Strategizing Soft Skills Resilience: A Holistic Approach to Mitigating COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Workforce Development

Abstract

: In today’s world, soft skills play a very important role for individuals. They help to be successful in the workplace or simply to be able to find a common language with anyone. They also have a crucial impact on the economy, as the acquisition of soft skills contributes to the more efficient functioning of enterprises and the economy as a whole. However, in the current context, due to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, certain difficulties have arisen in their development in countries around the world. That is why it remains relevant to conduct research in terms of their improvement (in particular, for the human resources potential of employees of enterprises and civil servants). Thus, the aim of the study was to develop a unified framework to help overcome the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the soft skills of employees in Ukraine, both in the public and private sectors. The main research methods used were analysis, forecasting, abstraction and the historical method. Thus, the paper investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the professional skills of the Ukrainian workforce. The article shows a decrease in the number of working-age population in the Lviv region and highlights various factors contributing to this decrease. It also analyses the correlation between different factors that influence the development of soft skills. Based on this, the paper then offers advice on how to overcome the consequences of the pandemic, and builds a model that summarizes the advice and provides an understanding of how it should be applied. The work will be useful for studying soft skills as such and understanding the possibilities of their recovery after the COVID-19 consequences; it also provides a better understanding of the impact of the pandemic on the development of Ukraine as a whole.