Emotional intelligence in the workplace

What is emotional intelligence and why is it important?

Emotional intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in the workplace, both for employees and for the managers who hire them.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of one's own emotions, to control them and to express them in a correct manner. In addition, EI also helps you understand how your colleagues or your team feel and consequently communicate with them more efficiently.

The importance of emotional intelligence as colleague or manager

As a manager, you can benefit from improving your EQ level to lead your team, support employees and gain more responsibility.

But emotional intelligence is not only of great value to leaders, it's a useful feature on every level. People with high emotional intelligence are better team members. In our research, better cooperation, increased motivation and strong networking skills are mentioned by hiring managers as positive consequences of an emotionally intelligent team.

Hiring emotionally intelligent employees

Hiring managers should take the EI of candidates into consideration during the hiring process. Hiring managers say they feel that most employers don't put enough emphasis on emotional intelligence during the recruitment process.

There are several tools which managers can use to gauge applicants' EQ. During reference checks you question previous employers about your candidate's EQ. With behavioral interview questions and personality or psychometric tests you can find out a lot on the subject as well.

Our 'Recruiting for Emotional Intelligence’ white paper will help you on your way. In this white paper you will find a checklist of interview questions and tips to test the emotional quotient of candidates. The whitepaper is only available in Dutch.

Read more on our blog (in Dutch)