Paper short abstract:

Soft skills training for psychological and behavioural change to enhance productivity of the poor has contradictory implications for their political subjectivity. It elicits discipline and servility, yet also unleashes new understandings of the self and society, and a critique of power and hierarchy

Paper long abstract:

In upholding the importance of "mind, society and behaviour" in development, the eponymous World Development Report 2015 advances the view that monetary incentives are less critical than psychological and cognitive factors in shaping productivity and workers' motivation. The consequent emphasis on changing mindsets and behaviours is, however, already a significant feature of skill development initiatives that have been increasingly promoted in many parts of the world to tackle unemployment, especially among youth, as enterprise development has failed to solve the problem of livelihood generation. A key component of skill training is the inculcation of soft skills, including appropriate forms of attitudinal disposition and behavioural attributes, as well as emotional management of oneself and others in interpersonal relationships. These are promoted as effective tools to augment employability of the poor and ultimately contribute to social mobility. Counselling is now also a central feature of many workplaces, aimed to ensure efficiency and productivity through psychological competence. The highly contradictory implications of these practices for cultures of work and the political subjectivity of the poor are explored in this paper, with case studies from low-end service jobs in India's burgeoning private corporate sector. While the promotion of emotional labour, psychological resilience and behavioural reform of workers is aimed to elicit discipline, work ethic and servility, yet at the same time, emotional reflexivity and self-awareness, stimulated by organised training in soft skills, unleash new forms of understanding of the self and society, and give rise to a moral critique of power and hierarchy.