Emotional Intelligence White Paper
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Emotional Intelligence White Paper
Trevor Van Brunt, CBET
Bellevue University
Emotional Intelligence White Paper
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Our company has had problems with
technical knowledge was not the
poor communication among our
pertinent failure point. The technician
employees, our customers, and our
first blamed the nursing staff for ruining
colleagues. We are seeking to solve
his evening through their ignorance,
these issues by use of emotional
then condescendingly explained some
intelligence training. It will improve our
basics of the monitoring system’s use.
conflict resolution skills and our service
When this instruction and some minor
delivery. In addition, emotional
accessory changes did not solve the
intelligence training will improve
problem, he began stormily shuffling
productivity and reclaim salary dollars.
monitors back and forth among a few
Background
We here at the Company recognize that
rooms until one worked in the problem
room.
there are many occasions where failure
Our client lodged a service complaint
of communication has caused delays,
against this technician, and we have
frustration, and loss of face with our
had to take a more serious look at how
clients. Here is an example of the
technicians are trained.
problem. Recently, one of our on-call
technicians was required to return to his
local hospital in order to solve a patient
monitoring malfunction. The solution to
the glitch should have been within the
grasp of any biomedical engineering
staff member; however, his lack of
Figure 1: Image of patient monitor courtesy of
GE Healthcare.
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Solution
and all our customers. In fact, through
In order to prevent future issues with
this plan, we can reclaim $32,000/year
monitoring system service, we have
worth of productivity in salary dollars.
implemented a technical training class.
That is 8% of our annual salary budget
That is only a small part of the solution
(not including benefits). See the math in
to the larger issue.
the last section here.
In addition, we collaborated in
So how do we train our workers in EQ?
investigation with the Human Resources
We will start by discovering what is
department to find a solution to the
needed, and what our capabilities are,
failure of customer service. Our
through frank and objective survey from
research tells us that training and
reinforcement of skills in emotional
intelligence (EQ) will greatly improve our
service delivery. We will see
productivity and financial gains as
Figure 2: Image courtesy of Renovo Solutions
multiple perspectives. The program will
additional benefits.
have integrated, constructive feedback,
Process and Benefits
and an open participation model. Since
Emotional Intelligence training will
we have strong loyalty to leadership, we
provide several benefits. Quality of
will use it to appeal to staff for
service, productivity, and staff earning
participation. Management believe
power, will all improve. If correctly
strongly that work ethic is only a part of
implemented, we can expect much
what makes a great worker, so they will
better relations with other departments
utilize this training tool to drive
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improvement. We will need to develop
support others. These activities help
some encouragement strategies, as a
build a stronger team.
company-wide, negative self-image is a
current weakness.
Sensitivity and awareness will develop
from discussion and examination of
After the foundation is set, the training
these training activities. Self-awareness
can begin. Again, the strong personal
will greatly improve behaviors. Better
loyalty to leadership will aid this project.
customer service is driven by
Building on all assessments, individuals
awareness of the needs of others, and a
will be given choice in the order and
desire to match our solutions to those
method of training. Every training track
needs. Though we have had that
will have personal goals for each
desire, we have not had the sensitivity
employee, and a plan of attack built
to be aware of our customers’ needs.
around their chosen method. Exercises
with direct, immediate feedback will
require all workers to repeat
reinforcement activities, and receive
encouragement and direction. These
exercises will, in part, consist of trainers
roleplaying and interacting with workers.
Employees will learn through modelled
behaviors and through doing. We will
focus primarily on overcoming conflicts.
Every participant should encourage and
The continuation phase of the program
requires use of these skills on the job, in
order to spread them to others, and to
make emotional intelligence a part of
our culture. Regular discussion of this
material will permanently be on the
department discussion agenda to
prevent falling back in to old behaviors.
Also, the multipoint evaluations will be
integrated in all employee evaluations,
including leadership. Our standard
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practices will now highlight follow-up
worker: 0.4 S.D. x 0.4 S.D. x $40,000 =
and continuing evaluation of emotional
$6,400.
intelligence skill use.
Since no one has been trained, and
Recognition
since it is a new program to our
The solution team would like to
organization, we made two predictive
acknowledge our HR department for
adjustments. First, improvement will not
their guidance. Also, the process and
be tempered much by existing skills.
training outline provided here are largely
Second, compliance will be depressed
based on a technical report by the
due to structural resistance, causing a
Emotional Intelligence Consortium,
large reduction in efficacy. We predict,
called “Bringing Emotional Intelligence
therefore, a positive impact per worker
to the Workplace” (Cherniss and
of 0.2 S.D.; that means only $3,200
Goleman, 1998).
improvement. Computing the total
Financial Explanation
This explanation is reworked from the
programmatic economic impact, the
math is as follows: 10 workers x
financial impact section of Cherniss’ and
$3,200/worker = $32,000 for the dept.
Goleman’s report (1998, p. 26-8).
per annum. Despite the compliance
reduction, our department of ten
Our departmental average salary is
workers averaging $40k/yr. would
$40,000 per annum. Using their
reclaim a tidy 8% of those salary dollars.
productivity math based on standard
deviations (S.D.), with our numbers,
here is the average economic impact of
emotional intelligence training per
Conclusion
We currently have a problem with
technicians whose social skills need
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improvement. This problem can be
emotional intelligence, supporting the
solved, and the benefits of the solution
continuation of the skill set. Committing
are far greater than simple skill
to this strategy will net us significant
acquisition. Financial success is built on
savings on reclaimed salary, converted
the people doing the work. We want
to productivity.
every individual in our company to be
able to more gracefully interact with
customers and colleagues. Through
this training program they will be able to
accomplish their work more efficiently.
We can establish a culture of stronger
References
Cherniss, C., and Goleman, D. (1998).
Bringing Emotional Intelligence to the
Workplace. Piscataway, NJ:
Consortium for Research on Emotional
Intelligence in Organizations.