Emotional intelligence, or EI, is crucial in every workplace environment, especially during the appraisal process. For this, your role as an HR becomes even more important, as you’ll be the one guiding both managers and employees through it.
Think of the employees who are due for an appraisal within the next few days. Some of them might be stressed thinking about it. You can provide them the confidence to think of appraisal as a learning step in their respective careers.
Make them understand that their expectations may or may not be met, but the essential thing for them is to learn from this process and work on the feedback given by the managers. Similarly, guide the managers to be supportive and empathetic towards the employees during appraisal.
Why Does EI Matter During Appraisals?
Managers with high EI provide impactful feedback in such a way that the employees don’t feel demotivated. By being empathetic and understanding, such managers build a trustable relationship with their employees. In such an environment, every employee feels comfortable enough to share their issues. When the appraisal period comes close, employees tend to get anxious and doubtful of their capabilities. Just like HRs, these managers can step in during these times and help the nervous employees understand the entire process.
On the other hand, employees with higher EI levels take feedback positively, handle their emotions, and look at it as an opportunity to grow. Having such a positive approach surely helps. As per a statistic, about 90% of top employees have above-average emotional intelligence.
Let’s understand this through an example; one of your employees is due for an appraisal. They have been showing significant improvement over the past year, yet there are still some areas that need improvement. A manager with a high EI will acknowledge all the things that the employee has improved over the past term. They’ll give constructive feedback and also guide the employee by providing proper steps to take.
Such managers can also help in strengthening self-confidence and making the employees self-aware. On the other hand, a manager with a lower EI might be vague or just critical with their feedback. This can demotivate the employee.
Similarly, employees with high EI can take feedback on their chin and value it. These employees aptly understand why they are receiving feedback and how it is good for them and the organization. The ones with lower EI may struggle with feedback and criticism.
HR’s Role in Enhancing Emotional Intelligence
The work culture across fields has been changing, and emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in maximizing performance and employee well-being. A team with high EI will have better communication, productivity, and support for each other. Let’s look at some of the ways HR can enhance the EI of their employees and managers.
- Train managers to help them understand their own emotional biases and triggers. By doing this, they’ll become more objective and evaluate fairly. Aiding managers with self-regulation techniques can make them calmer during appraisal meetings and help them provide criticism more constructively.
- For employees, you can suggest tips that could help them stay motivated. This will help you get better performance out of them. To boost their motivation, recognizing and appreciating their achievements is important during appraisals.
- Provide empathy training to managers to help them understand the employee’s perspective during appraisal meetings. Making the employees feel heard and valued will help create a more supportive environment. Apart from this, managers can be trained to effectively communicate with their employees and provide feedback in a way that’s easy to understand.
- Conduct workshops before appraisals for the employees and managers. These will help them know what to expect during their appraisal meeting, how to give and receive feedback positively, and how crucial it is to perform self-assessment.
- Announce employees’ achievements to their team or the entire office to let the employees know they are a special and valuable part of the workforce. This can easily be done with greytHR, a feature-rich HRMS that can enhance employee engagement. Along with making an HR’s life easy, it has a lot of similar impactful functions like the option to provide feedback to the company. It’s things like these that encourage everyone in the company to be vocal, which is one of the crucial requirements of having a high EI.
- You know what they say, ‘Leading from the front’. Similarly, you, as an HR, should show a high level of EI and be a role model for others.
- Keep looking for ways to incorporate EI as a metric while evaluating an employee during the appraisal process.
Summing up
As an HR, you can help others improve their EI. An important part of it is to encourage communication across the organization that is open and honest by nature. This fosters harmonious and supportive employee relationships. It makes the appraisal process truly beneficial for everyone involved. Along with making appraisals more impactful, prioritizing emotional intelligence will also help create a supportive and productive office environment.
FAQs
- 1. What Is Emotional Intelligence in HR?
Emotional Intelligence in HR is the ability to understand and manage emotions effectively in the workplace. Skills like empathy, self-awareness, and relationship management are involved. As an HR, one needs to carry out certain duties such as understanding employees’ demands and concerns, and also play a role in developing interpersonal relationships among employees.
- 2. Why Is Emotional Intelligence Important for HR Leaders?
Having high emotional intelligence enables HR Leaders to make the relationships between employees stronger, solve conflicts efficiently, and make the workplace more positive. It’ll also improve HR's decision-making and leadership skills.
- 3. How Can HR Professionals Enhance Their Emotional Intelligence?
To improve their own EI, HRs can practice skills like self-reflection, active listening, taking feedback, and being more empathetic. They can also try training programs and mindfulness exercises.
