Background
With its dwindling workforce, it is imperative that more women enter the workforce in Japan. Furthermore, work plays an important role to promote women’s self-actualization and wellbeing. Coaching is an effective way to help women take actions to achieve reemployment, but it is not always readily available due to a lack of finances. In this situation, women may benefit from self-coaching.
Hypotheses/Research Questions
This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of practicing seven self-coaching strategies on women’s reemployment activities.
Sample Characteristics and Sample Size
600 Japanese women aged 20-40 years who left the workforce for marriage/ childbirth and have engaged in reemployment activities in the past three years.
Design
Quantitative Analysis. An online survey was conducted. The questionnaire measured performance on the seven self-coaching strategies, proactive coping, self-compassion, organizational-based self-esteem, general self-esteem and demographic questions (age, sex, education, and the reemployment status).
Results
We conducted one-way ANOVA with three groups of reemployed women (A: full-time, B: temporary/contract-based, and C: part-time) and two groups of unemployed women (D: still seeking a job and E: ceased job seeking) to examine the relationship of the seven self-coaching strategies to (a) the continuation to seek reemployment and (b) successful reemployment. The results showed that the main effect of group was observed for all seven self-coaching strategies. Group A scored the highest in all strategies, whilst Group E scored the lowest. Amongst the seven strategies Groups B to E all scored lowest on the “awareness and utilization of resources” strategy.
Scientific Contribution
The results of this study suggest women should practice the seven self-coaching strategies with greater emphasis placed on the awareness of their own positive resources and the solution-focused habit strategies, in order to increase a woman’s propensity to reenter the workforce.