Emmanuel Carrillo is CEO of Talon Logistics, a drayage provider pioneering zero-emission trucking for ports.
Whether you want to improve employee retention, increase organizational agility or enhance teamwork, I’ve found that implementing an emotional quotient (EQ) training program can generate meaningful results within a company. This is true of startups and enterprises alike.
However, finding the best place to start a program can be a challenge. Your leadership team may wonder how employees will respond to “demands” for increased emotional intelligence, or how the “increased workload” from an EQ program might effect productivity. And these concerns aren’t limited to the C-Suite; if you hire an EQ coach, employees may raise questions about confidentiality (as patient/doctor confidentiality may not exist with an EQ coach). They may also be reluctant to engage in EQ programs, as many employees have been taught to “leave it at the door” when it comes to their personal lives.
In other words, it can be daunting to identify the best approach for starting a program. However, based on my own experiences going through this process with my company, I’ve found there are several steps that leaders can take to generate early victories from EQ programs and gain employee buy-in across the business.
1. Build a baseline.
There are formal programs and tests that can help you identify your organizational EQ, both in terms of the overall organization and on an individual employee basis. For example, I’ve found that it can be helpful to know which employees exhibit high EQ. However, these tests aren’t always necessary; a simple internal survey asking employees how they feel about the business and team may suffice. Make sure your surveys include questions about how individuals feel about teamwork and collaboration, peer and leadership communication, and inclusivity.
The information collected in those surveys can then be layered on top of company-wide data, such as average employee tenure and/or absenteeism. Comparing these variables across the organization can provide you with meaningful insights; for example, while it’s obviously beneficial to know which employees are most likely to miss time in the office, understanding why they’re missing time can be even more so.
It’s also important to identify how your business stacks up against its peers in your industry. The trucking community, for instance, has nearly 90% year-over-year turnover. For a leader outside that space, a 30% retention rate may seem like a failure, but an insider might understand 30% retention as a resounding success in comparison to most companies in the industry.
2. Implement a plan that builds on itself.
From the lean principles of removing waste across a supply chain to the DevOps movement in software engineering, the idea of continuous improvement has become common across the business world. This same approach can also be applied to your EQ program.
A key tenet of EQ is that our childhood experiences shape the way we see and react to the world. In other words, EQ takes a look at the long arc of a person’s life. As such, it’s important to recognize that a one-time workshop based on trust falls will not instantly solve all EQ challenges within your company. Instead of looking for a magic bullet, establish a plan that focuses on helping employees achieve ongoing, incremental improvements.
3. Track progress to create ROI.
Tracking effectiveness is critical to the success of EQ programs, but there’s a catch: Improvements to emotional intelligence are rarely linear. Again, EQ is based in part on perceptions formed during childhood. A 40-year-old colleague may take weeks to understand what event shaped their view of a certain situation, so those weeks could show very little progress but be followed by a giant leap forward (a breakthrough).
Additionally, a person’s emotions on a particular day may cloud their feelings when it comes to EQ. A traffic jam that made someone late for work could make them feel annoyed, which could show up in measurement initiatives.
However, these shouldn’t be reasons to ignore measurement overall. By utilizing the surveys you used before implementing an EQ program, you can look to see how each employee’s engagement and emotional connection has changed quarterly or bi-annually. This research can also be shared with an EQ coach or trainer to help guide the curriculum moving forward.
Final Thoughts
There’s a saying in sustainability circles: The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the next best time is right now. I believe this is also true of EQ programs in business. The long-term gains I’ve seen from these programs can be substantial, including higher employee engagement, additional creativity in problem-solving, increased organizational agility, and more. When you leverage basic surveys, focus on continual improvement and create regular touchpoints, getting started can be more straightforward than you think.
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