Title: Perceived awareness and practised level of soft skills among personnel in the telecoms industry of Bangladesh

Authors: Tamanna Parvin Eva; Rumana Afroze

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, East West University, A/2, Jahurul Islam Avenue, Jahurul Islam City, Dhaka, 1212, Bangladesh ' Department of Business Administration, East West University, A/2, Jahurul Islam Avenue, Jahurul Islam City, Dhaka, 1212, Bangladesh

Abstract: Presently, organisations are emphasising on employees' soft skills to gain a competitive advantage. This study aims to explore the awareness level and practices of soft skills among managers and non-managerial employees in the telecom industry of Bangladesh. It also attempts to measure the correlation among various skills, discover the central role player in developing soft skills and identify the availability of training facilities in the workplace to improve those skills. A structured questionnaire has been administered to collect data from 75 respondents of five telecom companies with adopting a convenience sampling method. The quantitative approach has been followed to complete this paper. Collected data have been analysed through descriptive statistics: mean score, ANOVA and correlation analysis. The result reveals that respondents are well aware of soft skills and they are practicing the maximum number of contents in a similar way except effective action taking ability, integrity, experience in organising programs and being friendly. The study also discovers significant and positive relationships among several of soft skills. Moreover, self-motivation plays the central role to develop employees' soft skills which later organisations try to enrich through training. Findings would be beneficial for enhancing employees' soft skills practices to achieve competency.

Keywords: role player; training; organisational performance; telecom industry; soft skills awareness; Bangladesh.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEX.2021.111910

International Journal of Business Excellence, 2021 Vol.23 No.1, pp.33 - 70

Received: 21 Feb 2019
Accepted: 09 May 2019
Published online: 21 Dec 2020 *

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