February 9th 2023
EQ-i assessments are changing the way companies do business. The reason? Understanding emotional-social intelligence encourages successful team and individual working. When recruiting, it enables hiring managers to find the best fit for their teams too.
So you can understand how to use EQ-i assessments to achieve your business goals as a cohesive team, we explain what it is, and how it helps.
What is EQ-i?
The Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) and EQ-360 assess emotional-social intelligence. People complete these assessments to get a 360 view of their own self-perception, and how they’re perceived by others.
EQ-i is not a profiling tool used to classify people, as the results of the assessment are more of a snapshot in time. Different circumstances and external factors can affect an individual’s emotions and how they perceive and respond to situations and people.
The assessment helps individuals gain a better understanding of their emotions and how they impact their relationships and decision-making. By gaining insight into the five EQ components, individuals can better express and communicate their feelings, as well as understand the emotions and motivations of others. The results can be used to make future plans for things like personal development, team building and internal progression.
The results of an EQ-i assessment address five aspects:
- Self-perception: Considering self-regard, self-actualisation, and emotional self-awareness.
- Self-expression: Involves emotional expression, assertiveness, and independence.
- Interpersonal: Comprises of empathy, interpersonal relationships, and social responsibility.
- Decision-making: Includes problem-solving, reality testing and impulse control.
- Stress management: Considers flexibility, stress tolerance and optimism. For example, a trigger for stress could be deadlines or the tone of voice in which directions are given.
Giving people more self-awareness in these areas is invaluable in work (and in life!). For example, identifying what triggers a stress response in certain situations can help you deal with pressure better.
Why assess emotional intelligence?
Better workplace communication
Knowing how people react to certain behaviours or actions allows you to better understand them. It means you can approach people in different ways to get the best out of them. For example, if someone responds well to direct instructions, you can adapt your delivery style.
On a personal level, a better awareness of how you like to communicate with others can ultimately help you work more effectively in a team.
Enhanced team collaboration
Companies that support effective team working create more positive, productive work environments. This is exactly what EQ-i helps you to achieve. When employees understand each other’s emotional strengths and weaknesses, it creates a better team dynamic. Especially valuable in challenging situations, or when problem-solving.
Increased employee engagement and wellbeing
Naturally, understanding emotional intelligence across the team allows you to take relevant actions to improve employee engagement, job satisfaction and overall wellbeing. They can help by providing individuals with insights into their emotional intelligence and how it impacts their work and relationships. Increased emotional intelligence can lead to improved morale, and stronger relationships with colleagues all of which contribute to a more positive and engaged work environment.
Better leadership development
Leaders that have a higher emotional intelligence are more able to inspire and motivate their teams. They find it easy to read emotions, and therefore create good working relationships that lead to better performance.
EQ-i is a great tool for highlighting leadership potential in your existing workforce. You can use the assessment results to help up-and-coming leaders to progress and allow them to support others to do the same.
Hiring and retaining the right staff
When it comes to hiring, EQ-i identifies if someone is a good fit for your company before you offer them the job. Once in your team, it gives everyone the potential to get the best out of each other.
The benefits here? Reduced employee turnover, less miscommunication or misreading of tone, and ultimately, increased workplace harmony. That ultimately means happier staff, and less wasted time and money spent re-hiring and re-training.
Higher return on investment and effort
The information you get from your team’s EQ-i assessments changes the way you work for the better. It means things happen quicker, in a more enjoyable way, with better results.
If you don’t do things the right way the first time, you can lose revenue-generating opportunities or damage client relationships. On the flip-side, understanding how to deal with situations in the best possible way means happier clients (and a more contented internal team). What we’re really saying here is that EQ-i can have a positive impact on your company’s bottom line.
How can you introduce EQ-i to your teams?
There can be challenges when introducing new incentives like EQ-i assessments. One of the biggest is resistance to change.
To get people bought in, your leadership team could do the assessments first, and share their experiences with other team members. After all, change needs to start from the top to have a chance to succeed. When leaders positively embrace new incentives and promote the value, others are more willing to try it too.
Of course, the results of EQ-i assessments can help you support your team through any kind of change in the first place.
Want to know more about EQ-i?
EQ-i assessments are a game-changer for companies, not just when recruiting, but for all round business success. Providing insights into emotional-social intelligence gives companies the solid building blocks need to take on new challenges as a united team.
As a people-focused business ourselves, we’ve all done EQ-i assessments to better understand each other. If you’d like to find out more about how it works in practice and how it’s helped our team, get in touch.