76% of Americans are satisfied with the relationships they have with their colleagues. That leaves 24% who aren’t, however, and if you have your own organization, you don’t want your employees to be part of that number.
Instead, they should be part of the 76%, and you can do this by creating an emotionally intelligent organization.
Read on to find out how to develop an emotionally intelligent workforce.
Encourage Feedback
Emotional intelligence requires open communication where appropriate. That means that you should encourage feedback from your employees. That way, unregulated emotions aren’t given a chance to fester and become outbursts.
It would be ridiculous to expect your employees to keep their emotions on lockdown all of the time. Instead, they should be able to use those emotions and express concerns in a healthy way.
You can do this by setting up times for specific meetings. Alternatively, have an open channel on a communication app.
Provide Resources
Providing resources (like emotional intelligence books) can also help your employees to define emotional intelligence and put it into use. You can also provide training courses that may help them with this.
You should also provide the resources they need for their job to ensure there’s no frustration. That can be counter-productive to emotional intelligence. Check-in and make sure everyone has everything they need.
Identify Strengths and Weaknesses
37% of employees feel that recognition is their greatest drive at work. That’s why, to help keep them motivated and able to use and manage their emotions, you should identify strengths and weaknesses. Delegate based on this when it comes to projects.
Don’t forget to compliment your employees on their strengths and provide constructive support for weaknesses. If you criticize without help, this could bring your employees down and cause them to become despondent. That’s just asking for emotions to slip and become outbursts.
This will also help the productivity of the company since you can then more efficiently manage projects.
Create Group Activities
Having social activities outside of work for your team members to bond over can help improve their relationships and, therefore, encourage high emotional intelligence in the company.
It’s easier for a team to help express and control their emotions if they feel they have good relationships with everyone there. This could be as simple as an after-work dinner. You could even try an escape room to really help them put their minds to the test and encourage communication!
This Is How to Develop an Emotionally Intelligent Organization
Developing an emotionally intelligent workforce can seem daunting at first, but it’s easy to do if you communicate well with workers. You should also provide them with the resources they need to feel emotionally healthy.
If you would like to further understand emotional intelligence, we provide an EQ Assessment that measures a person’s EQ on the five steps of emotional intelligence, as well as provide EQ coaching and have EQ workshops for companies.