Emotional Intelligence Has a Greater Impact on Job Performance of Employees – An Exploratory Study on Manufacturing Industries , Coimbatore , Tamil Nadu , India

Purpose: Evaluation of employees’ performance has become an inevitable HR function in the organizational domain. This would facilitate the management in due course; to adopt requisite measures at various levels for enhancing individual competencies and thereby the organizational growth. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a psychological attribute, whose contribution to performance is certain enough. Analysis of an employee’s EI factor has become much vital in determining their quality, quantity, cost and effectiveness in the realm of organizations. Design/methodology/approach: This is an exploratory research, attempting to discover how EI and its dimensions are significantly related to the job performance of an employee. The data were collected from employees, having experience at least 10 years or more, so as to ensure relatively accurate responses on performance evaluation at different groups of employees in the manufacturing organizations. Findings: Existence of a positive correlation is revealed in between the EI dimensions and performance of employees at both supervisors and worker levels working in manufacturing organizations. Practical implications: Organizations often neglect the impact of EI towards the gravity of employees’ performance. This study explains how do the multiple dimensions of EI are evaluated which is further correlated with the job performance of the employees at different levels of the manufacturing organizations. The results of this study may also be experimented in other types and nature of organizations also. Originality/Value: This study tries to understand the manifold dimensions to be used in evaluating the EI level of the employees and the most influential ones, impacting the whole process of their job performance. The idea behind this study is to give organizations an insight about the significance of EI with respect to the performance of its employees and how they can be leveraged to obtain maximum desirable results.


Background of the Study
Every organization, at this era of competitive growth, has started emphasizing ultimate care towards the management of its human resources.This includes the management of tangible as well as non tangible assets of the organization.In the earlier stages of formulation of the discipline of Management, explicit concerns were offered to the substantial factors of a firm like its financial, material, and machinery assets.However, the significance of administering non tangible assets came into light, since the Hawthorne experiments, which could establish the personal implications of the employees in their professional context.Subsequent researches over the aforesaid topics could reveal the greater degree of worthiness of the individuality of an employee in the organizations, as the 'individual' is the single micro entity from where the concept of an organization has been further elaborated into.Henceforth, the actual resources of an employee, like his or her knowledge, intelligence, skill, attitude and behaviour were taken for organizational analysis in the time ahead.

Statement of the Problem
Organizations at this cutthroat epoch, is in a strong intension of hiring of and retaining the most suitable employees only with them.In order to accomplish this purpose, performance evaluation has become a strong necessity for both the employees and employers in different senses.On appraising an employee, along with the professional and behavioural aspects, numerous psychological and social features are also to be accounted into.In such a stage, Emotional intelligence plays an imperative role in the process and estimation of job performance.Although the professional success of an employee in an organization may be taken as an integrated impact of his or her cognitive and emotional intelligences, its 80 percentage of contribution is from the emotional part and 20 percentage is from the cognitive part of the entire intelligence of an employee.
Hence, in the process of performance evaluation, emotional intelligence plays a well manifested role.Cognitive intelligence of an individual may help him to get entered into an organization, whereas, emotional intelligence is helpful to ensure him to sustain in that organization with all progressive measures.On average, employees possessing an exceptional degree of emotional intelligence are placed in a distinguished grade.
This research tries to identify the impacts of EI and its dimensions on performance, if it is carried out well with a focus on various purposes and features of organizations.It investigates the relationship between the dimensions of EI and the job performance of the respondents and thereby to cross check whether the former influences the latter in a positive sense or not.

Objectives of the Study
The main objective of the study is to investigate the impact of the EI level of the respondents on their respective performance evaluation results.Also the study tries to find out the relationship between the EI factors and the performance evaluation results of the respondents.
The study sought to answer the following research questions.1).What is the impact of EI and its dimensions on Job Performance of the employees?
2).What is the relationship between EI level of employees and their respective performance evaluation results?

Contributions of the Study
This study would contribute additionally to the existing knowledge in the field of Emotional Intelligence based performance evaluation of the employees in the organizations.The study focuses on the employees working in manufacturing based organization who contributes more to the overall development of Coimbatore.Since the manufacturing sector plays a major role in the economy of Coimbatore, such a study provides them knowledge on EI and would help them further to understand its impact on job performance of their employees.This study serves as a source of reference to other industries also who wants to measure and manage the EI level of their employees which have a positive impact on their whole performance.

Literature Review
According to the conventional concepts, the prime factor in the definition of professional success of an employee was exclusively his or her Intelligence Quotient (IQ).But later on, researches proved that the total intelligence of an individual is been constituted of with various perspectives of mind as well as heart.Thereafter, IQ was explained as the pure cognitive contribution to the total intelligence of an individual with a particular orientation towards the psychological aspects of a person, like memory, remembrance, recollection, etc.But for the Psychologists, Behavioral scientists and Business entrepreneurs, such an index of intelligence deemed inadequate to justify the personal and professional success of an employee.Hence, a new dimension of intelligence from the emotional point of view came out, so called 'Emotional Intelligence' (EI), which is measured in the form of 'Emotional Quotient' (EQ).
The responses of a person to the world around can be treated as Emotions and they are been shaped by the amalgamation of our own thoughts, feelings, perceptions and actions.A tactical handling of these emotions is to be done at various levels of an individual, like the personal, professional, cultural and social levels.
Payne, thought up the term 'emotional intelligence', in a doctoral research.This qualitative study claimed to overcome the deficiencies in emotional functioning and regulation by showing strength in the face of fear or desire.The term "Emotional Quotient" or shortly EQ was developed and described by Reuven Bar-On (1997) through his approach to assess emotional and social competences of a person.He invented an Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i), which was the first ever introduced test for calculating the index of emotional intelligence in a scientific manner.In 1990, an article named "Emotional Intelligence" was also published by the Psychologists, John Mayer and Peter Salovey in the journal of Imagination, Cognition and Personality.However, Daniel Goleman deserves the maximum credit to bring the concept of emotional intelligence into the mainstream.He reviewed the work of John Mayer and Peter Salovey and subsequently developed his own model of emotional intelligence.Daniel Goleman (1995), defined emotional intelligence as the ability of individuals for recognizing their own and others feeling properly and also for managing these emotions for motivating their self and those people in relationship with them.(Neal M. Ashkanasy et al., 2000).
The above definitions indicate that, for an employee to perform effectively on the job, a fair degree of emotional intelligence abilities are required.Those employees with a better performance record have always shown a possession of higher state of Emotional Intelligence than those having a lesser level of performance.Although a variety of concepts similar to EI have been proposed over the years (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2005), modern interest in EI began with Salovey and Mayer's (1990) article, which came out with a proper definition of EI.They have further segmented the concept of EI into a four-branch model, like perceiving emotions, using emotions to facilitate thought, understanding emotions, and finally managing emotions.Van Rooy and Viswesvaran ( 2004) conceptualized EI as the set of verbal and non verbal abilities, enabling a person to generate, recognize, express, understand, and evaluate their own and others emotions in order to guide thinking and action that successfully cope with the environmental demands and pressures.
The best possible workplace applications of Emotional Intelligence were explained in detail through the competency-based model of EI by Goleman.It is described as an emotional intelligence-based theory of performance that involves "a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work'' (Goleman, 2001) that distinguish individual differences in the workplace performance.The competencies underlie four general abilities.They are Self-awareness, Self-management, Social awareness and Relationship management.Goleman also proposes that the underlying abilities of emotional competencies are job skills, which can be learned.Within this context, he defines emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize and regulate emotions, both within the self and others.
The quality of people's relationships at work is been triggered through emotional intelligence, because emotions serve communicative and social functions, conveying information about thoughts and intentions, and helping to coordinate social encounters (Keltner & Haidt, 2001).When navigating the social encounters, an individual's abilities related to emotions should help people to choose the best course of action.When evaluating an interpersonal problem, the ability of emotion-driven thinking can help one to consider both emotional and technical information.An individual's ability to manage his or her emotions would help them in experiencing and expressing those emotions in such a manner that they contribute to the social encounters favorably, in part through emotional contagion (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994).
Recent research highlights the importance of EI as a predictor in central domains such as academic performance, job performance, negotiation, leadership, emotional labor, trust, work-family conflict, and stress management (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002;Fulmer & Barry, 2004;Humphrey, 2002Humphrey, , 2006;;Humphrey, Pollack, & Hawver, 2008;Jordan, Ashkanasy, & Hartel, 2002).EI has an essential responsibility in the service sector and also in those jobs where employees' consistent interaction with customers is also demanded.Brotheridge (2006,p. 139) inferred the key role of emotional intelligence as a predictor of the perceived situational demands, which in turn, predicted the nature of emotional labor that was performed.She found that employees with high degree of EI are more likely to perceive displaying emotions as part of their job.Joseph and Newman (2010) in a meta-analysis revealed that EI was a better predictor of performance for jobs that required emotional labor than for jobs overall.
Employees need to enhance their emotional intelligence skills, apart from technical dexterity, which in turn will enhance their productivity on the job.The development of interpersonal skills of the team members can be made possible through the management of emotional intelligences by the team members.Organizations, looking for a successful future, need to develop employees' emotional intelligence skills to work effectively in the organization.(Bob Wall, 2008).Recent findings suggest that emotionally intelligent persons are better performers than their counterparts (Law, Song, & Wong, 2004;Van Rooy & Viswesvaran, 2004).Numerous authors have theorized that emotional intelligence contributes to people's capacity to work effectively in teams and manage work stress (e.g.Caruso & Salovey, 2004;Goleman, 1998).Emotional intelligence may also contribute to work performance by enabling people to regulate their emotions so as to cope effectively with stress, perform well under pressure, and adjust to organizational change.
Emotional intelligence, in layman language can be expressed as the ability to realize what is good, what is bad and how to convert badly to good.It is also defined as the capability for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves and for managing these emotions well in us and in our relationships.Emotional intelligence also describes the abilities to distinct from, but complementary to, academic intelligence or the purely cognitive capacities measured by the Intelligence Quotient or IQ.Also researches revealed that an individual's emotional intelligence will enhance, if he or she desires to do so.EQ can be instrumental in achieving success in many areas of professional life and also helps the organizations in achieving its goals (Singh, 2006).
Pauloetal.( 2006) reaffirmed the positive relationship in between the emotional intelligence and job performance measures along with positive workplace outcomes, through a study in the finance department of a Fortune 400 insurance company.It was also revealed that employees with higher index of emotional intelligence were received greater merit increases and were holding higher ranks in the company than others.A better grade of peer and supervisor ratings of interpersonal facilitation and stress tolerance were observed in these employees than others.These associations, under few exceptions, maintained a statistical significance including age, gender, education, verbal ability and personality traits.
In a research, Fabio (2001) explored the relationship between self-other discrepancy and job level with a measure of emotional intelligence.It is hypothesized that self-other discrepancy scores will be higher for those individuals who have higher level jobs.Although one might assume that higher level or more successful managers ought to possess a better understanding of themselves.Because of this, higher level managers may have lesser opportunity to calibrate their self-perceptions against those of others.
As far as the professional span of an employee is considered, emotional intelligence can be helpful in increasing the productivity, speeding up adaptation to change, developing the leadership skills, stimulating creativity and co-operation, responding effectively to competition, encouraging innovative thinking and improving the retention rates in the organizations.Emotional intelligence will also help an employee to create an enthusiastic working environment, improve the way employees feel about themselves and how they relate to others, reduce the stress levels and resolve emotional issues, improve health and well being, improve relationships, heighten success and enable the employees to experience greater fulfillment.Emotional intelligence will also help an employee to resolve his bad experiences from the past, to attain an emotional power and maintain it in the present, to visualize and vitalize a bright future, to solve the external and internal conflicts and thereby to perform in a better mode and in turn for organizational improvisation (Singh, 2006).

Theoretical Background and Hypothesis
The elements used to measure EI construct were adapted from Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence Scale.The competency-based model of emotional intelligence by Goleman (2001) has been designed specifically for workplace applications with a range of five dimensions, namely 'Self Awareness', 'Self Management', 'Self Motivation', 'Sympathy' and 'Relationship Management'.Here, Self-awareness may be defined as the ability to understand feelings and accurate self-assessment.The concept of Self-management deals with the ability of an individual to manage internal states, impulses and resources.Social awareness is nothing but the ability to read people and groups accurately and finally Self Motivation and Relationship management describes one's ability to induce desirable responses in others.These elements provided as a valued source for data gathering and measurement as their reliability and validity have been verified through previous research and peer reviews.The EI Instrument Scale and the Self Assessment scale on Performance Appraisal are given to the employees to record their self accessed score.Finally the EI score and the performance evaluation results are determined separately and then compared with each other.This comparison is made to find out the impact of EI factors on job performance of the employees and also in determining the relationship between these scores.The theoretical model of this study is shown in figure 1 below.
The Hypothesis of this study is as follows.
Ho: Is there exist correlation between EI & its dimensions and the job performance of the employees of the manufacturing organization.

Research Methods
This is an exploratory research and attempts to discover how the performance evaluation process can be benefited in case of its integration with the perspectives of emotional intelligence.The data were collected from employees working in manufacturing based organizations and it represents the perceptions of Supervisors (125) and Workers (125) who have above and below 10 years of experience so as to ensure relatively accurate and relevant responses.
The responses were collected through questionnaires in the form of psychological tests administered individually upon the employees of manufacturing organizations.The research questionnaire included questions meant to collect demographic and other background information such as gender, age, organizational status, job experience and levels.

Emotional Intelligence
Self Awareness Self Manageemnt

Data Collection
The population chosen for this study is the supervisors and workers working in manufacturing based organization in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India.The sample size for this study was determined based on the rules of thumb in order to obtain reliable and valid results.Kline (2010) suggested that a sample of 200 or larger is suitable for a complicated path model when the population is large.The sample size of 250 respondents (Supervisors: 125 Nos., Workers: 125Nos.)meets the recommended guidelines of Kline 2010.A non probability sampling method followed in this study (convenience sampling), due to the large sample size needed in light of the limitations in time and level of accessibility to the population.Thus the respondents were selected on the basis of availability and willingness to participate in the survey.
In order to attain the goals of this study i.e. to measure the relationship between the EI & its dimensions with the Job Performance level of the employees of the manufacturing organization, a questionnaire that measures the levels of the EI & its five dimensions was designed.These constructs have been used and validated in previous studies and were adapted to local context to measure EI and performance.In addition, a number of demographic and background information had been collected.All the questions in the scales measuring the EI & its dimensions were scored on a five point Likert scale ranging from 1 representing the strongest negative attitude towards the statement (strongly disagree) to 5 representing the most positive attitude towards the statement (strongly agree).The demographic variables were all entered as categorical or ordinal values.
A self Assessment measurement on performance Appraisal Scale was collected based on various important attributes where the respondents were asked to give marks from 1 to 10 representing maximum marks to be recorded is 10.From the recorded self assessment marks of each respondent, based on their total marks a performance evaluation is derived.It was assumed that the respondents whose mark falls lesser than 100, are considered as "Average (AV)", if it falls between 100 marks to 200 they are considered as "Above Average (AA)" and between 200 marks to 300 marks are considered as "Out Standing (OS)".It is noticed that about 39.6 percent of the total employees are falling under the age group less than 30 out of which 56 are having their performance level 'Average-AV', 39 are having their performance level 'Above Average -AA' and 4 are having their performance level 'Outstanding -OS'.And at most 54.8 percent of the employees are falling under the age group 31 to 50 out of which 90 are having their performance level 'Average -AV', 15 are having their performance level 'Above Average-AA' and 32 are having their performance level 'Outstanding -OS'.And only 5.6 percent of the employees are falling under the age group more than 50 out of which 7 are having their performance level 'Average-AV' and 7 are having their performance level 'Outstanding -OS'.It is noticed that 49.2 percent of the employees are having experience of less than 10 years out of which 71 are having their performance level 'Average-AV', 48 are having their performance level 'Above Average-AA' and 4 are having their performance level 'Outstanding -OS'.And about 50.8 percent of the employees are having experience of more than 10 years out of which 82 are having their performance level 'Average-AV', 6 are having their performance level 'Above Average-AA' and 39 are having their performance level 'Outstanding -OS'.It is noticed that 65.2 percent of the employees are Male out of which 89 are having their performance level 'Average-AV', 42 are having their performance level 'Above Average -AA' and 32 are having their performance level 'Outstanding-OS'.And it is noticed that 34.8 percent of the employees are Female out of which 64 are having their performance level 'Average-AV', 12 are having their performance level 'Above Average -AA' and 11 are having their performance level 'Outstanding-OS'.It is noticed that 50 percent of the employees are Supervisor out of which 63 are having their performance level 'Average-AV', 27 are having their performance level 'Above Average -AA' and 35 are having their performance level 'Outstanding-OS'.And 50 percent of the employees are Worker out of which 90 are having their performance level 'Average-AV', 27 are having their performance level 'Above Average -AA' and 8 are having their performance level 'Outstanding-OS'.

Descriptive Statistics
There is a Significance relationship and strong correlation between EI & its dimensions and the performance evaluation of the employees of the manufacturing organization.When Performance Evaluation was correlated with Emotional Intelligence and its dimension, significant and positive correlation were found with Self Awareness (r=0.853,p<0.01),Self Management (r=0.845,p<0.01),Self Motivation (r=0.755,p<0.01),Sympathy (r=0.764,p<0.01) and Relationship Management (r=0.871,p<0.01) at 0.01 levels of significance.Therefore, hypothesis that there exists a significant relation between performance evaluation and Emotional Intelligence and its dimension was strongly accepted.Hence, the employees having more Emotional Intelligence scores also have more performance evaluation scores.

Discussion and Implications
Paulo et al. (2006) in their study says that individuals with a higher index of emotional intelligence were observed receiving greater merit increases and was holding the higher company rank than others.They also received better peer and supervisor ratings of interpersonal facilitation and stress tolerance than others.In this study it is seen that higher level employees (39) have more EI score than that of lower level employees (4) who have outstanding performance in their jobs.
Fabio ( 2001) in their research infers that EI scores would be higher for those individuals who have supervisor/ manager level jobs.Although one might assume that higher level (i.e., more successful) managers ought to possess a better understanding of themselves.In this study it is inferred that supervisors (35) are having higher scores than workers (8) in EI factors.
Daniel Goleman (2001) in his study says that emotional intelligence is a capacity for recognizing one's own and others feelings for self motivating and for managing our emotions, both within ourselves and in our relationships.
In this study the 'self motivation' (0.755) factor of emotional Intelligence strongly is correlated with the overall performance of the employees.et al. (2000) in their study explained about the emotional intelligence abilities to perform effectively on the job required by the employees.The concept of EI is divided into perceiving emotions, using emotions to facilitate thought, understanding emotions, and finally managing emotions.The employees who have the ability to manage their emotions in an effective way are more successful on the job.In this study the Self management (0.845) and Sympathy (0.765) factor contribute to a positive correlation to the performance of the employees in both supervisor and worker levels.

Neal
Keltner and Haidt (2001) Emotional intelligence may contribute to the quality of people's relationships at work because emotions serve communicative and social functions, conveying information about thoughts and intentions, and helping to coordinate social encounters.Van Rooy and Viswesvaran (2004) in their study has conceptualized EI as ''the set of abilities (verbal and nonverbal) that enable a person to generate, recognize, express, understand, and evaluate their own, and others emotions in order to guide thinking and action that successfully cope with environmental demands and pressures.''In this study all the set of abilities are represented by the EI factor 'Relationship management' (0.871) which strongly correlates with the performance of the employees., Cacioppo, and Rapson (1994) in their study say that the ability to use and manage emotions to guide thinking can help one to consider both emotions and technical information when evaluating an interpersonal problem.In this study EI dimensions like 'self awareness' helps to consider the emotions of one's own emotions and 'self management' helps to manage the technical information to the employees.There is a strong correlation between the 'self awareness' (0.853), 'self management' (0.845) and performance of the employees.

Hatfield
R. Krishnaveni and Deepa (2011) Law, Song, and Wong (2004) and Van Rooy and Viswesvaran (2004) in their recent findings suggest that emotionally intelligent persons are better performers than their counterparts.Caruso and Salovey (2004) and Goleman (1998) say that emotional intelligence contributes to people's capacity to work effectively in teams and manage work stress.Emotional intelligence may also contribute to work performance by enabling people to regulate their emotions so as to cope effectively with stress, perform well under pressure and adjust to organizational change.Thus, in this study there is a strong relationship between the EI dimensions i.e. 'self awareness'(0.853),'self management' (0.845), 'self motivation' (0.755), 'sympathy' (0.764) and 'relationship management' (0.871) and the performance regardless to their age, gender, job experience, group and level of employees working in the manufacturing organizations.

Conclusion
To wrap up, it was observed that there is a strong correlation between the Emotional Intelligence and the job Performance of an employee, in both Supervisor and Worker groups of the manufacturing Organizations.Emotional Intelligence was observed higher in the supervisors' level rather than that of the Employees in workers level.Also it is observed that Emotional Intelligence is more in employees with more job experience than with less job experience in the manufacturing Organizations.
The research has commenced with a main objective of investigating the impact of the EI level of the respondents over their job performance.It could end with the inference of a higher index of EI among those employees decorating higher positions in organizational hierarchy than those people who are comparatively in lower grades.
A greater value of EI among senior employees than recently joined employees is explicitly depicting the enhancive aptitude of EI with respect to the professional experience.Also the study intends to find out the relationship between various EI factors with the performance evaluation results of the respondents.It was explicitly observed that, an Emotionally Intelligent employee performs in a better manner, rather than an employee with lesser Emotional Intelligence.Henceforth, the developing measures to the EI level would significantly contribute for a better employee performance in the organizations.Consequently, the Performance Management System ought to integrate dealings in this regard, so as to assure appropriate support to the employees in a developing context and thereby to frame up the concept of PMS more precisely.
Performance measurement scale is fulfilled with accurate and adequate emphasize on various personal, professional, general and extra attributes.The Professional attributes include Technical Competency, Skill level, Accuracy, Quality, Reliability, Learning Aptitude, Initiatives, Team Spirit, Sense of Duty and Drive & Determination.Personal attributes consists of factors like Discipline, Honesty, Integrity, Loyalty, Punctuality, Politeness, Moral Ethics, Optimism, Behavioural Etiquettes and Trustworthy.The General attributes are Dress Code, Medical Fitness, Communication Skills, Computer Literacy and Disciplinary Cases.The Extra attributes would define by employees' Education, Professional experiences, Additional achievements, Honors & Awards, etc.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Conceptual framework on the impact of EI and its dimensions over the assessment of job performance Source: Author's Construct (2016).

Table 1 .
Age of respondents

Table 2 .
Experience of respondents

Table 3 .
Gender of respondents

Table 4 .
Group of Respondents

Table 5 .
Correlation between performance evaluation and emotional intelligence & its dimensions for employees working in manufacturing based organizations in their recent findings suggest that emotionally intelligent persons are between the age group of 40 to 60 years.In this study employees having Emotional Intelligence and better Performance Evaluation are falling under the age group of 31 to 50.