WESTERN Australian chief executives were the most optimistic in the nation about economic conditions over the past 12 months, but few believe there will be much improvement in the next year, according to CEO membership organisation, TEC. A survey of the organisation’s members for the second quarter of 2007 found only 20 per cent of WA members believed economic conditions would improve in the next 12 months. The state had the smallest proportion of businesses active overseas (54 per cent), but WA members were most likely to be doing business in India (16 per cent). In terms of training and development, WA had the highest percentage of businesses with a mentoring scheme in place (43 per cent) and also had the highest number using performance reviews to measure effectiveness (37 per cent), according to the survey. More chief executives in WA believe training helps with staff retention (51 per cent) than in any other state, while 69 per cent use training primarily for upskilling. They are also more likely to delegate training decisions and control of training budgets to in-line managers than HR managers. Training spend was up at a national level, with the number of companies spending three to five per cent of annual turnover on training increasing from 12 per cent to 27 per cent over the past year. -Emily Piesse