Social Competencies of Low-Skilled Workers. Empirical Studies

The article presents fragments of the research report, which was carried out as a part of the project: Examination of low-skilled workers (European Social Fund, The Operational Programme Human Capital). This Project was realized for the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development by Pentor Research International and Ecorys Ltd.; the author was a Key Expert in this Project and co-author of the Final Report. In the presented studies 100 low-skilled workers from each Polish Province, who belong to thirteen sectors of the economy, were asked to fill in a questionnaire. The Social Skills Questionnaire (Kwestionariusz Kompetncji Społecznych) by A. Matczak is the presented in this article method, which can be used in the diagnostic process of three factors of social competencies: social exposition skills, openness to interpersonal intimate communication and the social skills used in situation requiring assertive behavior. The low-skilled workers were asked about various problems and tasks on the social environment. The workers’ level of social competence turned out to be lower than average, especially for those with the lowest education level. On the basis of the results of the research, the image of those employees was created. In the summary conclusions and recommendations for further educational and vocational counseling were formulated