Page 34 - An Indispensible Resource for Being a Credible Activist

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AT WORK

Credible activists are not the enemy. You are committed to performing your HR/OD job
according to an ethical code of standards and within legal compliance. It takes a strong
sense of self, strong professional ethics, and good external support to know this and remain
strong in the face of irrational attacks from people who don’t want to know what the dys-
functions in the workplace are.

❱❱ HIRING

If you have any input into hiring, you will want to consciously look for signs of robust emotional
intelligence, rational decision-making abilities, and integrity. You will want to ask questions, such
as those shown in the HR Tool entitled, “Sample Interview Questions” on pages 21–22.

❱❱ PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS

If you are involved in performance evaluations, you will want to ensure that the same form
of fight/flight response that you yourself might experience is not happening to any other
employee who may be speaking up in his or her own way and in his or her own work realm.
Have qualified HR staff review all performance evaluations with supervisors before they are
presented to employees, if possible. Alternatively, ensure that all supervisors have evalua-
tion skills that make them aware of avoiding rater-bias, attribution error, and conflicts of
interest. Welcome employee concerns and complaints, and take them seriously. Ensure that
the workplace culture supports all employees’ right to bring any concerns to HR; this should
be made clear repeatedly by leadership and all managers as well as by HR.
Discuss problematic managers with leadership. Offer these managers training and
improvement or different responsibilities. Examine workplace culture and take the collective
pulse of the staff with annual or semiannual anonymous surveys.

❱❱ COMPANY ASSESSMENT

Use this book to do whatever you can to address and eliminate any dysfunction and imple-
ment corporate culture linchpins that ensure a healthy workplace. Every good HR profes-
sional understands that there are significant connections between EI, conflict resolution
skills, effective feedback delivery, diversity issues, communication skills, and whether or not
the company is functioning optimally.
Bernadette Poole-Tracy, Ed.D., created a simple company assessment that HR profes-
sionals can use to get a sense of where their company is currently with some of the core
principles every HR credible activist must examine. Poole-Tracy’s assessment appears in the
HR Tool entitled “Company Assessment Tool: Conflict Resolution Climate, Dimensions and
Scope,” on pages 22–23, but it can only be used on a corporate-wide level with written
permission from her. The assessment is usually distributed anonymously and companywide
to all employees. The assessment will help you take the temperature of the staff for one of
the most important diagnoses that can be made about a workplace.

CHAPTER 2 • The Impor tance of Emotional Intelligence for the Credible Activist 17