Products

Soft skills profile

The determination of the necessary soft skills of the employees in the culinary industry was the main task of the participants in the series of work meetings held in the end of February 2018 under the project " Integrated Culinary Arts and Restaurant Sector Employment Solutions for a Skilled and Inclusive Romania-Bulgaria Cross Border Region", financed by the INTERREG VA Romania-Bulgaria Program, Priority Axis 4; Investment priority: 1, Project code: 16.4.2.104, e-MS code: ROBG-192. "Dobrudja Agricultural and Business School" association organized three work meetings with representatives of the culinary and restaurant business from Romania and Bulgaria on "Soft skills of the employees in the culinary and restaurant sector" in order to define the basic five soft skills that are needed for the employed in the following professions - chef, bartender / waiter, baker / confectioner and restaurateur. The participants were acquainted with the essence of the personal skills, their role in the work process and how they influence the outcome of the work. The soft skills theme has been very popular in recent years, but the representatives of the culinary sector in the Dobrich-Constanta region were not particularly familiar with it. Personal skills experts have explained what soft skills actually represent and how they influence the workflow. A practical group work was conducted, in which the participants had to determine which skills, beyond the professional ones, are important for the culinary sector and in particular for their companies. Skill lists were also divided into two groups - Bulgarian and Romanian, and it was compared what skills are the ones with priorities on both sides of the border. As a result, more matches were deduced than differences. During the discussions, the participants actively participated in the issue of the quality of employees that would be most valuable and the actual state of the labour force. The work meetings ended with completing a detailed questionnaire with soft skills for four main professions in the culinary sector - chef, bartender / waiter, baker / confectioner, restaurateur. For each occupation, 15 soft skills were defined and the respondent person had to rank them in order of importance, with 1 being the most valuable skill for the profession. After the meetings were completed, the questionnaires were processed and based on the results obtained, this model of soft skills was compiled for the four professions in the culinary sector.