Developing Soft Skills, the Intangible Qualities Empowering
Competitiveness and Success in the Labor Market, Case Study, Elbasan,
Albania
ELVIRA FETAHU
Department of Marketing,
Faculty of Economics,
University of Elbasan,
Rruga “Ismail Zyma”, Elbasan,
ALBANIA
LENIDA LEKLI
Foreign Languages Department,
Faculty of Humanities.
University of Elbasan,
Rruga “Ismail Zyma”, Elbasan,
ALBANIA
Abstract: - This paper aims at providing a general view of the world of entrepreneurship in Elbasan helping to
understand the direction and skills workers should be trained for. Employees of a business characterized by a
satisfactory level of vocational training and competencies, including soft skills help a lot in promoting and
encouraging successful business competitiveness in the sector where it operates. However, creating such a
competitive team is a real challenge nowadays in the context of many confrontations with problems of the
external environment but also as a result of many other factors related to the employees' education, training,
individual skills, etc. This research, focused on Elbasan, intends to present an extensive analysis of the data
collected through a detailed and well-elaborated questionnaire for a sampling of 39 selected businesses in 5 main
sectors. These businesses' data were collected about their employees, their soft skills' mastering, their professional
training, internships, and future needs for professions in cases where businesses have anticipated their growth.
Finally, the study presents its main findings highlighting the professional competencies currently required by the
labor market, current workplaces, and the selected businesses. Furthermore, the paper provides recommendations
for businesses, employees also the institutions involved in this process, whose applicability would create further
improvements in business services, employability, and improvement of workers’ skills within the framework of
soft ones.
Key-words: - employability; soft skills; competencies; success competitiveness.
Received: October 16, 2022. Revised: April 3, 2023. Accepted: April 27, 2023. Published: May 11, 2023.
1 Introduction
The distinct gap that exists between school and the
labor market can be reduced by increasing
employees’ professional skills, and their developing
life skills which are currently known as "soft skills".
Over the last few years, Vocational Education and
Training in Albania (VET) has been strongly
supported by the government and some other foreign
donors to build a cooperative efficient system
between the basic knowledge obtained through the
educational system and the one considered necessary
in practice. Current educational systems are time
conditioned lacking what is known as “global
cohesion”, [1], i.e not being able to match the
requests of the labor market. Therefore, the main
question that arises is: How can actors, such as
entrepreneurs or even education itself contribute to
reducing or eliminating this gap? Providing an
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answer to the above question would have an
immediate effect not only on youth's employment
but even on the progress of companies and
businesses which constitute the engine of a country’s
economic growth. On the other hand, studies
conducted over the last years have displayed the
increasing need for employees whose soft skills are
well developed and follow the requirements of
society. Entrepreneurs do more and more observe an
increasing deficiency of personal skills in their
employees, rather than professional ones.
Consequently, in the framework of these
competencies and the required professional skills,
there was a consolidated idea in preparing and
applying for this project proposal, which is focused
on Elbasan
1
This project aims at presenting a broad
analysis with the data collected through a pre-
selected business sample in Elbasan, which through
an appropriate questionnaire identified and
diagnosed the required professional skills as well as
the soft ones, highly estimated by today’s labor
market and entrepreneurs too. The research includes
39 businesses, covering five main sectors in Elbasan,
which are being required to gather data about their
employees, their professional skills, their
workshops, practices, etc. In the end, the research
presents its main findings and provides
recommendations for the businesses as well as other
institutions involved in this process. Their
applicability would undoubtedly bring further
improvements not only for the businesses
themselves but even for the workforce.
2 Literature Review
2.1 The Importance of Soft Skills
One of the most urgent issues researchers argue
about in the field of vocational education nowadays
is that of guaranteeing that the current education
provided to young people does enable them to meet
the main purpose of the country’s economic
progress, and youth’s adaptation to the labor market.
1
Elbasan is the third biggest town in Albania. There are
many preschools, 9th grade, and secondary school
educational institutions in Elbasan, as well as the
University of Elbasan "Aleksandër Xhuvani". Elbasan is
also an important industrial center.
But how does education enable young people to be
successful in their personal and professional life?
How are young people prepared for the future taking
into account that a considerable percentage of them
will probably work in professions which are not yet
present in the current labor market? As Feargal
Quinn, [2], expresses in his paper “Acquiring the
‘Right’ skills” investment in young people through
education should include cognitive and non-
cognitive skills, it is to be broadly agreed and
accepted that it is going to be the method that will
teach youth how to learn quickly and how to quickly
adapt in a changing dynamic environment. This way
of thinking highly emphasizes that the basis for
successful vocational training lies in the
implementation of various practices offered by the
educational systems themselves of different
countries. Concerning what is mentioned above, in
her publication, Sophie M. Sparrow, [3], says that
what is observed in students by professors in the
classroom, such as lack of attention or
irresponsibility in the accomplishment of the given
assignments, lack of interest and participation in new
projects, etc. it is actually what is transmitted by
these students in the future, highly reflected even in
the relationships with their employers; otherwise
said lack of the above soft skills considerably
influences and determines the employee-employer
relationship in the labor market. It is to be
highlighted that the labor market is often a cruel
teacher/educator for young people. If their initial
work experiences are unpleasant, likely, their future
perspectives will not meet their labor expectations,
[4].
2.2 Nature of Soft Skills and Their
Assessment
Although there may be different opinions as to
whether these characteristics (soft skills) are
inherited or acquired through the years, empirical
evidence
2
found in the study of law students support
the idea that it is not a waste of time or effort on the
2
Kehner, supra note 3, at 60 (“Empirical evidence
supports the view that professionalism education in law
school is not a waste of time and effort; a person’s
character is molded and changed beyond the teenage
formative years, based on one’s experience and
reflection.”)
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side of the professors to encourage young people's
rehabilitation towards these skills, since a person's
character is molded and altered even beyond the
teenage years, based on someone's reflection and
experience. Based on the consulted literature, despite
the opinion expressed by Peggy Klaus that soft skills
are often the least estimated ones, [5], it is to be
highlighted that they (soft skills) are essential in
many disciplines, such as analytical disciplines,
research sciences, operations management, [6],
information systems, financing, project
management, leadership, [7]. Many researchers have
been trying to quantify the importance of soft skills
and technical skills. Reports have shown that when
asked about the importance of various skills,
information technology managers in the role of
employers, did estimate soft skills as being superior
to technical ones which might sound surprising to
every reader taking into account the level of
technicality required by an individual working in the
field of information technology. Beyond what can
be displayed in the CV of a job searcher,
cooperation, leadership, and teamwork skills, as well
as many others evidenced by the author Nitin
Bhatnagar in his book “Effective Communication
and Soft Skills-Strategies for Success”, [8], along
with the communication skills and those of using a
foreign language, particularly in the service industry,
considerably enhances employment possibility of an
individual who possesses these capacities, pieces of
evidence which are also highlighted by Vishwanath,
[9], as useful conclusions of their studies.
Employers’ role in the assessment of their
employees’ soft skills is essential too. Work reports
or analyses for instance are highly used by the
employers’ communities as a good way of setting
employment criteria, training curricula or
employees’ performance assessing criteria, etc. In
general, these analyses tend to consider a job as
fixed in its nature (consequently even in its skills’
requirements), thus treating the individual or the job
candidate as a skill-characterized profile that more
or less fits a specific job. Work analyses also tend to
prioritize the routine or unchangeable aspect of a
job. Consequently, through these realized analyses,
within a determined context, it is possible to achieve
a closer common approximation of employers’
requirements regarding soft skills. Some scientific
researchers have also conducted experiments with
cognitive skills to understand analytic thinking and
“problem-solving”, [10], as two other important soft
skill elements broadly treated even by the author
Soumit Sain in his book “Customer Knowledge
Management”, [11]. These researchers have also
included the development of a standard set of
questions that intend to discover different types of
knowledge or manners that can assist in learning
how to perform a task in a certain workplace [9].
2.3 Context
At the center of an innovative and competitive
economy, investments in human capital and the
quality of the educational system are crucial,
consequently providing more workplaces for the
people. Enhancing young people's employability
means ensuring that they are taking the appropriate
skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will enable them
to find a job and cope with the unpredictable
changes in the labor market during their entire
professional experience and career. Vocational
training and education aim to provide knowledge
and practical skills which enable an individual to
perform activities in terms of a profession or a range
of professions; consequently, vocational training
plays an essential role in the economic development
of every country. According to INSTAT
3
, the labor
market data suggest that the economic growth in
Albania has translated into considerable
improvements in the labor market. Job creation
recovered after a significant decline in 2013, which
encouraged economic growth and employability
increase to move in a parallel way. Although the
employment rate in Albania for people aged 15-64
increased by 50% by the end of 2013, and 59.5% by
the end of 2018 marking in this way one of the
highest ratios among the countries of the Western
Balkans, it remains below the average of the
European Union countries. However, it is to be
stressed that the rate of employment has improved
significantly, especially among women (from 40%
in 2013 to 52.4% in 2018). In the framework of the
increase of employment in our country, as it is
already mentioned above, in addition to vocational
competencies and skills, it is necessary to encourage
the development of language skills as part of soft
skills, which significantly serve in recognizing
social, cultural and economic differences of other
countries too. Young people's engagement in
different courses, or choosing vocational education
3
, Institute of Statistics
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are other alternatives that might considerably affect
the increase of employability for young people, as
one of the most active forces of society. Education
can never remain static, it is necessary to be
frequently challenged, particularly in vocational
training and the development of soft skills. In all this
situation created in vocational training and education
in Albania, it is necessary to undertake concrete
actions that increase the importance of vocational
education, vocational courses, or institutions that
support the improvement of vocational competencies
and soft skills required nowadays by the labor
market.
Fig. 1: Geographical location of Elbasan, Albania
Concerning this, it is necessary changing the
approaches to the realization methods of vocational
practices, by taking the necessary
information/knowledge and matching it with the
personal traits which together contribute to creating
the appropriate soft skill of an individual enabling
him/her to be able to compete in the labor market.
Only in this way can job searchers always reflect
and do their best about their soft skills and
vocational capacities too.
3 Methodology
The materials and methods used in the realization of
this paper fit the questions raised through the
observations and a well-structured questionnaire. All
these questions aimed at highlighting the topic
treated in this study. The methodology process went
through some steps before coming to the final phase
of data generation and interpretation. The three main
phases used in the realization of this research are:
3.1 Preparatory Phase
During this phase, there were designed and
concretized the appropriate activities which would
support the observations and necessary capacities for
the realization of the objectives. Taking into account
that the main observation unit was the businesses,
one of the main and strongest points was that of
determining the institutions from which cooperation
was needed to forward the data for drawing up an
inclusive list of all the businesses operating in
Elbasan. The list of all the operating subjects
(businesses) in Elbasan constitutes the basic
document being used as the Population of this
research. The document contained data from 6651
businesses. After reviewing the data, the list was
processed reaching a total of 6502 businesses (149
businesses less) which do represent the total
population for the realization of this research study.
This database of businesses was processed according
to three specific criteria: business classification;
business industry and business category.
Referring to this classification,
approximately 74% of the businesses are small, and
25% of the businesses are considered to be big ones.
This means that our sample highly depends on the
classification of the small businesses, in which 52%
belong to the trade industry and nearly 35% belong
to the service industry.
3.2 Observation Phase
During this phase, an expert conducted a partial
testing of the questionnaire in case of improving its
content, and also to comprehend how the designed
template of the questionnaire would be understood
by the businesses. Following this testing, there were
concluded non-essential changes. After the final
reviewing process, the Final questionnaire template
was delivered to the work group engaged in its
completion.
3.3 Final Phase
This phase consists of processing the data gathered
from the questionnaires, creating a database as well
as analyzing the data generated to reach conclusions
and recommendations. The outcome of this phase is
developed and elaborated in the following section
“Main Findings and Analyses”.
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4 Results and Discussions
After the successful accomplishment of the above-
mentioned methodology phases, including
questionnaires and observations, the collected data
were processed and served to generate evidenced
results which were later used and analyzed to draw
useful results and recommendations.
4.1 General Data Evidenced in the Sample
Businesses
From the observations made and the data processed,
the sampled businesses appear as stable ones, if we
consider their experience in the market for more than
ten years, as already demonstrated in the table
below. For interviewing purposes, these businesses
demonstrate a satisfactory level of reliability,
towards the choice of alternatives that best fits them
in the questionnaire, because they are not new
businesses in the market and they do already have a
concretized range of activities, capacities of human
resources such as well as skills they want their
employees to have to meet the required productivity
and performance during the working process.
Table 1. Years of operating sampled businesses in
the market
Starting
year of
activity
1990-
2000
2006-
2010
2011-
2015
2016-
2020
Number
of
businesses
7
Busine
sses
12
Busines
ses
11
Busines
ses
7
Busines
ses
Operating
years in
the
market
20-30
10-14
5-9
0-4
4.2 Characteristics of the Realized Activity
and the Required Professions
One of the main purposes of the questionnaire was
also the provision information on the current
professions that are carried out in the selected
industry/category businesses (which constitute the
majority of the business activities operating in
Elbasan), as well as business planning for expansion
over a mid-term planning period 3 to 5 years. When
a business expands, the human resources required to
cope with the increased flux would logically
increase, but the interest in this questionnaire is
whether business expansion would be accompanied
by a change in the current occupations or whether
businesses would increase the range of
activities/services or even processes currently
offered. More than 50% of the operating businesses
pretend their activity is expanding, but only 1/3 of
them would need extra professions different from
the ones currently offered.
Differently said, only 26% of the businesses are
planning to include different profiles in their
operating activity, meanwhile 74% of them will
continue to offer the same products or services. The
following table provides groups of similar business
categories (which do currently share the same
operating activities) accompanied by the appropriate
information about the required professions, business
expansion planning as well as the extra required
professions/jobs as a result of the latest one.
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Table 2. The jobs required by businesses for their functioning and the extra required professions in case of
expansion
Industry
Business Category
Professions currently
required
Expansion and the
extra professions
Extra professions
Building/
construction
Building/construction
Building engineer, Workers,
Economist, Driver
X
X
Production/
Service
Textile/Tailoring
Tailor, Salesman, Economist
X
X
Production
Furniture
Administrator, Production
manager/supervisor, worker,
Architect, Engineer,
Economist, storekeeper
X
Free profession
Accounting expert/
Lawyer
Practiced professions
X
X
Service
Bar-Cafe
Waiter, bartender, bartender
assistant, cleaner, Economist,
Manager, security guard
+
Staff manager, kids’
animator, gardener
Service
Restaurant
Waiter, bartender, bartender
assistant, cook, cook assistant,
cleaner, dishwasher,
Economist
X
X
Service
Barber / Hairdresser
Hairdresser, barber,
beautician, Economist
X
X
Service
Hotel service
Receptionist, laundry worker,
assistant staff, manager,
Economist
X
Service
Service
Electronic engineer,
Mechanic, auto electrician,
economist
X
Service
Events agency
designer, driver, assistant staff
X
Trading/
marketing
Marketing food products/
Delivery/
Supermarket/
Meat trading
Economist, Manager,
Operator, cashier, seller, hall
worker, driver/engine
mechanic, storekeeper,
butcher
+
IT worker, security
worker
Trading
Flower marketing
Flower seller, decorator,
Economist
Trading
Production, trading
maize flour
Worker, sales manager,
manager, Economist
+
Sales manager
Trading
Trading of industrial
products/building
materials
Seller, repair service,
Economist, worker
X
Trading/
marketing
Trade confections
Seller, worker
X
X
Trading
Gas trading
Gas seller, sales manager, Gas
skilled workers, Economist
+
Drivers for the
distribution of gas
Trading
Import-Export
Economist, online seller,
salesperson, Specialist
following the business activity
(electro-mechanic, Mechanic),
X
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a worker for organizing
products, loading-unloading,
drivers, cleaners
Trading
Pharmaceutical products
Pharmaceutical products,
Economist
X
Trading
Chancellery
seller, Economist
X
X
Trading
Trading households
Import manager, Economist,
engineer, welder, marketing
manager, seller, driver,
cleaner
+
Products services, air
conditioning
technician, furnace
worker
Trading
Trading/coffee
Sales manager, Economist,
assistant, a technician for the
machines
+
Mechanic engineer,
administrator of
online selling,
Graphic Designer
Trading
Trading of electronic
equipment
Sales manager, Economist
X
4.3 The Importance of Competencies and
Skills According to Businesses
To view the approach of businesses towards the
necessary competencies and skills that employees
should have, there were listed twelve skills evaluated
in four scales: Very important, Important, Little
important, and Nonapplicable. The listed
competencies generally demonstrate common skills
that can serve any industry/category business.
They do not represent specific skills for
specific businesses. The following table (Table 3)
represents the voting of businesses regarding these
skills. It also illustrates the level of importance per
each skill depending on the number of votes per
each of them. 66% of the skills have been assessed
as Very important, 33% of the skills have been
assessed as Important and only 1% of the skills have
been assessed as Little important.
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Table 3. Assessment scales per each of the presented skills
Competences/
Skills
Very important
Important
Little
important
Nonapplicable
Technical skills associated with the nature of
business
16
14
9
0
Communicative skills
33
6
0
0
Group work skills
24
12
3
0
IT Skills
8
10
5
3
Managing and leadership skills
9
17
9
4
Organization skills
18
17
4
0
Skills in working under workload conditions and
extended hours
22
15
0
2
Driving skills
14
8
9
8
Skills in adapting fast
19
19
1
0
Skills in learning fast
18
20
1
0
Integrity maintenance skills
18
15
6
0
Foreign languages skills
5
9
19
6
In the following Figure 1, it is emphasized that
the majority of the businesses, approximately 85%
of them, regardless of their classification, do
estimate employees’ communication skills as the
most important ones. The second most important
skills are considered cooperation skills and skills in
working under workload conditions and extended
hours.
IT skills turn out to be the least required skill
among businesses in Elbasan an expected result
given that businesses have not mentioned any IT
employees or experts.
10
14
16
17
18
18
19
19
20
22
24
33
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
IT Skills
Driving skills
Technical skills associated with the nature …
Leadership skills
Organisation skills
Integrity
Skills in ada pting fast
Foreign La nguages skills
Skills in lea rning fast
Workload conditions and extended hours
Cooperation
Communication
Skills' Assessment
Fig. 2: Skills assessment, ranking skills from the most to the least important ones
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Businesses have also been asked about the
weakest point of their employees, in which they
would like to see improvements.
The following table no. 4 summarizes some of
the answers according to the five-industry
classification.
Table 4. The weakest point of the employees according to industry-classification businesses
Industry
Employees’ weakest point
Building/
Construction
- Lack of professional skills
Production
- Communication skills
-Lack of motivation and desire to work
Free profession
-Reinforcement of basic professional knowledge.
-Personal and joint hygiene in the workplace
Service
-Lack of skill in working independently
- Lack of experience
-Lack of availability
-Lack of motivation
- The continuous request for a pay rise in cases of weak performances
-Slowness in learning a job.
-Tidiness and cleanliness in the personal or joint work environments
-Mobile use during working
- Non-expected productivity
Trading/Marketing
- Lack of motivation and willingness
- lack of communication and ethical norms
-Lack of personal development in terms of work
-Instability and rapid movement of the employees
- The missing experience increases training and time cost.
Another issue upon which businesses have been
asked about in the questionnaire is that of
businesses’ preferences in terms of their preferred
gender for recruitment.
12
13
14
11 11.5 12 12.5 13 13.5 14 14.5
Male
Female
Male/Female
Business preferences over preferred gender for
recruitment
Fig. 3: Business preferences over preferred gender for recruitment
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The above Figure presents business preferences
over the gender that is usually preferred for
recruitment. Results show that for most businesses
in Elbasan, gender is not essential. Businesses and
the service industry in particular, do agree that what
is important is the appropriate possession of skills
and competencies and the realization of the final
product in the required quality rather than the gender
of the employee.
Referring to the question of businesses’ preferences
about the educational level of their employees, the
following Figure illustrates the questionnaires'
answers. The question was addressed to most
employees, and higher education was assumed by all
businesses as a necessity for the managerial part.
19
12
6
6
0 5 10 15 20
Secondary school
University/High School
Vocational education
Not important
Businesses’ preferences over their employees’ level
of education
Fig. 4: Businesses’ preferences over their employees’ level of education
As can also be observed from the above Figure,
education is another issue most businesses do
consider to improve their employability. It turns out
that they prefer secondary education as a criterion
for their employees. 12 out of the total number of
businesses consider higher education as an essential
one. Meanwhile, only six businesses prefer
vocational training/education. The same percentage
goes with the choice of “Not important”. Some
relevant studies can be found in [12] and [13].
5 Conclusions / Recommendations
In the mid-term business plans for
expansion, only 1/3 of them would need
professions other than the current ones.
Statistically, 26% of businesses plan to
include new profiles during their activity;
and 74% will continue to offer the same
products or services.
An employee's roles in a small business (but
not necessarily only in a small business) are
not clearly defined, creating, in reality, the
multi-tasking employee who struggles to
realize the assigned tasks rather than
thinking of the quality.
Communication skill is estimated to be the
most important skill out of many others;
85% of the businesses do share the same
opinion on this. Meanwhile, the two other
most evaluated skills are cooperation and
working under workload conditions and
extended hours.
Another important factor that emerges from
the large sampled businesses taken into
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consideration for the realization of this
research is that the employers do not give
importance to specific professions such as
marketing/manager or specialist, import-
export manager, human resource manager,
IT specialists, etc. These professions are
currently offered by higher education in
Albania. Due to the above reasons these
professions may affect the current graduates,
reducing the interest among young people to
pursue higher education, oriented to these
professions due to the lack of a labor
market. Such general trends are bound to
affect youth's career choices in the future,
creating a gap between university or
vocational education offers and the labor
market's needs, which will be reflected in
future labor market vacancies.
Results show that most businesses in
Elbasan are indifferent to gender preferences
for recruitment. What matters for them is the
possession of the right competencies/skills
rather than gender.
Among the generated results, what needs to
be highlighted concerning the business's
employees' recruitment procedure is that
businesses in Elbasan widely use personal
acquaintances regardless of their industry or
business size, even though these businesses
want their employees to be more
professionally trained and skilled.
Most businesses prefer secondary education
for their employees. 12 businesses consider
higher education as an essential level of
education for most professions. In terms of
vocational education, it has been taken into
consideration only by 6 businesses.
Furthermore, the same number goes for the
choice “Not important”.
Almost all businesses seem to struggle with
the relationship between the employees and
their clients, in terms of communication and
behavior. So, after each educational level is
chosen, improvement of communication
skills is required.
What our society needs is a shift to a system that
inspires the love and passion for learning; preparing
our citizens for the real world, which thanks to the
development of technology is rapidly changing. We
as individuals and employees, need to identify and
master new skills to fairly compete in the labor
market. Only in this way can humans match the
society and businesses' needs and their acquired
hard/soft skills and competencies guaranteeing a
prosperous future for their families and ambitions
too.
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WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on BUSINESS and ECONOMICS
DOI: 10.37394/23207.2023.20.89
Elvira Fetahu, Lenida Lekli
E-ISSN: 2224-2899
975
Volume 20, 2023
Indonesia Be Achieve of Free Child Labor
in 2022?", WSEAS Transactions on
Environment and Development, vol. 17, pp.
410-417, 2021.
[13] Mariusz-Jan Radło, Artur F.
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Contribution of Individual Authors to the
Creation of a Scientific Article (Ghostwriting
Policy)
-Elvira Fetahu carried out the formal analysis, the
investigation process, methodology, supervision and
the resources selected for the compilation of the
paper.
-Lenida Lekli was responsible for the draft writing,
draft editing and the final publication version.
Sources of Funding for Research Presented in a
Scientific Article or Scientific Article Itself
No funding was received for conducting this study.
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
(Attribution 4.0 International, CC BY 4.0)
This article is published under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
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WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on BUSINESS and ECONOMICS
DOI: 10.37394/23207.2023.20.89
Elvira Fetahu, Lenida Lekli
E-ISSN: 2224-2899
976
Volume 20, 2023