The influence of emotional intelligence on employee well-being, creativity and employee engagement during a crisis

. The concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in the workplace has recently gained popularity. There is a dearth of studies that have examined the influence of Emotional Intelligence (EI) on employee well-being, creativity and employee engagement among employees engaged in projects. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and three independent variables, which were Employee Well-Being, Creativity and Employee Engagement. In this quantitative study, the target population was members of project teams. This was a cross-sectional study, and data were collected using a survey strategy. The primary data was collected by using self-administered questionnaires. Based on a sample size of 101 respondents, the data analysis was done by using the SPSS tool. The findings revealed that EI had a strong impact on all three predictors, namely employee well-being, creativity, and engagement. The results of this study will provide useful information to HR managers and leaders in organizations. To the best of the author's knowledge, this study is the first of its kind in Malaysia.


Introduction
A crisis is normally referred to as an unexpected or non-routine event that leads to high levels of uncertainty and threat (Seeger et al., 1998). There are several repercussions or effects of a crisis on employees. This can lead to lower employee job satisfaction and stress (Halkos, and Bousinakis, 2017;Giorgi et al., 2015). This can further affect the performance of organizations and employees' psychological health and well-being. The crisis affects workrelated processes and leads to stress and strain in project teams. The impact of the crisis project teams can lead to a negative psychological impact on the team members. The team members face uncertainties relating to their workload, job security and mental health (Koch and Schermuly, 2021). The uncertainties that the project team members experience could potentially make them emotionally exhausted. This will affect their performance and motivation. Past studies have shown that EI has been positively associated with team performance (Rezvani, Barrett, and Khosravi, 2019). The ultimate impact is on the success of projects. Therefore, the effect of the team members' emotional intelligence on their creativity, well-being and engagement can help organizations mitigate the effect of the crisis on employee-related outcomes. Identification of the impact of emotional intelligence on employees' well-being, creativity and engagement can play an effective role in addressing employees' related problems during a crisis, such as performance and satisfaction.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is fundamental in everyone's life, particularly in the workplace. In addition, there has been an increase in the awareness related to the importance of Emotional Intelligence (EI), especially among employees. The concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) is not new, and researchers have conducted studies on the association of EI with several outcomes that include employee performance (Rezvani et al., 2019) and job satisfaction (Ealias & George, 2012). Consequently, the findings from various research also proved that there was a value for Emotional Intelligence (EI) in workplaces (Abd Hamid, & Abd Razak, 2016). The significance of EI, especially in workplaces, has increased because EI is now considered the most fundamental predictor of work performance. A study has proven that 90% of employees who perform well in their workplaces have high EI (Nanda & Randhawa, 2020).
Studies have shown that EI has an impact on both individual and team levels. The study by Revani et al. (2018) revealed that EI was a significant predictor of trust and performance at both individual and team levels. Studies have also revealed that Emotional Intelligence (EI) encourages employees to develop their creativity and further improve their work engagement (Vasudevan, 2013). There has also been a drop in the level of creativity, work engagement, and commitment among employees (Vasudevan, 2013). EI is also associated with the well-being of employees as it is a required skill among employees to manage issues related to mental health and the high level of stress that they face in their working environment, especially during a crisis. Subsequently, the impact of the crisis caused people to feel overwhelmed and stressed, which resulted in an increase in the number of mental health issues among Malaysians as they were not able to manage their emotions and face the challenges. There also has been an increase in the number of people who called the hotline for help. Around 39.1% of those who called the helpline suffered from burnout due to work. Over 50% suffered from burnout due to personal reasons (Yeo, 2021).
Past studies have shown that EI was strongly linked with creativity, employee engagement and an employee's well-being. However, most of the research studies in relation to the role of EI were conducted in developed countries. There are some empirical studies that have been done in Malaysia on the role of EI (Alonazi, 2020). The study by Alonazi (2020) focused on healthcare employees in Malaysia during the Covid-19 crisis. The findings from this research were limited to a specific profession and generalizability. There is a dearth of studies that have empirically tested the effect of EI on Creativity, employee engagement and well-being among members of a project team. The study by Alonazi (2020) also recommended further replication of the study among other target populations. The influence of EI on employees, specifically project team members, during the crisis in other parts of Malaysia was still left unexplored. Therefore, this study examined the influence of EI on the well-being, creativity and employee engagement among project team members during a crisis. To address the deficiencies in previous research studies, this study was conducted on project team members in West Malaysia, specifically in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. This research would benefit project team members, especially from Malaysia, Human Resource (HR) managers and future researchers who would like to explore the topic of EI.

Emotional Intelligence
There is no clear definition of emotional intelligence (EI). The most widely accepted definition of EI is by Salovey and Mayer et al. (1995). Based on the definition by Mayer and Salovey (1997) defined EI as "the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate between them, and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions". The term definition of EI includes the ability of someone to monitor their own and other people's emotions and use the emotional information as a guide to think and react (Colman, 2008). Based on the definition by Mayer and Salovey (1997), EI encompassed four dimensions: accurately perceiving emotions, using emotions to facilitate thoughts, understanding emotions and managing emotions. However, Mayer et al. (2003) stated that the four dimensions are associated with each other and form a single general EI factor. It also helps in reflecting on the abilities to combine other factors such as empathy and emotions together with intelligence for a better understanding of interpersonal dynamics (Mayer et al., 2008).
Emotional Intelligence (EI) consists of three main models which are the ability model, trait model and mixed model. The ability model proposes that there are variations among people in the ability to process information related to their emotional side and to relate the emotional processing into cognition that is wider, while the trait model proposes the selfperception of an individual about their emotional abilities. The third one is the mixed model. This model proposes that Emotional Intelligence (EI) is an array of skills and competencies that helps enhance a leader's performance (Goleman, 1998). In contrast, some researchers have stated in their studies that the entire concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) originates from an analytical sloka in the Indian philosophy, Bhagavat-Gita, which the entire concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) is summed up in the book (Gayathri et al., 2012.).
Emotional intelligence has been linked positively with several employee outcomes in past studies. Researchers in the past have associated Emotional Intelligence (EI) with positive association with employee creativity, employee engagement and well-being (Vasudevan, 2013; Nanda & Randhawa, 2020; Shukla et al., 2013). Another study by Carmeli et al. (2009) revealed that EI was significantly and positively associated with the components of psychological well-being, namely self-esteem, life satisfaction, and self-acceptance. The study by Sony and Mekoth (2016) revealed that all the sub-dimensions of emotional intelligence were significantly and positively related to the adaptability of front-line employees. Emotional Intelligence (EI) and job satisfaction are linked together. The findings from a study state that individuals with higher Emotional Intelligence (EI) are good at developing strategies to handle stress and boost their morale as well as their colleagues (Ealias & George, 2012). This shows that EI is one of the key determinants of several employee-related outcomes.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) has become extremely popular in managing projects. Working in a project environment can be stressful for the project team. Thus, Project Managers with high Emotional Intelligence need to manage relationships and uncertainties in projects (Zhang et al., 2018). Another research by Stephens et al. (2016) revealed that in projects, employees with a high level of Emotional Intelligence (EI) are more open to improving their ability to engage n effective communication and to cooperate with others by expanding their skills and knowledge base (Stephens et al., 2016). Druskat and Druskat (2006) argued that EI is more important in project management than in other business environments. EI in project management is important in developing productive relationships and interpersonal interactions that take place across organizational cultures. In projects, EI is critical to the performance of project managers who lead project teams (Goleman, 2001).

Emotional Intelligence and Employee Well-Being
Well-being is broad and multi-faceted. There is the various definition of well-being by researchers and scholars. According to Abun (2020), employee well-being can be defined as an employee's expectations and working ways that may affect their happiness or health. In addition, well-being can also be described as a positive feeling and how an individual functions effectively with it (Winefield et al., 2012). There are two central concepts that define the term well-being. The first is eudaimonia, and the second is hedonia (Rahmani et al., 2018). Eudaimonia is related to the outcomes at a personal level that leads to human development. Hedonia is related to the aspect of pleasure of well-being. According to Rahmani et al. (2018), employee well-being is greater when there is a presence of both central concepts: eudaimonia and hedonia. According to Sudibjo & Sutarji (2020), there are three categories of well-being which are satisfaction level in relation to the psychological well-being, health of the employee, which is related to the physical well-being and quantity and quality of social groups, which is related to the social well-being.
Researchers have affirmed that emotional intelligence is associated with well-being, and individuals with high emotional intelligence are satisfied in terms of their well-being (Salovey & Mayer, 1990;Goleman, 1995). Most organizations have also realized that happy and satisfied employees are more productive. This finding reflects that employees' well-being positively impacts their work performance (Krishantha, 2018). There have been several studies in the past where the relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and employees' well-being has been examined. According to Cejudo et al. (2018), Emotional Intelligence (EI) has a positive relationship with employee well-being. A high level of Emotional Intelligence (EI) was discovered to enhance employee well-being. Emotional Intelligence (EI) was also identified as a significant indicator of an employee's well-being (Akanni et al., 2020). Emotional Intelligence (EI) helps equip employees with the skills required to cope in a stressful working environment. It serves as a motivational factor which in turn helps promote employees' well-being (Extremera et al., 2018). Druskat and Druskat (2006) stressed that EI is important in building relationships and links to positive outcomes such as well-being and job performance. On the contrary, research on the impact of emotional intelligence on employee well-being discovered that EI influences employee well-being positively by enabling the employee to cope with conflicts and reduce negative emotions. The negative emotions are then increased to positive emotions by enhancing their emotional regulation (Di Fabio et al., 2016). Based on the above literature review, the following hypothesis was developed for testing in this study: H1: There is a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and the well-being of project team members

Emotional Intelligence and Creativity
Creativity has been defined differently by researchers and scholars. Generally, creativity refers to the generation of ideas relating to processes, procedures, products, or services in organizations by employees (Amabile, 1996;Oldham & Cummings, 1996). This definition encompasses the development of creative solutions, changes in processes and procedures and creative strategies. Creativity is also defined as the generation of novel products or ideas (Kim et al., 2017;Ohly, 2018). There are also different models of creativity in the workplace, and the notable ones are by Amabile (1996) and Woodman et al. (1993). In the componential model of Creativity by Amabile (1996), there are three dimensions of creativity: domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant processes, and task motivation. The Interactionist Approach to Organizational Creativity by Woodman et al. (1993) posits that creativity is based on the idea that it is an individual-level phenomenon that dispositional or  Woodman (1993), creativity is the process of generating an idea, and if a particular issue arises, this process might become limited. Creativity and innovation are two different aspects of an organization but are used interchangeably. The prerequisite for innovation is Creativity (Khan & Moniya, 2020).
Past studies have shown that the creativity skills of employees in the workplace play a vital role in ensuring the organization remains competitive and relevant among its competitors (Gong et al., 2013). Moreover, creativity can take different forms, such as coming up with unconventional solutions for numerous issues that lead employees to begin the creative process in the first place. (Unsworth, 2001). Another study by Unsworth (2010) to explore the factors and processes involved in this phenomenon revealed that several factors that encompass work motivation, creativity requirements and cultural support for creativity influenced decisions about whether undertaking creative action would be worthwhile. In addition, it was also stated that a certain level of creativity is required in almost all jobs. The success of an organization and the ability of the organization to have a competitive advantage are related to the aspect of creativity among employees (Kim et al., 2017). Furthermore, as stated by Kim (2019), proactive employees have a higher likelihood of engaging in creativity. likely to engage in creativity when their leaders demonstrate high levels of empowering leadership.
Prior research has been done to test the relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and creativity has been assessed ( Desti and Shanthi (2015) stated that EI could also help individuals to use their emotions to think creatively and solve problems. Parke et al. (2015) added that individuals with high EI are able to change good moods into creativity in the workplace. A good mood in an individual helps boost employees in generating ideas or performing endeavours related to creativity. Another research by Naseem (2017) discussed angry emotions that lead to high creativity but are reduced over time. It was discovered that a person uses an amorphous approach when angry that triggers concepts that are inaccessible and are stored in the memory. This further leads to creativity. Based on the above literature review, the following hypothesis was developed for testing in this study: H2: There is a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and creativity of project team members

Employee Engagement
In human resource management, employee engagement is a major concern for organizations (Borkowska & Czerw, 2017). Kahn (1990) was the first scholar to theorize engagement. Employee engagement, according to Kahn (1990), is described as a physical, psychological, and intellectual expression by employees through their work. Kahn (1990) defined engagement as a relationship between an employee and his or her job in which the employer provides a platform for self-expression, i.e., creativity, and the employee uses his or her physical and mental capacities to accomplish this. Schaufeli et al. (2010) defined employee engagement as a cognitively pleasing disposition towards work distinguished by 'vigour, dedication, and absorption (p. 74). Employee engagement has also been referred to as the emotional and intellectual commitment of employees to the organization (Richman 2006). Truss et al. (2006) referred to employee engagement as 'passion for work by employees of the organization. Therefore, there is no specific definition of employee engagement. The employee engagement was analyzed using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) paradigm. The JD-R model was developed by Demerouti et al. (2001). Job demands, according to Demerouti et al. (2001), included bodily, sociological, and structural aspects of the job that required physical or intellectual activity along with some physical or emotional cost, which helped achieve work goals and fostered personal improvement.
Employee engagement has been linked to several antecedents and outcomes that include individual change readiness (Lee et al., 2017), affective organizational commitment and job performance (Karatepe et al., 2014), and organizational commitment (Ahuja & Gupta, 2019). Based on results from past studies, emotional intelligence is one of the key predictors of employee engagement (Sarangi and Vats, 2015; Barreiro and Treglown, 2020). The study by Sarangi and Vats (2015) that had a sample size of 182 professionals revealed that EI, especially mood repair, was a significant predictor of employee engagement that has the three dimensions of vigour, dedication and absorption in employees. Other studies have also confirmed that EI was a positive and significant predictor of employee engagement (Sudibjo and Sutarji, 2020). A study by Barreiro and Treglown (2020) that involved a sample of 306 employees examined the prediction of employee engagement based on the individual facets of Trait EI. The results showed that a facet-level of EI approach explained nearly twice the variance in engagement compared to taking a global representation of EI. Based on the above literature review, the following hypothesis was developed for testing in this study: H3: There is a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and employee engagement of project team members

Methodology and Research Design
This research study was executed to meet the objectives of this research study. This was done by referring to the onion model. Research philosophy was related to knowledge development in relation to its system of assumptions and beliefs (Saunders et al., 2016). The selected philosophy for this research was positivism. Positivism was related to the stance of a natural scientist (Saunders et al., 2016). In subscription to the positivist philosophy, this research focused on examining the influence of Emotional Intelligence (EI) on employee well-being, creativity and employee engagement. The research approach that was adopted in this study was a deductive approach. This research followed the process of deductive reasoning, which began with a theory and hypotheses, and from there, it continued with defining and operationalizing the variables being derived from facts. A deductive approach was usually used for positivism (Saunders et al., 2012). A quantitative method was used to collect primary data. A survey strategy was used to distribute questionnaires. A survey strategy was also useful for the collection of a large volume of data. The aim was to conduct the research at the present time. Therefore, a suitable time horizon for this research was a cross-section. The data collected were analyzed using the SPSS system (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010).

Population, Sampling and Sample Size
According to Sekaran and Bougie (2010), the process of choosing the right individual, object or event is defined as sampling. The target population was project team members who worked on projects in Kuala Lumpur. The sample size selected for this research was 100, in which the unit of analysis was individuals. The sample size was calculated based on the formula by Green (1991). The formula for sample size was '50 + 8m' in which the 'm' represents the number of variables. Thus, the minimum sample size was 82 respondents. In addition, the sampling technique selected for this research was non-probability sampling. Convenience sampling was used as this method is the fastest and easiest method for collecting data from the respondents.

Instrumentation
The self-administered questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first section of the questionnaire was for the respondents to fill in their demographic details. The second section includes the responses to questions on the variables of this study. All the questions were required to be answered by the respondents by scoring their answers according to the fivepoint Likert scale, which ranges from (1= Strongly Disagree to 5= Strongly Agree). The questions were adopted or adapted from past studies that tested the validity of the questions. The questions on EI were adopted from Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS) (Wong and Law, 2002). The survey items of this employee engagement will be adapted from Shuck et al. (2017) using CWAS-11. In order to measure creativity, the questions were adapted from the study by Biraglia and Kadile (2017). In order to measure well-being, the scale by Ryff and Keyes (1995) was adopted in this study.

Data Collection and Analysis
In this research, the primary data was collected using questionnaires that were selfadministered to the respondents. The questionnaires were electronically distributed. This source of data collection was inexpensive and convenient for the respondents too. In data analysis, the objectives to be fulfilled were getting a feel for the data and testing the goodness and hypotheses developed for research (Sekaran and Bougie 2010). The last part of the data analysis was to present the results of the data after conducting data testing and interpreting the results obtained (Sekaran and Bougie, 2010). The statistical tests were performed using statistical analysis software, Statistical Product and Service Solution (SPSS). This software was used to achieve the three objectives, which were getting a feel for the data, testing the goodness of data and testing hypotheses developed for research.

Demographic Information of Respondents
A total of 105 responses were received, and after editing, there were 101 good responses that the researcher received. The first question in the questionnaire was related to the respondent's age. Out of 101 respondents, 25 (24.8%) of them were between the age of 22-25, 37 (36.6%) of them were between the age of 26-30, 23 (22.8%) of them were between 31-40, 9 (8.9%) of them were between 41-50 and 7 (6.9%) of them were above 50 years old. The second item part of the first section was gender. The given options were male, female, and to state if other. Out of the 101 respondents, 51 of them were male, while another 48 of them were female. This indicated that there were more male respondents that participated in this survey compared to females. The third item was the marital status of the respondents. There was an equal number of single and married respondents, which were 50 (49.5%). As for the highest education qualification, there was a combination of respondents from all types of given education qualifications in which the highest was 55 (54.5%) from the Diploma/Degree category.

Reliability Testing of Data
The reliability test is an important aspect of data testing as it is related to the ability of an instrument to measure consistency (Pallant, 2020). In this data testing, Cronbach's alpha was used to assess the internal consistency of the data. According to Pallant (2020), the value for Cronbach's alpha is between the range of 0 to 1, with the accepted values of 0.7 to 0.95. The Cronbach's alpha value for Emotional Intelligence was 0.925. This value is within the range of the accepted value for Cronbach's Alpha, which was between 0.7 and 0.95. The Cronbach's alpha value for Employee Well-Being was 0.912. The Cronbach's alpha value for creativity was 0.843. The Cronbach's alpha value for Employee Engagement was 0.882. Therefore, all the values are within the range of accepted value for Cronbach's Alpha, which was between 0.7 and 0.95. Hence, the reliability or consistency of data was established.

Normality Test
There were several methods to conduct a normality test depending on the sample size. Skewness and kurtosis were one of the popular methods being utilized. This type of testing is categorized as descriptive statistics. The normality of data is considered a prerequisite for many statistical tests. Skewness is related to the measurement of symmetry or, in other words, also known as asymmetry in the data that shows deviation from a normal distribution. Kurtosis is related to the measurement of peakedness in the data distribution.
The accepted range of statistical values for skewness is ± 2.0, which is either less than 2.0 or more than 2 (Matore & Khairani, 2020). Any skewness value within this range is considered acceptable, and the distribution data is interpreted as normal. As for kurtosis, the accepted range of values for kurtosis is ± 10.0 (Kline, 2009). If the value exceeds ten, then it is interpreted as a high peakedness, while a lower value of kurtosis indicates is interpreted as a broadening of peakedness. The first variable was EI, in which the skewness value was -1.146 while the kurtosis level was 1.613. The second variable was Employee Well-Being which had skewness and kurtosis value of -1.699 and 4.623. The third variable was creativity, in which the skewness value was -1.148 while the kurtosis value was 1.030. The fourth variable was Employee Engagement which had a skewness value of -0.960 and a kurtosis value of 0.674. Based on these values that were obtained, it was evident that both the skewness and kurtosis values were within the acceptable range.

Pearson Correlation Data Testing
The Pearson Correlation test is a statistical test that is used for evaluating the statistical relationship between two variables that are continuous. The correlation coefficient is used to measure the strength or degree of the relationship between the variables and to examine if there is a relationship between the variables (Pallant, 2020). The range of the Pearson correlation coefficient is between -1 and 1, which is used for assessing the linear dependence between the two variables. If the coefficient obtained was 0, then this indicated that there is no relationship between the variables. Based on the values obtained, it was evident that the strongest relationship between the dependent and independent variables was Emotional Intelligence and Creativity, with a correlation coefficient of 0.739 and a significance value of 0.000. The second strongest relationship was between Emotional Intelligence and Employee Engagement. The correlation coefficient that was obtained for these two variables was 0.687, and the significance value was 0.000. EI and Employee Well-Being had a correlation coefficient of 0.638 and a significance value of 0.000.
Based on all the analyses conducted, it was evident that there is a positive relationship between Emotional Intelligence and all three independent variables: Employee Well-being, Creativity and Employee Engagement among project team members in Kuala Lumpur during the crisis. Hence, all three hypotheses were accepted in this research study.

Discussion
As stated in the Research Framework, the coefficient for the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Employee Well-Being was 0.638. This indicated that Emotional Intelligence had a positive co-relationship with Employee Well-Being. This was aligned with the previous research studies that had been conducted in which it was implied that a high level of Emotional Intelligence (EI) results in the enhancement of employee well-being (Cejudo, 2018;Akanni, 2020). The results of this study established that Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a crucial factor that improves the well-being of employees working on projects. EI serves as a motivational factor which in turn helps promote employees' well-being (Extremera et al., 2018). Druskat and Druskat (2006) stressed that EI is important in building relationships and links to positive outcomes such as well-being and job performance Next, the coefficient for the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Creativity was 0.739. This indicated that Emotional Intelligence had a positive correlation with creativity. The results also showed that EI had the highest correlation with creativity. This shows that higher levels of EI among employees working on projects will lead to higher levels of creativity. Creativity is becoming a critical skill among employees in today's environment. The result from this research study was aligned with previous research studies that were conducted (Carmeli et al., 2014). This also aligns with Goleman (1998), who stressed the role of self-awareness, which includes self-confidence. Lack of self-confidence can lead to lower levels of creativity among employees engaged in projects. Similarly, lower levels of creativity can also make employees less confident and motivated to contribute ideas. Employees with higher EI are much clearer and calmer. Creativity had the strongest relationship with Emotional Intelligence based on the data obtained from the Pearson correlation coefficient.
The correlation coefficient between Emotional Intelligence and Employee Engagement was 0.882. Emotional Intelligence and Employee Engagement had the second strongest relationship with each other based on this research study. It had a positive sign; thus, there was a positive correlation between these variables. The findings from this research study align with previous studies in the past that were similar theoretically in which Emotional Intelligence positively influences Employee Engagement (Shukla and Singh, 2013). According to a researcher, a leader's Emotional Intelligence could influence the Emotional Intelligence of employees, and employees tend to be positively engaged with leaders with higher Emotional Intelligence since the leader would be able to motivate the employees intrinsically in the workplace (Shukla et al., 2013). Another researcher also stated that employees that demonstrated higher Emotional Intelligence had greater Employee Engagement. Hence, this implied that a greater level of Employee Engagement and business performance was contributed by Emotional Intelligence (Kannaiah et al., 2015).

Implications
There were several implications emanating from this study. In terms of theoretical implications, the results of this study added to the current body of knowledge. Firstly, this study confirmed the strong relationship between EI and the creativity of employees. This study also confirmed the existence of a relationship between EI and well-being plus the engagement of employees. The findings confirmed the finding of past studies and further added the strongest correlation between EI and Creativity.
In terms of managerial perspective, this thesis helped to provide some considerable contribution to the management team of an organization, specifically the Human Resource (HR) department. It provided some insights for those in this department to better understand their project team members' well-being, creativity, and employee engagement. Hence, this study was important for the management of any organization as it helped them to have a better understanding. It also provided a better understanding of the impact of EI on project team members' creativity, well-being, and engagement. The current study demonstrated that EI was a highly important skill or competency to improve creativity, well-being and engagement of employees engaged in projects. Therefore, organizations ought to select employees with high EI levels and provide training and development initiatives relating to the EI of employees working in Project Teams. Employees with higher levels of EI will learn more about their self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management in projects. A higher level of understanding and skills in the dimensions of EI will increase their creativity and engagement levels. Therefore, EI training is expected to impact employees' creativity, well-being and engagement positively. Organizations should also provide support to employees to help them increase their EI levels. These support systems will enable employees to increase their self-confidence, relationships and teamwork in projects.

Limitations and Recommendations
Even though the outcome of this research study contributed to examining the influence of Emotional Intelligence on the independent variables, which were Employee Well-Being, Creativity and Employee Engagement among project team members in Kuala Lumpur, there were some limitations found in this study. First, this research study was limited to only employees working on Projects. Different employees from different professions do not share the same level of emotional intelligence. Thus, this data was limited only to the feedback from project team members. Future studies can compare the results from other sectors or professions. Secondly, this study did not include EI dimensions, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. The impact of each dimension of EI can have different results on the outcome variables. Therefore, it is recommended that the dimensions of EI be included. Thirdly, this study collected data from Project Team members only. It is recommended that future studies collect data from multiple sources that include Project managers and other stakeholders.