beyond.There was a system of ‘competitive succession planning’ in place, with regularmonthly reviews so that ‘we can see where [potential] managers are sitting at themoment and how long it is going to take them to go to the next role’. For thosewishing to progress to manager level, a structured programme of further training wasavailable to newly appointed assistant managers covering areas such as people man-agement, recruitment and the financial aspects of the business.

Many staff from these organisations were impressed with the progression oppor-tunities on offer:

You can go in as a barista, you can apply to be a supervisor, assistant manager, manager, districtmanager and you can work your way up and I think that is good. [Chris, café assistant, BrandB]

No one sticks for long [in the role]. I mean I have been in this company for two years and I have takenon a barista a year ago, she is now a manager in training and I’m being promoted as a centre ofexcellence manager . . . [manager, BrandA]



A male unit manager, originally from Pakistan, who had worked for 12 years atMultibrandA and the company it took over, commented: ‘Yes you can [progress]. Iam sitting in front of you and I started as a CSA [customer service assistant] and I amsitting as a manager today.’

The manager of another branded coffee shop (BrandC) stated that there was aformalised system of training and development which appeared similar to the othercompanies, although at this outlet the systems did not seem to operate as officiallystated. The staff interviewed complained that they had not received the opportunitiespromised:

I think since November, I was barista, which is a team leader, a supervisor, I got told I will go on mycourse straight away, no one has gone on the course and it is now July and no one is on theircourse . . . [Claire, café assistant, BrandC]

The only other outlet which was found to have a systematic process in place forprogression was an in-house café of a large multiple retail store (RetailA). However,to obtain a management position required moving across into the general retail area.

Some other organisations (RetailB, BakerA, BakerB) sought to recruit internallyfor supervisor and managerial positions but were less formalised and structured intheir processes.

the only people to have an appraisal is me and the assistant manager . . . if the position is there it is moreto do with the area manager. [manager, BakerA]

if vacancies come in other shops you can apply for them . . . They used to be sent through in the postsaying, such and such and that, but you don’t hear of anything at the moment. [manager, BakerB]

In the franchise operations and in single-site independents, the possibilities ofinternal promotion were generally limited to assistant manager or manager eitherbecause there were no higher level jobs or the owner/franchisee was the café manager.

5 PROGRESSION TO WHAT?

The existence of job ladders in a number of organisations appears to be a very positivefinding. However, there are questions as to the numbers who can climb the ladder andthe quality of higher-level posts. In most organisations, supervisors (the first step up),whose main responsibility is to run the shift, were paid between £6 and £6.50 per hour,although in one outlet (BrandA), pay reached £7.75. In effect, most received between20 and 50 pence per hour above the rate for the café assistant job, a rise of between 3.5and 8 per cent. In only four outlets did hourly pay exceed £7. Most organisations alsohad in place assistant manager roles, with rates of pay ranging from £6.40 to £7.95 perhour, which might include some additional responsibilities, for example, acting asstand-in manager. To move beyond low pay, therefore, requires progression to jobsbeyond the assistant manager position.

5.1 Who wants and is likely to progress?

Individuals will have different motivations for working in these jobs which mayinfluence whether they want or are likely to obtain progression. The study found awide range of individuals working as café assistants, from students earning moneyduring their studies, women with young children, migrant workers, those who want acareer in the sector and others who have simply ended up in this job as it is relatively



easy to obtain, requiring no experience or qualifications. There was evidence ofpatterns in recruitment reflecting the type and location of the cafés in the sample.1 Inthe branded coffee chain shops, the workforce tended to be mainly white and British-born, younger without children and included similar numbers of men and women.These chains were also more likely to rely on students working part-time. The non-student workforce mostly possessed either good GCSEs (General Certificate of Sec-ondary Education) or A-levels2 and included a number of ex-students who haddropped out of college or university. The branded cafés tended to rely on part-timecontracts, with non-student staff typically working full-time hours, thereby providingmanagers with flexibility to match staff more closely to business demands.

A second identifiable group of cafés were those that formed part of retail bakerychains or were located in large retail outlets. The majority of staff were older (in theirlate 30s and 40s), white British-born women with relatively few qualifications who hadworked in various hospitality and retail outlets throughout their working lives. Mosthad a relatively poor experience of schooling and possessed few qualifications. Theywere joined by a small group of young women—some with children, others who hadsimply ‘ended up’ in these jobs and a few Saturday ‘girls’ from local schools andcolleges. A number of those with children worked part-time hours, but the rest wereprovided with full-time contracts.

The third group of cafés included those located at a regional airport (Multi-brandA) and two outlets of a large franchise operation (SandwichA). In these work-places, there was widespread use of migrant labour and recent immigrants whichwas not a feature of the other cafés in the sample. The transport costs and unsocialhours required at the airport may make these jobs less attractive to local workers,while SandwichA was considered to offer poorer quality employment than else-where. In some cases, these workers were highly qualified in their home country,although a number suffered from poor English language skills.

The availability of progression opportunities does not map neatly onto thesethree different types of café outlets. In one of the branded coffee chains (BrandD),there was little room for promotion, whereas in the airport outlets of MultibrandA,there was found to be a highly structured progression route. The key questions arewho obtains these positions, to what extent are qualifications important and is thereevidence of any lack of aspiration to move up the ladder? Ten of the 25 café assis-tants stated that they wanted to progress either within their own organisation or inanother similar type of workplace. Only three of these ten were confident that theywould be promoted by their existing employer. Two were fairly recent migrants, aPolish graduate about to be made a supervisor at MultibrandA and a recent starterat BrandA born in the Middle-East and educated in Germany, with previous man-agement experience in hospitality. The third was a young man at BrandC who haddropped out of A-levels and felt that he would soon be able to undertake an assis-tant manager’s course.

1 These findings are likely to reflect the geographical location of the sample and the specific local labourmarkets, for example lower levels of employment of migrant workers than in the South East of England.However, in three of the six locations, the local population included significant numbers of ethnicminorities.2 GCSEs are qualifications usually taken at age 16; A-levels are academic qualifications normally taken atage 18 and are the main entry route to university.



Of the other seven workers, all women, there were a number of reasons why theyfelt that progression internally was unlikely. Four cited issues ranging from limitedself-confidence, reluctance to take on a management role and the lack of availablepositions.

If I was to move up I don’t think that I would want to be in management because I think that I wouldfind it too stressful [Amy, café assistant, RetailA]

You do get stuck because obviously you can’t venture up until there becomes a vacancy, other than thatyou are stuck as a general assistant. [Sarah, café assistant, BakerA]

The prospect that three of these four workers would move elsewhere for a differentjob in the near future seemed unlikely as job tenure ranged from five to ten years. Theother three workers who would have liked to progress explained that there weresimply not the opportunities because they had children and worked either part-time orrestricted hours.

A larger group of 15 café assistants stated that they were not interested in progress-ing within this type of work. Only three expressed their general satisfaction with thejob and that it fitted with their current lifestyles. Two were women with youngchildren who worked part-time, one of whom had been a supervisor before. The thirdworked part-time and used the job to support himself while playing in a band. Eightof the 15 workers, all in their teens and early 20s, had plans to either return toeducation or do something ‘completely different’. Some of these plans were quiteconcrete, such as undertaking an apprenticeship in caring, or taking up a place in thenew academic year to pursue a Masters degree. Others were more vague, with justsome notion of ‘doing something else’. Some of these workers had previously droppedout of college or university. One café assistant, for example, who had A-levels and hadworked in the job for three years, was saving up money to go travelling—‘It doesn’tinterest me, no. I don’t intend to work here forever’ (Chloe, RetailA)—but had noidea about what she would do afterwards. A male café assistant at BrandA, who haddropped out of university and had been in the job for just over two years, took asimilar view: ‘I just want to move on to something different. It’s nothing to do with thecompany . . . I don’t want to be stuck here for another five years’. He had alreadybeen a supervisor but was demoted due to lack of ‘effort’, having ‘completely lostinterest in the job . . . I think it’s about 20 pence more an hour and I just thoughtwhy?’

A woman in her early 20s with A-levels and qualifications in travel and tourism hadbeen in the job for over a year in the hope that working in the airport would help herto access airline jobs. She had recently been turned down for a supervisor position butinsisted she was ‘not stuck here . . . [I] haven’t been able to get my foot around thedoor and move on’.

. . . I probably wouldn’t want to be a supervisor of a coffee shop, I would rather do somethingelse . . . don’t get me wrong it is a good job, . . . I see really different people all day long, got a greatteam . . . but at the same time . . . you have got to think about income . . . I have been there like I said14 months and I am still on £5 something an hour and to me it is like heartbreaking when I open my payslip at the end of the month.

Free of family obligations, having youth on their side and with qualifications to fallback on, these workers still considered that they had a choice and did not regardthemselves as ‘trapped’ in their jobs. When pressed about their future career plans andstrategies, a number were rather sketchy. Some had been working in their job forseveral years and it is not clear to what extent their options in the wider labour marketwere as open as they believed.



Two workers stated that the main reason for not pursuing promotion was the payof supervisory and assistant management roles. Fiona in her 40s had been a managerin other hospitality organisations but had moved around the country following herhusband’s job. She was looking for a job elsewhere ‘because I know that I am muchbetter than that’ but found it easy to stay. However, she had refused offers ofprogression:

I don’t like what they make you do for a pound more. There is too much. You have to do service auditson people . . . six a week in the time you’re supposed to be doing your job . . . For what? The next leveland the level after that, the hassle that they get . . .

The other worker, a single parent working two jobs, had previously been anassistant manager in the café but found that the expectation of mobility wasimpossible:

The reason [for] leaving . . . was because I was transferred here, there and everywhere and I had got twovery young kids, and I couldn’t . . . and it didn’t fit in with my childcare, and then in the end it wascosting me more money. [Julie, BakerA]

Although many café assistants maintained that the organisations they worked forprovided opportunities for upward progression, few were actively seeking promotionand felt they would be successful. It is important to stress that general satisfactionwith their existing job, or lack of motivation, were not major factors cited. Instead, thereasons given were disinterest in the sector, poor rewards, the requirement to bemobile and/or to move location and the working time demands of higher-level posi-tions, which made progression particularly difficult for single parents.

6 GOING UP: SUPERVISORS AND MANAGERS

The interviews with café assistants provide an indication of their preferences inrelation to promotion and the opportunities that they felt existed, but who actuallymoves up to the next level? Of the 15 supervisors and assistant managers in the study,the majority entered these jobs via internal promotion from café assistant. The fourexternal recruits were previously in jobs at this level (or higher) in the hospitalitysector. Twelve out of the 15 were women, and the majority had qualifications whichwere low-level GCSEs or some entry-level college course.3 Most were aged between 20and 35 and almost all were childless, with only one working part-time. Of the six whohad qualifications at A-levels or above, three were considering staying within theindustry and progressing within the organisation, two of whom wanted the experiencein order to open their own food outlet.

These findings suggest that progression does take place internally but that qualifi-cations are not essential to the process. There seemed to be little evidence of agraduate displacement effect in terms of promotion, although there may be in relationto accessing entry-level jobs in some organisations. High turnover among studentshad persuaded one branded coffee shop chain (BrandA) to move away from employ-ing part-time students and to create more full-time jobs. It had become companypolicy to recruit ‘people who want a long-term job and career in this company’(manager). A supervisor at another branded outlet stated that in her experience,university students tended to view the job as temporary:

3 Examples of entry-level college courses are NVQ1 and NVQ2 in catering or business studies.



. . . most people I work with haven’t done university, they’ve taken a work-based route . . . it’s definitelystudents . . . that would be your baristas. Those at assistant manager level tend not to have gone touniversity. [Laura, BrandB]

These jobs are, however, only first or second steps and still remain low paid. Tomove out of low pay requires at least progression to café manager. Ten of the 15supervisors and assistant managers were seeking to progress further within theindustry. In only one organisation (BrandA), identified as having clear progressionroutes, was there a widespread positive feeling about the possibilities. A supervisorwas training to be an assistant manager, an assistant manager was training to be amanager and the other assistant was positive about being a store manager within sixto 12 months. As a café manager noted:

All of the baristas are becoming supervisors and it’s just continual, constant, there’s new shops opening,people are moving into them, so they are constantly needing that progression.

The large size of the chain, coupled with its continuing expansion, meant that it wasbetter placed to accommodate such aspirations than many of its rivals. However, suchopportunities were still not extended to part-time workers. One supervisor had beenallowed to return to her job part-time after maternity leave, but further promotiondepended upon working full-time:

Once my little boy goes to school I am hoping to retake up my full-time position and then work uptowards management, so I am stuck at the moment. [Amanda, supervisor, Multibrand]

In four other organisations (BrandB, BrandC, BakerA and BakerB), there weresaid to be significant delays in finding available openings for those who were lookingto manage a store:

I wanted to move and be like an assistant manager or manager but there is no positions for like 18months so that made my decision and I am not going to stay for that long. [Rachel, supervisor, BrandB]

In BakerA and BakerB, outlet managers had been in post for over ten years.Consequently, those seeking progression were dependent upon positions becomingavailable in other regional stores and the ability to travel some distance to work.

In cafés located within major department stores, there can be opportunities to moveinto positions within the wider store (as at RetailA). However, this route may be moreproblematic for those working for outside contractors. The manager of one such café(RetailB) had actively sought to block this route through discussion with the widerstore management, stating that ‘poaching’ of this kind was ‘one thing that makes mereally angry.’ The sub-contracted nature of the business meant that progression againdepended upon the willingness and ability to relocate for openings in the company’sother units. When asked if she could provide any examples of staff that had achievedprogression in this way, the manager, who had been in the job herself for five years,replied, ‘unfortunately not.’ Working for a franchise can be even more difficult, as atSandwichA, where one of the owner-partners also managed one of the outlets,thereby ensuring that any progression was confined to supervisory level.

Of the five supervisors and assistant managers who were not interested in furtherpromotion, three wanted to leave the industry, one to go into retail, another to run hisown business and a third to seek a job better matched to her qualifications. Jack, a38-year-old supervisor at BrandD, was quite happy in his job: ‘I know they areopening new bars across the country and if I wanted to relocate I could . . . but Idon’t . . . I come in, do what I have to do and go home, it is not my life.’ A Brazilian



woman in her early 30s had a Masters degree and had failed to complete a PhD at alocal university. She had worked at SandwichA for seven years, initially part-timewhile studying, and, despite being a supervisor, was still paid the national minimumwage. When questioned, her manager had simply informed her: ‘well if you want wecan demote you back to the normal sandwich person; it is just the way it is.’ While herambition was to enter academia, she realised that the long period she had spentworking at this sandwich shop had become a trap.

I prefer not to think too much about it because . . . I was not short listed for a job I was applying andso I am in a really low moment . . . In a way it is because you have a job, you are still employed . . . [but]it is not . . . like she is coming from really nice company and she is applying to be with us, no she is atSandwichA and . . . she has been working there for so long.

Of the other two supervisors, one was happy to stay in his position and a secondwas undecided as to her future plans, with her hopes focused on developing her ownbusiness in a different field.

The only position that these workers can move into is outlet manager. The role ofa manager varies considerably depending on the size of the organisation, the numberof staff and company policy, but a significant part of the job involves performingsimilar tasks to non-managerial employees such as serving customers. In the mostextreme case, the manager of one café (BrandD) was spending 95 per cent of her timeworking as a café assistant and only 5 per cent on managerial duties. To move ‘off thefloor’ generally requires a position that is beyond the role of café manager. Managersare typically salaried, and, in some cases, earn bonuses, although SandwichA wasfound to be paying only £6.25 an hour. Most started on £15–18,000 depending on thesize of operations, with the highest pay found to be £25,000 for an experiencedmanager at BrandA.

All nine managers interviewed worked full-time, six were women (none with youngchildren), and all but one was aged over 35. Two managers had degrees, both fromoverseas, and five had either no or very low qualifications. While three had progressedthrough the internal ranks of their current employer, the others had all worked in arange of retail and hospitality outlets, and had been recruited externally directly intomanagement jobs from positions as managers elsewhere. This indicates that there issubstantial external mobility at this level but that it is often horizontal rather thanupwards with the aim being to secure a better position at the same level. Promotionto outlet manager appears to occur only internally. Most managers had worked forover 15 years in the industry, making it a long, slow process to move upwards.

Of these nine managers, five felt that their organisations provided opportunities toprogress. Two managers of branded coffee shops (BrandA, MultibrandA) were verypositive about the opportunities.

I’m being promoted . . . so I’ve been moved to this store which is a busier store and a centre ofexcellence manager goes on all these workshops to become an area manager. And the lady who ran thisstore . . . now she is my area manager. And her regional manager was an area manager. [BrandA]

Two other managers (BakerA, BakerB) indicated there were some opportunities intheir companies but that these required them to be geographically mobile, which wasa problem as neither of them drove. Functional positions in areas such as marketingand training, while available, are quite rare and normally require relocation to headoffice.

For those who saw further progression as being difficult, organisational size is amajor obstacle. In companies (e.g. IndepA, BrandD, SandwichA) with one or two



shops or operating through franchises, there is simply nowhere to go after the job ofthe manager. One manager from a large coffee chain (BrandC) claimed that all of thepositions higher up were given to external recruits. While turnover is quite high atsupervisory level, the higher up the hierarchy one goes, the longer individuals tend tostay within the job and the more this creates blockages for those wishing to takemanager or senior managerial positions.

7 CONCLUSION

Café workers are a highly heterogeneous group, and there is no simple story inrelation to the demand for progression and the opportunities that are available in thesector. There are many café workers who do not see themselves as making a career inthe sector; when discussing progression, their narratives are dominated by, whatGabriel (1988) calls, ‘feelings of temporariness’. This applies to many students as wellas other relatively well-educated young people for whom the job is seen as short-termand who still regard their future employment options as being fairly open. In general,the young tend to cling to the notion that they still have a ‘choice’, even when theyhave been working in these jobs for a number of years.

ILMs appear to operate reasonably well within some organisations. Qualifications,however, would not seem to have much bearing on promotion prospects, and there isno evidence in these cafés that graduates are taking substantial numbers of higher-level positions. These jobs have gone predominantly to those with fairly low-levelqualifications, although the current cohort of supervisors is better qualified than theirmanagers. It may be that those with qualifications ‘drop out’ of the process by seekingmore advantageous employment options or it could be a generational shift as theselower-level jobs are taken by those with intermediate level qualifications. There is littleevidence of the intense competition for these higher-level jobs identified by Atkinsonand Williams (2003). This may be partly a result of the limited rewards on offer, withsome workers refusing offers of promotion, and the typical café staffing profile. In anoutlet with just ten workers, there would normally be two supervisors, an assistantmanager and a manager. Given high levels of turnover, those who remain for a yearor two are likely to see supervisory positions become available.

Upward progression in these organisations appears to occur predominantlythrough internal movement, notwithstanding considerable horizontal mobility at alllevels. Some workers continually seek a job that suits them better in terms of pay,hours, location and relationships with co-workers and managers, and potentiallyfuture progression opportunities. The steps up within a café environment are veryincremental with limited changes to job tasks and small additions to pay. As a result,there is little evidence of rapid progression to reasonably paid work. There is,however, evidence of downward mobility among women, which relates less to ‘moti-vation, aspiration and work orientation’ (Bukodi and Dex, 2010) and more to thestructure of jobs that require not just full-time work but hours that do not fit easilywith school-aged children. The flexibility demands of employers can lead to formermanagers and supervisors returning to the bottom grade, where they must wait toprogress until they can work all the shifts and hours demanded. Downward mobilityalso affects migrant workers and recent immigrants who once in these positions mayfind it difficult to move elsewhere.

For a small minority, this job is a stepping stone, but it is a very long journey withlimited rewards for most. In order to succeed in this sector, a person has to work in



a large organisation that has relatively structured training and development provi-sion, and which is expanding. They must be willing to work full-time and at weekends,be able to cope with a physically demanding job as well as survive on low pay formany years, be childless or have someone else who takes the main role in looking aftertheir children and they may also need to be geographically mobile. These require-ments apply even before considering issues of aptitude and motivation for a mana-gerial role.

Evidence from this research indicates that ILMs have not disappeared and that theystill offer organisations a useful motivational tool (for some workers) and a selectionand training device for future managers. The lack of research on progression makes itdifficult to assess how far this sector is an exception or whether it represents the realityfor many workers operating at the lower end of the labour market. Nevertheless, itdoes reinforce the view that it is not lack of qualifications or training that hindersupward mobility but the structure of jobs and the rewards on offer within specificlabour markets.

Acknowledgements

The research was financially supported by the Economic and Social Research Councilcentre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance. We would like to thankEwart Keep and the anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions.

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Flat whites: who gets progression in the UK café sector?