[00:31] Darren Jamieson:
On this week’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, I am speaking with Elda Bajraktari from Albania.
Elda works in HR, and she works with businesses and employees to help them better understand their responsibilities and their rights when they are working in Albania.
I’m going to be speaking to Elda about how she got into that business, and also what it was like with the regime change in Albania back in around 1990.
[01:00] Elda Bajraktari:
I have a cat and I love her so much.
[01:03] Darren Jamieson:
So, I’m surrounded by cat people. I really am. Cat people everywhere.
[01:08] Elda Bajraktari:
But apparently you are not a cat person?
[01:11] Darren Jamieson:
I’m not a cat person, no. There’s a cat person in the office today. He’s Hungarian. He’s got loads of cats.
[01:19] Elda Bajraktari:
Are you a dog person?
[01:21] Darren Jamieson:
I am a dog person, yes.
[01:23] Elda Bajraktari:
I see. I’m a cat person. Maybe this is connected to my inner character, because I feel I can manage a cat easier than a dog.
[01:36] Darren Jamieson:
And they take less looking after. That’s true.
[01:40] Elda Bajraktari:
Yes, less looking after. It’s smaller in size. Okay, you can have a small-sized dog, but still, a cat is smaller in size.
I feel the connection better with cats, not with dogs. Sometimes I’m even scared of dogs.
[01:56] Darren Jamieson:
No, I got into this discussion literally on a call yesterday. If you leave a dog at home and then you get home, your dog is going to be excited to see you. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve left it. You could have left it five minutes, five hours, five days. That dog is going to be excited to see you.
You leave a cat at home, and when you come back, the cat’s like, “What time do you call this? Where have you been? Where’s my food?”
[02:20] Elda Bajraktari:
My cat at home, she’s waiting for us at the door.
[02:27] Darren Jamieson:
Everyone says that. Everyone says, “Oh, my cat’s different. My cat loves me.”
[02:31] Elda Bajraktari:
Yeah, every time. Well, my mum, for example, because I’m living with my mum, when she goes out and she comes back, there is a certain spot where she always finds the cat waiting for her.
I’ve also experienced the same. When we go out together and we get back home, she can hear us from very far. Once I park the car, she can hear us, and then she’s at the door waiting for food and giving me some love at the moments I never expect.
[03:05] Darren Jamieson:
Waiting for food. Come on.
[03:12] Elda Bajraktari:
We also want food. We also want to be fed. We are also happy when somebody brings us a present or something unexpected.
However, it is true. I’m going home, but I’m not giving her food every time I go home. I’m giving her food only when I’m away for three or four hours.
[03:31] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[03:32] Elda Bajraktari:
But when I’m going in and out, no, I’m not giving her food every time I go in.
[03:38] Darren Jamieson:
She’ll learn. She’ll learn the pattern.
[03:41] Elda Bajraktari:
And she still loves me. You cannot imagine the pleasure you get when she hugs my hand into her own paws.
[03:51] Darren Jamieson:
Looking for food.
[03:53] Elda Bajraktari:
No, she wants me.
[03:56] Darren Jamieson:
Of course she does. Of course she does. All cat owners think that. All cat owners think their cats love them.
The reality is, if you had a heart attack, she’d eat you. That’s cats for you. They think, “Oh yeah, food.”
[04:09] Elda Bajraktari:
Excuse me?
[04:11] Darren Jamieson:
If you had a heart attack, your cat would eat you.
[04:19] Elda Bajraktari:
Okay.
[04:20] Darren Jamieson:
It’s true. Well, I suppose we’d better crack on then, hadn’t we?
[04:27] Elda Bajraktari:
Yes, go on. I haven’t prepared anything special for today.
[04:30] Darren Jamieson:
It’s all right. Neither have I.
[04:31] Elda Bajraktari:
Referring to the last conversation we had together, you said that we don’t go on a special script, but we follow the conversation.
[04:39] Darren Jamieson:
Follow the conversation, yeah.
So you’re based in Albania. Is that correct?
[04:44] Elda Bajraktari:
I’m based in Tirana, Albania.
[04:46] Darren Jamieson:
In Tirana, Albania. And you do public speaking?
[04:51] Elda Bajraktari:
I do human resources, and I do training sessions, workshops and seminars.
[04:58] Darren Jamieson:
So what is it you like more? Because some people don’t like speaking in front of people. They don’t like people looking at them and having to talk. It’s a common fear that people have.
So what’s made you want to do that?
[05:15] Elda Bajraktari:
It is true. I also had this fear, actually, until I decided to face it very recently, in 2022.
I was invited by my colleagues or by collaborators who knew my skills. I was invited to speak about career development, and this is how I cracked it somehow.
I had the first sessions online, and then I started teaching publicly, or face to face.
Indeed, I love teaching. Every time I had to explain something, either job-related or life-related, to a colleague, to a younger generation, or to an older generation, I was always told that I was very clear, crystal clear. People would say, “Oh yes, now I understand it.”
So somehow I have always had the ability to teach or to explain things, but I was hesitating for two main reasons.
The first reason was because of my career orientation. I was thinking that if I went into teaching, my career success would depend much more on the performance of others rather than on my own performance.
The second thing was a sort of inferiority, in the sense of, “Am I fully capable? Am I fully knowledgeable on this particular topic if I assume to address this topic in front of an audience?”
However, I have learned the lesson that you cannot be fully knowledgeable about everything and anything on this earth.
What you have to do is prepare yourself, focus on the audience’s needs, understand what the audience is looking for, prepare the topics, and have some sources to refer to if you have questions that go beyond the planned conversation or the planned session.
[07:34] Darren Jamieson:
Because that is a common fear, I think, among people. I hear from people who want to do podcasts, for example, but they think, “I can’t do a podcast because why would somebody listen to me? Why would somebody be interested in what I’ve got to say?”
It holds a lot of people back from doing it.
So you said you felt that worry before. You didn’t want to go and teach, you didn’t want to go and speak because you were worried that people wouldn’t want to listen.
[08:08] Elda Bajraktari:
Why would people listen to me? And what would happen if somebody asked me a question and I might not be able to answer that question?
I was pretending that I should know everything.
[08:19] Darren Jamieson:
But of course, you don’t need to pretend you know everything. It’s okay not to know stuff.
[08:28] Elda Bajraktari:
Definitely. But it took me a while to get to this stage.
It took my good friends and my good collaborators, who knew my skills, to really push me and encourage me to go on these sessions, because I would have never done this on my own initiative.
[08:48] Darren Jamieson:
Because they say with teachers in school, as a teacher, you don’t need to know the whole book that the class is reading. You just need to be one chapter ahead of the students.
[09:04] Elda Bajraktari:
Yes. In 1998, I graduated in English teaching, and that was quite an achievement for me, coming from the northeast part of Albania, which was very underdeveloped.
The regime changed in 1990, and in 1998, when I graduated in English teaching, this was quite an achievement for me. I was supposed to go and teach after my graduation.
But then it was a combination of factors. It happened that the Kosovo crisis started at that time. There were a lot of humanitarian agencies deploying in the country. They were in need of English-speaking people to assist with interpretation, translation and office work, and they were paying well.
So this was one reason that took me away from teaching.
The second reason, which I already mentioned, was that I was always fearing that my career in teaching would be much more dependent on the students rather than on my own efforts, because I really wanted to be successful.
[10:26] Darren Jamieson:
Successful.
[10:28] Elda Bajraktari:
Successful.
[10:30] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah. And of course, teachers are only as successful as their students are successful, because you need them to do well for you to do well.
[10:37] Elda Bajraktari:
Exactly. You need them to do well for you to do well. If they don’t do well, something must be wrong with your performance as a teacher as well.
[10:44] Darren Jamieson:
You mentioned the regime change there. That’s quite a hot topic at the moment, particularly with what’s going on in Iran in terms of possible regime change.
What do you remember about that time, from 1990? Was it 1990?
[11:04] Elda Bajraktari:
Yes. I was 14 years old at that time. I was very scared. I was afraid because we were brought up with the ideology that the regime that was in place was the best one.
There was so much uncertainty. What would happen if the regime changed?
Of course, I was young, and I had no right to vote or anything, but the atmosphere was like that.
Later on, I understood that people living in the capital had much more information than those of us who were living outside the capital.
I come from a town called Kukës. It is in the northeast of Albania, and it borders Kosovo, or the former Yugoslav Republic.
There were people who were somehow cheating the regime and able to watch TV stations from abroad. They could have some information and more information than myself or my family on what life was like in Western and more developed countries.
But me, myself, my family, we didn’t have that information. So I was personally scared by the change of the regime.
However, growing up, things changed, and we could see what the benefit of the regime changing really was.
[12:39] Darren Jamieson:
So at the time, you had no idea what Western life, Western civilisation, was like. You were kept completely in the dark from it.
[12:47] Elda Bajraktari:
We were kept completely in the dark, and Albania suffered the harshest regime, at least if you compare it with the former Yugoslav and former Soviet republics.
We were extremely in the dark. We could not travel. We didn’t know what was going on abroad. We didn’t watch TV from abroad. Everything was inside the country, apart from a very small group that belonged to the very top management of the country.
I can say that there must have been only one plane per week departing from our airport, while today you have hundreds of flights per day.
[13:43] Darren Jamieson:
So what’s your feeling about that time? Do you feel angry? Do you feel upset about what it was like before?
[13:53] Elda Bajraktari:
I cannot say I feel upset or angry. I can’t say that I have developed real feelings about that time.
But I can see the difference. I can see the change.
It is because of that past regime that we are suffering some difficult transitions, even after 30 years now.
Every change is a change, and people perceive change differently. At some point, you can hear people saying, “Ah, I miss that time.”
What they miss from that time is public order, for example. You can hear people of my age and even older saying, “Oh, we miss the time of public order.”
But one of the worst things about that regime was the discrimination among people because of propaganda issues, or the discrimination against people who were going against the regime.
They were left behind in every aspect. They were forced to live in the most difficult conditions. They were forced to leave their areas. They were not given the right to study. They were left behind in every aspect.
And not only the small family where the problem occurred, but the whole larger family connected to that family.
So this has been the worst thing, I would say. People leaving people behind, discriminating, not respecting human rights, and even going to torture and extremely difficult prison conditions.
[15:52] Darren Jamieson:
And even despite all of that, there are people who go, “Oh, I miss the public order. I miss the fact that there wasn’t petty crime on the streets, there wasn’t littering,” because people wouldn’t dare do that.
[16:09] Elda Bajraktari:
They wouldn’t dare, yes.
But those people who are referring to missing the public order of those years are not the ones who suffered those discriminations that I mentioned before.
[16:22] Darren Jamieson:
No, I suspect they weren’t.
[16:25] Elda Bajraktari:
No. So that’s why you have these categories.
[16:28] Darren Jamieson:
I remember at the time when Yugoslavia split up, they were supposed to be in the European Championships in 1992. Yugoslavia qualified, but they couldn’t go into it for obvious reasons. Yugoslavia didn’t exist anymore as a country.
So Denmark went in instead and ended up winning it.
Right now, there’s a World Cup in America, which Iran has qualified for, and obviously there’s possible regime change going on in Iran. Iran is very unlikely to be at the World Cup because it’s in America, and America is at war with Iran. It’s all a complete mess.
I’m seeing some parallels between the two situations.
Can you give any insight from your perspective? Because obviously you were there when it happened. What’s going on right now with Iran, for example? They have a regime where there’s public order on the streets because people wouldn’t dare do things, but things are changing.
Can you see anything that’s similar with the regime change?
[17:42] Elda Bajraktari:
There is a similarity when it comes to regime change, but in Albania’s case there was no need for extra intervention, if I can call US intervention in Iran “extra intervention”.
In our country, we had violent turmoil. We had violent situations. We had demonstrations, protests on the streets and people who got hurt.
But the change of the regime went on much more smoothly and lightly than it is presumably going on in Iran.
So despite the fact that we were in such a harsh regime, the change was not as violent and bloody as it is going on now in Iran.
[18:36] Darren Jamieson:
That’s good. That is good.
[18:44] Darren Jamieson:
How quickly did it happen?
[18:49] Elda Bajraktari:
In Albania, in less than one year. I think it was a matter of months, if I recall it correctly.
It started in December, or late November. Then it went on in December and January. In February, we had the demonstrative destruction of the monument of the former dictator.
In March, we had the first opposition party established, and I think it was April or May when we had the elections.
Again, in the elections of 1991, the ruling party won the elections. But in one year the regime collapsed completely. We had re-elections, and then we had the opposition come into power.
[19:55] Darren Jamieson:
All right. So it didn’t really last too long.
What was the first big change that you noticed from your day-to-day life?
[20:16] Elda Bajraktari:
From day-to-day life, the intangible thing was freedom of speech. This was very obvious.
People were free to speak. They could share their opinions.
I remember my father. He used to be part of the former regime party. He was a member of the Communist Party at that time.
I can recall, when I was little, he was always in fights with one of my uncles, saying, “Stop. Don’t speak, because you risk going to prison. You risk imprisonment.”
But later on, with the regime change, I didn’t hear these conversations anymore. That means people really felt the freedom of speech. They could share their opinions. They could share their dissatisfaction.
Later on, we also had economic development because of private businesses, free movement, products and goods. We started to be more exposed to Western countries, and we saw a lot of economic development.
We also saw a lot of competition. There is a lot of competition, in the sense that you have to fight to be successful in your field of expertise, or in what you want to build.
If you want to make money, if you want to make a career, or if you want to make a good name or reputation, you have to put a lot of effort into it. It’s not that easy.
[22:05] Darren Jamieson:
I always wonder what the changes are like on ground level.
My girlfriend’s Ukrainian, and she’s obviously in the UK because of things going on in Ukraine. She mentioned how, not that long ago, they had money, but they couldn’t buy anything. There wasn’t stuff in the shops. There wasn’t bread. There wasn’t milk. You couldn’t spend money.
Then suddenly Ukraine changed from being a country where you couldn’t buy anything to a country that had everything it needed. It was a very rapid change where you could go into the shop and buy whatever you wanted.
It always surprises me what it’s like on ground level.
You see all the big things about statues being toppled, governments changing and leaders changing, but what are the little things that you don’t necessarily know? Does the price of bread change, for example? Are you able to buy milk?
What are the very small things that you noticed?
[23:10] Elda Bajraktari:
It is true. We also experienced that.
That’s why I said economic development, because we went from a country where you couldn’t buy anything. Even the food was in portions.
You could buy only, let’s say, one kilogram of meat per week, and you couldn’t buy more.
[23:34] Darren Jamieson:
It was rationed?
[23:36] Elda Bajraktari:
Exactly.
Then you could buy everything. You have everything in the market. You can go and look for all sorts of milk, meat, cheese, dairy, fruits, even fruits that are not produced in the country but imported.
We experienced this even in the very early years after the regime changed.
I’m not speaking about now, because now we are very Westernised. We are very equal. Every time we travel abroad, we do not feel any big change in terms of access to clothes, food, machines, cars, vehicles, transport.
There isn’t much change now. But in the very early years of regime change, yes, you could buy anything.
[24:42] Darren Jamieson:
And I’m guessing it’s something that you would never want to go back to — the previous regime.
[24:47] Elda Bajraktari:
Definitely no. To the past regime, no. No, no. Never. Ever. No one.
[24:54] Darren Jamieson:
It’s interesting, because there are always some people who go, “Oh, it was better then.”
[25:01] Elda Bajraktari:
Yes, but it is a very, very few of them.
And that generation — I mean, we are speaking about almost 30 years now. So those who were 50 at that time are 80 this year.
The generations that were really experiencing, or really enjoying, if I can use this word, the time of the regime, they are passing away.
[25:31] Darren Jamieson:
We had a problem here some years ago where we voted, obviously, to leave the European Union because there were a lot of old people who thought life was better back then, and they were the ones who voted to leave, primarily.
The younger people didn’t want to. So the older ones voted to leave, then they died and left us with the problem, which was nice.
[25:56] Elda Bajraktari:
And are you regretting it now?
[26:00] Darren Jamieson:
Well, that’s the thing. It depends who you ask.
I think if they did a vote again, we’d vote to stay, because a lot of the people who voted to leave are dead. They’re older. A lot of the younger people wanted to stay.
Nobody can point to a single benefit, a single advantage to leaving. Not one.
[26:25] Elda Bajraktari:
Interesting.
[26:27] Darren Jamieson:
Not one. So yeah, it was a massive mistake. It should never have been proposed that we vote for it.
[26:36] Elda Bajraktari:
European Union is our aspiration. Albanians want to be part of Europe.
[26:45] Darren Jamieson:
Well, there’s a space. We’ve left you one. You can have it.
[26:50] Elda Bajraktari:
Yes, we are aspiring to get into the European Union.
Since 2009, we have had the visa-free regime, and we are travelling. I have experienced myself what it was like to travel before that and after that.
It is such a relief. Before that, you had to file an application to get a visa. You could get it, or you could not get it. You had to arrange with the expected party from the other side.
Nowadays, it’s very easy. You just buy a ticket, you go on a plane, and off you go. You enjoy.
[27:32] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah.
[27:34] Elda Bajraktari:
So we are aspiring to get into the EU in order to get the other freedoms that come from working, living and travelling.
Because you can travel, but you cannot live in another country.
We are also aspiring to get the regulatory environment and everything to be 100% aligned with the European Union.
[28:02] Darren Jamieson:
Right. So yeah, there are a lot of benefits to it. It’s just a shame this country didn’t realise that when we were asked to vote on it.
[28:14] Elda Bajraktari:
It’s a pity.
There are a lot of demands as well. Because of my experience, I am somehow aware of the chapters you have to go through, what you have to prove, and what the regulations are.
There is a lot of legislative approximation. But this is the easiest part, because after the approximation, you have to enforce that legislation. You will have to inspect if the legislation is there and is being properly implemented.
But because of that, people want to be part of the EU, so that it is somehow a guarantee that everything will be according to the books, and everything will be properly managed and ruled.
[29:01] Darren Jamieson:
It’s definitely a good thing, in my eyes anyway. It’s just not everybody in this country agrees.
[29:08] Darren Jamieson:
Let’s talk about what you do. Let’s talk about HR. That’s exciting. That’s what people want to know.
Is it business owners you work with on an HR level, or is it just on a teaching capacity?
[29:28] Elda Bajraktari:
I do both business owners and teaching capacity. It depends on the projects.
[29:36] Darren Jamieson:
What sort of industries or businesses do you work with?
[29:41] Elda Bajraktari:
I have done retail, so retail sales. I have done pharmaceuticals, both distribution and retail. I have done marketing, advertising and services. I have done information services.
Again, retail sales, but industrial. It was do-it-yourself.
Basically, I work with privately owned companies run by Albanian owners, and sometimes Albanians with other international shareholders.
For the teaching, or training sessions, they have been either supported by national organisations operating in the country or by international organisations operating in the country.
They were targeting HR, or they were targeting audiences from different companies or different entities. It could be a mix of private, public and corporate people.
[30:55] Darren Jamieson:
What’s it like for employees in Albania? Because in the UK, employees have a lot of rights. You have rights as soon as you go for an interview, for example.
What’s it like in Albania compared to what it’s like in the UK?
[31:15] Elda Bajraktari:
In Albania, employees have a lot of rights too.
The rights do not start from the interviewing stage. The rights start from the employment stage.
However, these rights are somehow connected to longevity with the company. The longer you are with a company or with an employer, the more rights you have, and the more difficult contract termination becomes.
Here, employment is regulated by a law, which is the Labour Law. This Labour Law is used by the majority of private companies and the private sector, and by a few entities of the public sector.
Meanwhile, we have another law, which is the Law on Civil Servants, and that is applicable for public administration.
There are similarities between the two laws when it comes to rights and employee rights.
Again, employees have a lot of rights. We also have special laws regulating professions like police and military. Apart from the general employment law, they have particular laws developed for regulating them. It is called a special law for police or a special law for military.
Employee rights here cover how many hours they can work, when they should rest, how they should rest, the paid leave they have, or unpaid leave they can have.
There are absences they can have, or absences which can be paid, especially in cases when you are sick. There are also absences that cannot be paid. Again, they are connected with sickness, but for a longer period they can be absent without pay and not lose the job.
This is also related to family members or to children, the right to look after children up to a certain age, whether they are biological children or adopted children.
Then there is performance management. Then there is behaviour. Then there is the job they have to do. There is communication.
You have to be very, very careful in the whole employment relationship management in order to have, first, a fair environment, and then to avoid any potential litigation for the entity that you are responsible for.
[34:27] Darren Jamieson:
The reason I asked about interviews, for example, is that in this country a lot of people don’t know it, but there are certain questions you can’t ask at a job interview as an employer.
You can’t ask the interview candidate if they smoke. You can’t ask them if they have children. You can’t ask them if they’re planning to have children, because they’re deemed to be questions that would prejudice you against hiring that person.
If you’re interviewing a woman who’s planning to have a family, you might not give her the job because you don’t want her to go on maternity leave.
If you’re interviewing someone who smokes, you might not give them the job because you don’t want them taking cigarette breaks every hour and losing five minutes of the day.
So you’re not allowed to ask these questions, which most people don’t know in this country.
Is there anything similar to that in Albania?
[35:22] Elda Bajraktari:
This situation is similar to Albania as well. You are not allowed to ask such questions, but this is not something that is sanctioned in the Labour Law. It is mainly sanctioned in the laws that prevent discrimination.
For smoking, I have never thought of asking someone if the person is smoking or not smoking.
But for women, for example, yes, we are not allowed to ask them about family plans, children and so on.
Honestly speaking, it also depends on the way you set up the conversation and how you start to understand things. The idea is that there is the book, but in the way you pose the conversation, you might be able to find out certain information that you cannot ask directly.
HR is a little bit different here when it comes to private sector, public sector and corporates.
The private sector is a little bit more flexible. They may dare to ask such questions, maybe not directly, because, as you mentioned, even in Albania people are not very much aware, or they haven’t been very much aware, of their rights.
But people are becoming more and more aware of their rights as the days pass by.
Even if they don’t know the rights themselves, they always have a reference point where they can check, who they can consult, who they can ask.
This is also subject to the will they bring into the relationship. If they are going into the employment relationship with goodwill, nothing happens.
But when they join or continue with bad intentions or bad will, they will always find ways to ask, what to ask, how to create a problem, what to create, and this and that.
So, coming back to your question, it is true. Some of those questions you cannot ask even here. But the fact is that, in some ways, in some private sector companies, you manage to get this information through the way you pose the conversation.
[38:08] Darren Jamieson:
Obviously, a lot of people in this country don’t know those things and they make mistakes.
Mistakes when you’re interviewing somebody, or when you’re hiring an employee and you don’t know the law yourself, can be very costly. You can end up getting sued.
You must have seen some mistakes employers have made in your role. What sort of mistakes have people made in terms of things that can be really costly for them?
[38:35] Elda Bajraktari:
Are we referring to the interviewing stage?
[38:40] Darren Jamieson:
Or anything to do with employment. It might be after employment.
[38:44] Elda Bajraktari:
Okay. Because for the interviewing stage, here there isn’t that much awareness that you can file a case of discrimination because of interview questions. This is not the environment so far.
But when it comes to employment, the biggest mistake that is happening here is firing without grounds, or unjustified termination.
It is called termination of the employment contract without justified grounds.
This is the most common mistake here, and this is something that costs a lot in litigation to the company.
According to Albanian legislation, employment goes through different stages.
You have the first three months, which are the probationary period, and you can terminate the contract with five days’ notice very easily.
When you go to six months, it will be two weeks’ notice.
When you go to two years, it will be one month’s notice.
But apart from the notice, you have to respect a so-called procedure on how you terminate. Apart from the procedure, you have to have the cause.
So there are three elements you have to combine when you want to terminate.
Most employers fail to combine the three of them. They might have the reason, but they neglect the procedure, and then they get fined or penalised for not following the procedure.
They may respect the notice period but forget the procedure. They may respect the notice period but fail to give the real cause. They fail to ground the cause for termination.
According to reports, there are a high number of termination cases and termination lawsuits in our courts, coming from both the public and private sectors.
There are also a lot of final court decisions for reinstatement or re-employment that are not implemented by the entities that were found in violation.
[41:28] Darren Jamieson:
Do employees typically in Albania now know that they’ve got these rights?
[41:36] Elda Bajraktari:
They do. I have been doing HR since 2006, so almost 20 years now, and people’s awareness of their rights has changed extremely fast.
In the last seven or eight years, it’s not that people were not aware of their rights. Now they are fully aware of their rights.
What is still happening is that they are reluctant to go to court, especially the younger generation.
They are reluctant to go to court because they fear the presumed discrimination they might face when looking for their next job.
If a future potential employer finds out that I am in a court case with my previous employer, that future potential employer will fear that our relationship may end up in court as well.
I don’t know how clear I am.
[42:51] Darren Jamieson:
No, no, I understand.
[42:53] Elda Bajraktari:
They are aware of the right, but they are not exercising the right, especially younger generations.
They say, “Oh, I have to go to court. The court takes time. You have the first instance court, and it will take one year or something until you get a decision. Then one of the parties will appeal. Then the appeal will take three years. Then the unsatisfied party will go to the Supreme Court. It will take another five years.”
So it will last a lot of time.
Younger generations will say, “I’m not going to spend 10 years in court now. I want to get another job. I want to go on, and I don’t want my future potential employer to think badly of me and think that I take cases to court.”
[43:41] Darren Jamieson:
I can see that. They don’t want to scupper their chances of getting another good job by making it look like they’re the problem employee.
It’s a shame really, isn’t it? People are missing out on what they’re owed, on what they should be getting, because they’re afraid it’s going to affect their future chances.
[44:07] Elda Bajraktari:
I’ll tell you a personal experience.
I had an employment relationship, and it went very badly. I am personally in court with my previous employer.
I went for a competition for another role. This is somehow related to the previous conversation we had together on the kind of questions you can pose during the interview.
I went through all the interview stages. It was an international company established in Albania, but they were legally supported by a local company here in the country.
When I reached the very final stage, I was not asked directly, “Do you have a court case ongoing with your previous employer?”
But I was told, “Listen, if you are finally selected, you will be required to provide papers related to your court situation,” and this and that, “because this company will not be very fond of people who are in court cases with their previous employers.”
I got the message. I stayed silent because I didn’t want to reveal my own information.
But I’m 100% sure that they already knew I was there, because there are public registers and they should have verified that.
I didn’t get the job, even though I went through all the stages of the interview and met the top managers residing abroad. Just because of this, I was cut off.
[46:03] Darren Jamieson:
That’s a shame, isn’t it?
[46:06] Elda Bajraktari:
That is a shame. It’s not fair.
This is a shame and it is not good, because I have 25 years’ working experience. I’m in HR. I know my rights. I know what’s right and what’s wrong.
Still, after that moment, I felt a little bit shaken in myself, saying, “Okay, was I wrong doing that, or was I right?”
So if this situation put me in doubt about my own actions, imagine what this could do to other people with fewer years of experience, less knowledge of their rights, and less awareness of what’s right or wrong.
[46:55] Darren Jamieson:
Is this something that you look to address when you do your trainings? Are you looking to educate people on their rights as well, so they know and so they don’t make these mistakes themselves?
[47:03] Elda Bajraktari:
I do. Normally, when I do training sessions, I refer to the rights. I refer to dignity. I refer to fair treatment.
I refer to fair treatment in the sense that fair does not really mean being nice or kind. It means being fair.
What’s right? What’s wrong? Are you entitled to that, or are you not entitled to that?
One big mistake that is made here in the employment relationship is bad communication.
This can be seen in the private sector, in the public sector, and maybe even in corporates to some extent, because you have personal feelings and personal affiliations interfering and somehow avoiding cold, professional communication.
So I am really pushing hard and saying, “Listen, we are talking about fair. We’re not talking about being lovely or unlovely, or being likeable or unlikeable. We have to be right.”
[48:24] Darren Jamieson:
And what’s right for somebody is not right for someone else.
[48:28] Elda Bajraktari:
Of course, because rights start and end. They have a limit. Where my right is over, it is because someone else’s right has its starting point.
So yes, I try to do that.
I have a current engagement now with a public company, and I’m advising on HR issues. I am really careful about what I am advising, and I am putting a lot of stress on dignity, fair treatment and fair communication.
And of course, basing everything on the legislation.
[49:10] Darren Jamieson:
Do you find that most companies, on the whole, want to do the right thing by their employees? They want to be fair?
[49:24] Elda Bajraktari:
They all say they want to be fair.
Who am I to say that they are not being fair? But the problem that I personally see is not really with the company as such, but with the people in certain management roles.
I personally believe in management, and believe that management is a spirit which is somehow transmitted into lower levels.
Things are changing. Companies are somehow obliged to do better things and proper things because of the lack of workforce.
We are facing a lot of immigration, a lot of brain drain, and companies have somehow changed their attention and attitude towards employees.
They are being more open, more communicative, sticking to the entitlements, and respecting the entitlements granted by labour legislation, which is good.
But the hurting feeling is that this is not coming naturally as a desire. It is coming as an obligation based on the conditions and based on the market in general.
[51:11] Darren Jamieson:
That’s an interesting point you just made there. You said you’re experiencing brain drain and immigration.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but is Albania losing its potential workforce because they’re leaving Albania?
[51:27] Elda Bajraktari:
Yes, they are leaving. We are losing a lot of medical staff, nurses and doctors.
We are losing a lot of engineers: construction, electrical, mechanical, everything.
We are also losing a lot of unskilled workers.
[51:46] Darren Jamieson:
Is that because they can earn more money elsewhere?
[51:49] Elda Bajraktari:
Sure. They can earn more money elsewhere. They can build their lives elsewhere, and they can get the basics of living more easily elsewhere.
[52:04] Darren Jamieson:
And that elsewhere, are we talking Germany?
[52:07] Elda Bajraktari:
Western countries. Germany a lot. The UK a lot. Italy, Greece, even Greece.
We have a lot of people living in Greece. But in recent years, Germany has taken a lot of medical staff from us, especially nurses. There was a massive outflow of nurses, and doctors as well.
We are not producing nurses and doctors fast enough to recover the need, and there is a gap. You cannot see a proper demand and supply analysis.
For example, when I worked in the pharmaceutical sector, we were struggling to get qualified pharmacists because the speed of the business rollout was so high.
There were only 100 pharmacists graduating every year from the university. They had to go through the test for licensing. Not all of them were successful, and you cannot hire people who are not licensed.
So let’s say, out of 100, you could hire 70.
But we were not the only pharmaceutical industry. There were many other pharmaceutical companies, and there was no change.
When the government decides on the quotas for students, they are not changing or expanding them. They are not saying, “Okay, why 100? Why not 200? Why not 300?”
If you see that the market is expanding this way, you know, they are not changing with the needs.
[54:06] Darren Jamieson:
They are not changing with the needs.
[54:09] Elda Bajraktari:
They are not changing with the needs. So this is why we are suffering, and there is no proper supply and demand analysis.
[54:13] Darren Jamieson:
That could be a real problem for Albania, then.
[54:18] Elda Bajraktari:
It is a real problem.
Okay, we also have the other side of the coin. There is some predictive analysis. I cannot really say where exactly it is based, but there is some predictive analysis that people will return.
We had this massive outflow of nurses, and the expectation is that they will return, because they were leaving the country with the expectation that they would go and do nursing according to our definition of nursing, which is only needles, blood pressure and similar tasks.
The nurse in our perception does not include sanitation, cleaning the patient and so on.
When our people faced this reality, they became somehow disappointed. They said, “Okay, I’m making money, but this is not the nursing I know. This is sanitation. This is cleaning.”
This went against their expectation and against their aspiration somehow.
But still, there is a real gap in years from the time they left the country until they come back.
Even when they come back, their reintegration will be difficult, because they will be used to another environment. No matter how much we are progressing in all the regulations and everything, the whole society is still different.
Their children will not want to come back because they are used to the schools there.
So there is an ongoing onion-shaped, or onion-layered, problem in that.
[56:09] Darren Jamieson:
Wow. Well, we’re out of time. We could talk about that all day.
We’ve got problems here. We’ve got a lot of people coming in to do work, but since Brexit we’ve lost a lot of people who were skilled workers. We’ve lost a lot of people who do the work that, quite frankly, we’re not very good at.
We’ve lost a lot of the Polish, for example, and they’re very good at a lot of things, and we’re crap at those things.
So it’s really difficult in this country now to find a joiner, a woodworker, because no one’s teaching those skills. No one is learning those skills.
The quality craftsmen have gone back to Europe, and we’re really struggling to find people who can do that here.
It’s a similar problem, but from a slightly different angle. Problems are all over the place. It just needs sorting out somehow, doesn’t it? Somebody needs to get a grip on it.
[56:56] Darren Jamieson:
So Elda, for anyone listening to this who thinks, “I want to talk to you more. I want to reach out to you. I want to work with you. I want you to come in and do talks for me,” what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?
[57:15] Elda Bajraktari:
They can reach me on LinkedIn, because I’m active there.
They can reach me at my Gmail account, which is name and surname at Gmail dot com.
I can share even a telephone number, but LinkedIn and Gmail, I think, are enough.
[57:35] Darren Jamieson:
Perfect. I will put the link for your LinkedIn and the email address in the podcast description.
So if you’re watching on YouTube, it’s going to be below in the description. If you’re listening on iTunes, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music, whatever, it’ll be in the show notes below the podcast.
[57:51] Elda Bajraktari:
I see.
[57:52] Darren Jamieson:
Elda, thank you very much for joining me on The Engaging Marketeer.
