Personal effectiveness training for unemployed people: where to now?

Unemployment remains a major social problem in Australia. Successive governments have attempted to address the problem, in part, by funding occupational skills based training programs for the unemployed. This paper reviews the general area of occupational skills/personal effectiveness training for unemployed people, and reports on outcomes for individuals attending 'typical' courses in Australia. Also reported, are outcomes for unemployed people who attended specially devised training, based on the cognitive behavioural (e.g., Beck, 1976) and learned optimism (Seligman, 1990) intervention approaches, that was aimed at improving well-being, confidence and coping abilities. Variables assessed include individual well-being (e.g., psychological distress), confidence (e.g., self-efficacy), attitude-to-work (e.g., work-commitment); training climate; and labour market outcomes such as return-to-work. More positive outcomes were identified for unemployed people attending the specially devised programs. The authors argue that training targeted at unemployed people must be based on sound theoretical principles to produce measurable long-term benefits. Future applications of personal development programs are discussed in relation to occupational skills based training and as stand-alone programs

Effectiveness Of Personal Training

More and more people looking for the expertise of personal trainers in recent years.With very few previous efforts evaluating the strength of the personal trainingexperience in the scientific literature, this study utilized movement in the stagecoachesof the Transtheoretical Model (STM) to ascertain the efficacy of personal grooming.One hundred twenty nine volunteer participants (customers) (age range: 20 ? 65 yearsold) was designated a university senior personal trainer for a10-week course of study.At an initial meeting, the guests were moved over a form to self-assess their level ofmotivational readiness for exercise adoption (STM) choosing one of five stages: Pre -contemplation (not meaning to make changes), Contemplation (considering amodification), Preparation (getting ready to make a change), Action (actively engagedin progressing to a change but only for a little while) & Maintenance (sustaining thechange over time). Later the initial assessment, the nodes and the trainer then met oncea week and had targeted discussions on problem solving techniques such asdetermining the Benefits of Physical Activity, Barriers/Obstacles to Exercise, Support,System Recruitment, Goal Setting and Relapse Prevention in addition to providingspecific suggestions for the client’s other exercise days during the workweek. At theend of the 10-week personal training program, the clients, then reassessed their stage ofmotivational readiness for exercise adoption. Of the 129 clients tested, 27 were in themaintenance (highest) stage and consequently could not go up. None of these 27 clientsmoved down a level. Of the remaining 102 clients, there was significant (p < 0.01)upward movement at the end of the course of study. 61 clients (60%) went up onestage, 13 clients (13%) went up two stages, 27 clients stayed at the same level (26%)and one (1%) moved down a level. The outcomes suggest that one-on-one personaltraining is an efficient method for modifying positions and thereby increasing theamount of physical action. Secondly, it appears that using problem-solving techniquesis of value for successful behavior modification

Does a Progressive PIT Stabilize the Economy? A Comparison of Progressive and Flat Taxes

The aim of the article is to examine the impact of progressive personal income tax rates and the effectiveness of this tax as an automatic economic stabilizer. The assessment of automatic stabilizers is based on the estimates of tax cyclical components. The study shows that the output elasticity of PIT is higher than one, which means that the analysed tax acts relatively efficiently as an automatic stabilizer. However, it was also observed that the tax progressivity is not the main reason of the effectiveness of a progressive PIT as an automatic stabilizer. The study shows that changes in progressive rates of PIT, contrary to widespread opinions, have little effect on the effectiveness of passive fiscal policy. Personal income tax acts as automatic stabilizer mostly due not to the progressive tax rates, but because of the sensitivity of employment to GDP fluctuations

What Are the Academic Findings About the Impact of Coaching on Individual and Organizational Performance?

[Excerpt] The definition of coaching has evolved alongside developments in Organizational Psychology and Human Resources. One such definition is, “a helping and facilitative process that enables individuals, groups/teams and organizations to acquire new skills, to improve existing skills, competence and performance, and to enhance their personal effectiveness or personal development or personal growth.” For this Executive Summary, we mainly focus on two subsets of coaching: Manager and Executive coaching

A strategy for evaluating search of “Real” personal information archives

Personal information archives (PIAs) can include materials from many sources, e.g. desktop and laptop computers, mobile phones, etc. Evaluation of personal search over these collections is problematic for reasons relating to the personal and private nature of the data and associated information needs and measuring system response effectiveness. Conventional information retrieval (IR) evaluation involving use of Cranfield type test collections to establish retrieval effectiveness and laboratory testing of interactive search behaviour have to be re-thought in this situation. One key issue is that personal data and information needs are very different to search of more public third party datasets used in most existing evaluations. Related to this, understanding the issues of how users interact with a search system for their personal data is important in developing search in this area on a well grounded basis. In this proposal we suggest an alternative IR evaluation strategy which preserves privacy of user data and enables evaluation of both the accuracy of search and exploration of interactive search behaviour. The general strategy is that instead of a common search dataset being distributed to participants, we suggest distributing standard expandable personal data collection, indexing and search tools to non-intrusively collect data from participants conducting search tasks over their own data collections on their own machines, and then performing local evaluation of individual results before central agregation

Economic Mobility and the American Dream - Where Do We Stand in the Wake of the Great Recession?

Presents survey findings about Americans' assessments of personal financial situations, the outlook for their children, factors in financial success, and the government's role, effectiveness, and goals in promoting upward economic mobility

Motivational Skills and Personal Effectiveness

The man greatness is simply determined based on his motivational skills. Motivation is the word derived from the word ’motive’ which means needs, desires, wants or drives within the individuals. It is the process of stimulating people to actions to accomplish the goals. In the work goal context the psychological factors stimulating the people’s behaviour can be the desire for money, success, recognition, job-satisfaction, team work, etc. One of the most important functions of management is to create willingness amongst the employees to perform in the best of their abilities. Therefore the role of a leader is to arouse interest in performance of employees in their jobs. The process of motivation consists of three stages. A felt need or drive, a stimulus in which needs have to be aroused and when needs are satisfied, the satisfaction or accomplishment of goals. Therefore, we can say that motivation is a psychological phenomenon which means needs and wants of the individuals have to be tackled by framing an incentive plan. In the general motivational process, there is a need, drive and a particular goal

Evaluation of Effectiveness of Marketing Communication Mix Elements in Nigerian Service Sector

Creating effective communication with customers is the most important aspect in services marketing. To date we still have poor understanding of the role of effective marketing communication with customers in attracting and maintaining prospective and present customers. This research study assess the effectiveness of advertising and personal selling practices of Nigerian service sector in communicating with its customers with the aim of finding solutions to improve the existing communication and customer satisfaction. After reviewing related literature, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed to 200 customers, out of which 25% from the telecommmrications and 15% each from the remaining seven service industries viz banking and insurance, education, travel, tourism, hotel industry and hospital industry used to gather the data about the effectiveness of advertising and personal selling activities. The participants were selected randomly once the service type is determined by stratified sampling. The data collected was analyzed based on predetermined rating factors and expected results of performance with SPSS software package. In conclusion the findings of the analysis showed that Nigerian service sectors advertising and personal selling indicated moderately effective in providing information, creating awareness, changing attitude, ineffective in building company image and enforcing brand loyalty. The research also identified lack of integration between advertising and personal selling

The Effectiveness of California Assembly Bill 2109: Personal Belief Exemptions for Kindergarten Immunizations

The numbers of vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) in the United States has declined with the development, administration, and effectiveness of vaccines during the 1970s and 1980s. As the eminent threat of VPDs to the public began to wane, parents started questioning the safety and necessity of vaccines. When parents were given the option of selecting personal belief exemption (PBE) waivers for state mandated immunizations for their incoming kindergarten children, an increase in PBEs and the number of VPD outbreaks began to occur. To counter the growing trend of PBEs, and to prevent outbreaks of VPDs in school settings and communities, California Assembly Bill2109 (AB 2109, 2012) was created to help educate parents about vaccine safety and VPDs. As of January 2014, California Assembly Bill2109 (AB 2109, 2012) mandated that parents seeking PBEs for state mandated immunizations for students entering kindergarten were required to receive education about vaccine safety and risks along with education regarding VPDs by a health care professional (AB 2109, 2012). The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of AB 21 09 by examining data from the top ten most populous counties in California. Data was collected for the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015- 2016 school years to determine if AB 2109 directly impacted the number of PBEs for incoming kindergartners. This project determined that AB 2109 was significant in decreasing the number 3 of PBEs from the 2013-2014,2014-2015, and 2015-2016 school years by -23.4% in the ten most populous counties in California. Further research beyond this project is necessary to evaluate the continued impact of AB 2109 on PBEs and in decreasing the number of VPD outbreaks throughout California

Extension Education: How do we learn best?

Due to the rise of new educational methods, one may begin to wonder, what is the best way to learn information? Can these new methods truly replace traditional methods? This experiment evaluated the effectiveness of an infographic to a text based on amount of information retained and personal preference. This study also examines if professional status has an effect on information retention. In order to answer these questions, subjects were given a copy of an infographic and a journal article covering the same information. The subjects were then given 5 minutes to look over both materials and to answer four comprehensive questions. After completing this portion, the subjects were then asked to complete a survey analyzing the effectiveness of the methods and their personal preferences. The results yielded that an infographic is a better than a journal article for distributing information to both students and extension personnel