impacts of the Great Recession In 2015, government organizations at every level are faced with unprecedented challenges. The State of California and many local governments continue to be faced with fiscal crises. During the lingering impacts of the Great Recession which greatly impacted local government tax revenues, many government agencies have laid off employees, imposed mandatory furloughs and left vacant positions unfilled thereby requiring those left behind to take on significantly larger workloads. Public employee pension obligations are creating significant liabilities for state and local governments resulting in current employees to shoulder more of the cost while new employees often have scaled down pension plans. Government organizations are being asked to œdo more with less at the same time the public continues to have increased demands for services. These pressures are real and are being felt each and every day by employees at every level of government organizations Paper and PowerPoints Requirement: Research Paper and Presentation: Each student is responsible for writing a research paper based on a œleading edge issue in public personnel management. Examples include but are not limited to: Social media policies for public sector workers, addressing the workplace needs of aging babyboomers, recruiting and retaining œGeneration Y in the workforce, managing the cost of public employee pensions, etc. This assignment requires references from a minimum of four (4) *scholarly journals to substantiate assumptions and findings. Finally, the paper is required to conclude with the student’s personal recommendations for how public sector managers can achieve organizational effectiveness in this area based on your research findings. The research paper must conform to National University’s writing standards. Papers should be no less than eight (8) double-spaced, typewritten pages; (not including the title page, abstract or References page). Students will also be required to deliver a 10-12 minute PowerPoint (3-4 slides) presentation on the findings of this research. The research paper will be graded on its content, which includes research quality, writing content, organization and grammar all consistent with APA guidelines. The standards used to evaluate the research paper and presentations are included on the following pages.