7-Steps HR Professionals Can Take To Raise
The Emotional Intelligence Of Their Organization 

1.      Start with Management: Make the Business Case for the Importance of Emotional Competence in the Organization

Educate senior management about the research that demonstrates that EI differentiates strong leaders from average leaders and high performers from average performers across functions. Take advantage of research available on-line through the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations or from other professionals, who have presented at professional conferences. Start collecting data throughout your organization that will help build your case that EI is just not the next “flavor” of the month. Measure the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and key business drivers.  Consider assessing a group’s emotional intelligence and it relation to the following:

2.         Integrate EI Competencies into Existing Competency Models

Most companies have a core set of capabilities that are required of all employees regardless of level or job function. Make sure that the emotional, social and relational competencies that have been proved to be critical to success are part of your corporation’s required competencies. Examine the performance of high-potential employees and assess if performance strongly correlates to their level of emotional intelligence. 

3.         Educate Employees About Emotional Intelligence

Give employees an overview of the research on emotional intelligence and “make it come alive” by demonstrating what the emotional competencies look like in practice. Train them to spot it in others and know when they themselves are being emotionally competent. Use several methods to increase their understanding and interest in EI. Encourage self-directed learning teams to share information about EI and brainstorm how they can benefit from these new skills. Tie emotional competence to development and teach employees to create development plans the target EI competencies.

4.         Integrate Emotional Competence Language and Criteria into Performance Management Systems

The language of Emotional Intelligence i.e. self-awareness, organizational savvy, interdependent partnering, should be integrated into performance reviews, succession planning criteria, and other performance metrics that are used to describe and assess performance. The key is to be precise about the behaviors that are expected for each of the competencies. For example, one of the behaviors for organizational savvy would be “understands and accesses the informal networks in the organization.” 

5.      Hire Employees with Strong Emotional Intelligence

The criteria for selection should have an emphasis on EI competencies like Social Skills, Self-Management/Regulation. Remember, you can train easier for functional skills than you can for emotional and social competencies. Emotional Intelligence is comprised of recognizable behaviors that can be demonstrated throughout one’s personal and professional life. Develop behavioral questions that will help you assess if potential employees have demonstrated these critical competencies. Use these behavior questions when interviewing internal candidates for promotion, transfer, or team assignments. 

6.      Build Skill in Emotional Competencies Throughout the Organization

Provide training and education to all levels of the organization that is designed to build EI competence. The most impactful skill building initiatives have a [training, practice, feedback] design that promotes skill building over time through practice, feedback and refinement.

7.     Measure and Reward Employees Against the EI Criteria

Once you’ve integrated the EI criteria into your performance metrics systems (Step 4) and provided skill-building opportunities to employees (Step 6) it's time to assess employee EI competence. A well-designed 360 survey that is customized to the competency model of the organization (including the newly integrated EI competencies) is a good way to assess individual performance as well as to build an organizational profile of EI competence.