Emotional intelligence and occupational stress

The experience of occupational stress has long been implicated in the development of negative outcomes for the individual employee and the employing organisation. General well-being as well as levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment have been identified in the literature as decreasing as a result of the experience occupational stress. The intertwined relationship between occupational stress and emotion has also been proposed to play a role in the stress-outcomes relationship. Although emotions are an integral and inseparable part of everyday organisational life, they are difficult to measure and as such have generally been ignored in the organisational literature. Recent research has begun to focus on the role of emotions in the workplace and a development from this approach has been to conceptually examine the relationship between cognition and emotions. This movement has largely been attributed to new research around the construct of Emotional Intelligence (EI). Emotional Intelligence involves behaviours related to the experience of emotion; specifically EI involves expressing, recognising, understanding and managing emotions. Despite the interest in workplace EI, very little empirical research has examined the role EI may play in occupational stress. This thesis systematically examined the relationship between EI and the occupational stress process, including stressors, strains (health), and outcomes of stress (job satisfaction and organisational commitment). The first study of this thesis involved the administration of a questionnaire to 320 employees. The results of Study 1 indicate that four dimensions of EI were particularly important in the occupational stress process: Emotional Recognition and Expression, Understanding Emotions, Emotional Management and Emotional Control. It was concluded that utilising EI was related to the experience of occupational stress, and to the outcomes of occupational stress (both health and attitudes), such that employees who reported using EI were less likely to report feelings of stress, ill-health and lowered satisfaction and commitment. The results of Study 1 provided a rationale for the development of an EI training program, a program to teach employees how to utilise the dimensions of EI more effectively in the workplace and to teach them how to deal with the negative emotions that arise from the experience of occupational stress. The prevalence of occupational stress in the Australian workforce is increasing and as a consequence many stress management intervention programs have surfaced in the literature, although none with emphasis on utilising emotions more effectively. The aim of Study 2 in this thesis was to develop, implement and evaluate an EI training program which had an emphasis on stress management. Study 2 involved the development of a five-session group training program and a standardised training manual. The training program was evaluated in terms of the variables identified in Study 1 (EI, occupational stress, strains, and outcomes of stress). The sample consisted of 79 teachers (55 with complete data sets). Baseline measures were taken at two time intervals prior to participation in the EI training program. Participants were assessed immediately after participation in the program and at a five-week follow-up interval. The findings of Study 2 demonstrated the effectiveness of the EI training program in terms of improving levels of EI, decreasing feelings of stress and strain and improving the outcomes of stress. These changes were evident immediately after completion of the training program and were maintained (or improved upon) at the follow-up time period. However there were some limitations to Study 2. Specifically, the short duration of the training program, the short follow-up time interval (of only five weeks) and the use of secondary stress management prevention tools were each limitations of this training program. Further research is necessary to address these limitations and to more accurately determine the efficacy of the training program developed in this thesis. Despite the limitations of Study 2, the EI training program implemented and evaluated in this thesis illustrated that a training program focussed on the emotional experiences of employees is able to successfully engage employees and assist them in dealing with the experience of occupational stress and the consequences of stress. Furthermore, these results demonstrate that the EI training program was successful in improving the employee's level of EI, providing support for the theory that EI can be learned and developed. Overall, the development and implementation of an EI training program, in this thesis, demonstrated that behaviours underpinning the dimensions of EI can be learned and that training programs focussed on the emotional experiences of employees in the workplace can be effective in improving employee well-being and in decreasing feelings of occupational stress. The results of this thesis therefore provide support for including EI training programs as part of stress management for employees.