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JIMINY SELF-HELP HANDBOOK 21

2.3. Action Planning
The Covid-19 pandemic-related crisis and the fast advancement of automation in production has
unfortunately created large numbers of job-seekers and unemployed. It is there where EI competences
will play key roles.
For the unemployed, low-skilled, and marginalized people we need to keep in mind two aspects.

For the unemployed, research indicates that EI matters in tough times. A study for EI related to, mental
health, physical health, and suicide risk in short-term and long-term unemployed individuals, showed
that emotional intelligence was positively associated with mental and physical health and negatively
associated with perceived stress and suicide risk.
Additionally, automation and AI will make thousands of repetitive/mechanical jobs obsolete and the
only foreseeable workforce needs after that, are the positions related to human interaction. There EI-
competent people will have far better chances for employment.

For those in organizations supporting the unemployed (educators, social workers, all those providing
help) the research indicates that improving empathy through training to first-line workers, improves
the services the organization offers.

In other words, investing in EI training and not only in technical skills is important for the wellbeing of
our societies.

To suggest Action Planning of improving EI in the two distinct groups of JIMINY, adult educators and
marginalized persons, we need to have some key characteristics of action plans in mind:

• Action plans are based initially on an understanding, an observation, a metric (like a survey), a
rationale that show us we need to program an intervention to change something (or to
maintain an activity that proves successful);
• The intervention needs first to have a clear target (a business objective to impact);
• Then a series of actions (usually divided in steps), each of them with a dedicated impact;
• The people responsible to carry it out;
• A timeframe;
• A description of what success looks like (We will know we are successful if...);
• The way we will measure the success/progress.

Action Planning for Adult Educators
Although we believe adult educators (especially those in the areas related to JIMINY’s focus group of
learners) will already have a level of competence, self-awareness and training, it is sure there is room
for action and improvement (as the survey prior to this project indicated). Then planning for self-
improvement includes:

Self-evaluation
As we know, any learning starts when we are aware that there is something in us that needs to be
changed or improved, and we are ready to make those changes happen. Summarizing the previous
modules and chapters, Emotional intelligence has five components in it: Self-awareness – the
knowledge of what we feel and why we feel so, Self-regulation – the ability to express our feelings in
the right way, Empathy – the ability to relate to others’ emotions and see the world from their
perspective, Social skills – the power to communicate effectively and build strong connections at home
or in the workplace, and to make all these things work, Motivation – the internal drive to change the