5 Reasons Why Your Employees Need Emotional Intelligence Training

People don’t leave organizations; they leave bad bosses. We all have heard this phrase over and over again. But no one questions what made these bosses bad! Was it the environment, culture or their own personality? Were they given any emotional intelligence training or counselling session, what was the management stance in promoting emotional wellness? Clearly it is not just the bad boss fault, management also has a responsibility and role in play. Let’s explore why Emotional Intelligence plays an importance role in creating a performance enabling, productive and healthy work culture.

1) Attention, memory and learning

We all have been in situations where due to our emotional state we were unable to think clearly, focus on the task at hand or learn something. Emotional experiences hinder our ability to thinking and do certain task. In short term the experiences bombard our brain with new thoughts and reasoning which gives rise to new emotions and feeling or intensify existing emotions. A person when experiencing negative emotional experience is either is a fight, flight and freeze state. Out of the three, freeze state is most dangerous for both the individual and the business, as it pauses the brain activity and disturbs the functionality of a person body. A person can be found in either of these three states, particularly in a negative culture where employee wellbeing is not a priority.

2) Decision Making

Emotional experiences influence our decisions. Imagine if you have been through an intense argument or confrontation with your senior manager and you come back to your desk and have to make a very important business decision, what are the chances that the decision will be a well-thought rational decision? In business performance, efficiency, growth and the future of any organization is dependent on the business decision of managers. What would happen if most of the business decisions are emotion base rather than rational?

3) Relationship

Businesses strives on relationships. Positive working relationships is important for team work, collaboration and for support. Our body, facial expressions, tone and gestures speaks volume about who we are and want we want. If a person has a stern looking face and close body language it indicates that he is not open to talk and not a welcoming person. Similarly, if a person has an open body language, smile and welcoming face, that person is indicating that he/she is approachable and open to help.

4) Mental and Physical Health

Mental health is the ability of the brain to cope up with negative emotions and stresses. Mental health is a global issue which has also ignited the great resignation in the USA, UK and Canada. According to WHO estimate nearly 24 million people in Pakistan are in need of psychiatric assistance.

Organizations need to raise awareness about mental and emotional health as it affects their employee’s performance, growth and also the business. It can also result in increase in health insurance cost for the business.

5) Creativity

This is mainly relevant for business in the tech space. One thing we need to understand is that creativity does not happen in pressure. One needs to have a relax mind, environment and culture that enables their creativity and thinking outside the box mode. That is the reason why organizations are investing millions of dollars of emotional wellbeing and wellness program.

In conclusion organizations can benefits by creating a culture of emotional intelligence, and keeping employee wellbeing at its core from productivity, innovation and growth. Gone are the days when one used to do repetitive tasks, manual paper work – now the world is more competitive, fast and require innovative solutions to the modern-day problems.?