As L&D professionals, it can be difficult to decide where to focus and invest your time, money and resources. From time management to communication, there are countless important skills for employees to develop.
But have you considered emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence refers to a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.
So why focus on developing emotional intelligence in your organisation?
According to research, emotional intelligence increases job performance, effective leadership and wellbeing amongst employees. And if that’s not enough, here are just 5 other ways developing emotional intelligence can help your employees in the workplace:
Increases self-awareness
Developing emotional intelligence helps employees to better understand themselves and raises their awareness of how their behaviours and emotions impact the people around them. This knowledge is essential for being able to manage emotions.
Enhances communication
Emotional intelligence includes communicating your feelings and beliefs in a constructive way. This can help employees to motivate others, build trust and feel comfortable voicing their opinions.
Encourages teamwork
Being emotionally intelligent also involves cultivating strong relationships with others in the workplace. This encourages people to collaborate and work together to achieve success, whilst being considerate of how their actions affect the whole team.
Improves decision making
Emotionally intelligent employees use both emotional and logical information when making decisions and are aware of how emotions may impact this process. This means that they consider all of the available information and are unlikely to make hasty decisions, even when emotions are involved.
Reduces stress
Those with higher levels of emotional intelligence also tend to have effective coping strategies to deal with challenging and unfamiliar situations in a more optimistic and resilient way. This can help protect them from the negative effects of stress in the workplace.
So, if you’re looking for the next important skill to develop in your employees, consider focusing on emotional intelligence.
Chloe Tuffrey works for Psysoft where she manages the development of Psysoft’s products, training courses and workshops. She is an experienced trainer in the EQ-i 2.0 & EQ 360 emotional intelligence assessments and the designer of EQ Extra, a suite of videos to support people’s development of emotional intelligence.