Bewertung des Arabian Journal of Business and Management

Emotional Intelligence and Work Life Balance of Employees in the Information Technology Industry

Abstract

Sachin Gupta

Emotional Intelligence is a set of qualities and competencies that captures a broad collection of individual skills and dispositions, usually referred to as soft skills or inter and intra-personal skills, that are outside the traditional areas of specific knowledge, general intelligence, and technical or professional skills. Emotions are an intrinsic part of our biological makeup, and every morning they march into the office with us and influence our behaviour. Emotional intelligence consists of five factors: Knowing one’s emotions, managing emotions, motivating one, recognizing emotions in others, and handling relationships Goleman [1]. Researchers today are interested in finding the effects of emotional intelligence on employees and thereby, organizations, and analyzing the various other facets of EQ. Emotional intelligence improves individual and organizational performance. It plays a significant role in the kind of work an employee produces, and the relationship he or she enjoys in the organization. Work-Life Balance is a challenging issue for IT leaders, managers and has also attracted the attention of researchers. Work/life balance, in its broadest sense, is defined as a satisfactory level of involvement or ‘fit’ between the multiple roles in a person’s life. In this climate managing the boundary between home and work is becoming more challenging. Organizations need to ensure they not just encourage but mandate a practical and workable work/life balance policy, benefiting and meeting the needs of both the organization and its employees. Organizations not providing real opportunity for employees work/life balance are opening themselves up to increasing numbers of dissatisfied and unproductive employees and hence increased attrition rates. Merely creating a work/life policy framework is not enough; fostering an organizational culture that supports the use of available policies is also of great importance. Further there is a need for employers and employees alike to find flexible and innovative solutions that maximize productivity without damaging employee’s well-being, their family relationships and other aspects of life. This study is an attempt to contribute afresh with a new perspective to the field of human resources and behavioural sciences with special reference to emotional intelligence in relation of employees work-life balance in IT organizations. It is also an earnest attempt to bridge the gap especially in this area by highlighting the relevance and importance of work-life balance and emotional intelligence to leadership, senior management, individual and organizations and hoping this study will initiate a series of serious and productive discussion on the subject. The findings and outcome of this research will be beneficial to the IT organizations in India, which is a flourishing industry and contributes significantly to the GDP of the country and the talent pool of the world. The study will bring in sharp focus the major challenges encountered in these areas and the solutions that will aid IT organizations to deal more significantly in increasingly their effectiveness. The review on the related literature in the area of emotional intelligence and work-life balance studied in this research has provided the researcher an insight into many factors. It also provides direction in designing the present study. Having reviewed several studies and having identified the gap, the investigator felt an imperative need to undertake the present investigation. This term paper is through light on impact of emotional intelligence on performance of employees and the next objective is to know how to become an EI organization. Emotional Intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while other claim it is an inborn characteristic. To do the research thoroughly, review of literature is being taken with twenty articles. Through this study, it is concluded that emotional intelligence has greater impact on performance of employees. Secondly an emotionally intelligent organization is based on an organisational strategy to improve business performance.