Selecting Employees Based on Emotional Intelligence Competencies: Reap the Rewards and Minimize the Risk

In selecting the competent applicants for a specific job, employers looked to work experience, technical skills, cognitive skills and education as bases for hiring. Today, growing researches about emotional intelligence have found that emotional intelligence competencies are predictors of outstanding performance of an employee. This article pointed out the importance of selecting employees with competent emotional intelligence who would contribute outstanding performance for the company hence achieving outstanding outputs and minimizing the risk of hiring a trouble-maker. -Rageene Vera D. Duenas

Each year, thousands of fresh graduates are queuing to apply to companies for a position. The task now is for the employers to select the most outstanding applicants who would contribute to the companys development. SELECTION PROCESS Traditionally, employers focused their selection criteria to the skills, education and experience of the applicants until Daniel Goleman (followed by other researchers) and his research about Emotional Intelligence became widely recognized. Today, emotional intelligence competencies were added to the selection process to identify outstanding job applicants. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE COMPETENCIES The 10 Commandments of Human Relations state some actions that an emotionally competent person can do. Some of those ten are: having humility, being interested in others, being generous with praise, cautious with criticism, being considerate to the feelings of others and being alert to service. Daniel Golerman defines Emotional Intelligence as the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others for motivating, ourselves and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships. 1 Dr. Marc Brackett, associate research director of the Health Emotions on Behavior Laboratory of Yale University, conducted a study on EI. The core of his study is that emotions and more importantly the understanding and management of them, is what leads to a well rounded successful individual. Understanding emotion is the ability to express a full array of emotions

such as anger, joy, disgust etc., know the cause and the consequences of these emotions and then using them to guide ones actions.2 Henry S. Tenedero, president of the Center for Learning and Teaching Styles, emphasized in one of his articles in the Manila Bulletin the Four Cornerstones of EI. These are emotional literacy which is the ability to read and understand own emotions, emotional fitness- the ability to manage emotions, emotional depth-the ability to harness own emotion for a meaningful purpose and last is the emotional alchemy which is the ability to understand the emotion of other people thus builds transformational relationships.3

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN WORKPLACE Emotional Intelligence competency is especially needed in working with group or team. An awareness of how your actions affect other people, and how your behaviour is influencing them will help build constructive relationships between you and your workmates. An employee with high emotional intelligence can manage his or her own impulses, communicate with others effectively, manage change well, solve problems, and use humor to build rapport in tense situations. These employees also have empathy, remain optimistic even in the face of adversity, and are gifted at educating and persuading in a sales situation and resolving customer complaints in a customer service role. This "clarity" in thinking and "composure" in stressful and chaotic situations is what separates top performers from weak performers in the workplace. 4 Evidence supporting that emotional intelligence is related to job performance and affect attitudes at work was revealed in the study of Lopes at University of Surrey. 44 analysts and clerical employees from the finance department of a Fortune 400 insurance company were examined. Results showed that emotionally intelligent individuals received greater merit increases and held higher company rank than their counterparts. 5 In another study, technical programmers demonstrating the top 10 percent of emotional intelligence competency were developing software three times faster than those with lower competency. These are some cases that are starting to prove the value of having highly emotionally intelligent employees make up your workforce if you want a competitive advantage in the business world

SELECTION PROCESS BASED ON EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE Tests to Ira Blank mentioned in her article some steps to implement emotional intelligence competency based selection of employees. Selection based on interview (subjective evaluation of the interviewer) may present adverse impact claim but risk can be minimized by building objective

guidelines into the interview and selection process. In addition, the interviewer should ask the applicant competency based question that are designed to elicit detailed information about situations in which the applicant has demonstrated the specific competency in the past. 6

CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATION Emotional intelligence is a set of noncognitive competencies and skills that influence ones ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures. This develops personal and social competence which can impact positively on career success. Interpersonal and communication skills are essential characteristics one must possess to contribute outstanding performance in the workplace. Fresh graduates and applicants should develop their emotional intelligence to get job satisfaction and do outstanding performance. Most education institutions are more focused on the academic skills and technical abilities but these are not enough to face the challenges that job applicants may face in their future workplace. Educational institutions also need to develop their students emotional intelligence to ensure students success in the workplace.

NOTES 1. Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence (1995) 2. Emotional Intelligence: The key to successful individuals (Manila Times Dec. 17, 2005 p.C2) 3. Henry S. Tenedero, Emotional Intelligence, (Manila Bulletin Aug. 7. 2008 p.F2) 4. Mike Poskey, The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: Why It Matters More than Personality 5. Lopes PN (et.al) Evidence that emotional intelligence is related to job performance and affect and attitudes at work.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17295970# 6. Ira Blank, Selecting Employees Based on Emotional Intelligence Competencies, (2008)