Studies that support the social and emotional well-being of adults in the workplace from the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence
Introduction
This isn’t an essay. I found the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence after it was mentioned in passing in a podcast. I’d never heard of it. I am a huge fan of EI, so discovering there was a centre for it was a great thing.
When you open the website, you see:
Creating a healthier and more equitable, innovative, and compassionate society
Emotions Matter.
Emotions drive learning, decision-making, creativity, relationships, and health. The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence conducts research and teaches people of all ages how to develop their emotional intelligence.
Replace the word ‘society’ and above with ‘workplace’; and read the following excerpts from the website in that context.
Emotion Revolution in the Workplace
What do people feel at work? Why does this matter for individual well-being and important work outcomes? To address these questions, the project team conducted large scale nationally representative surveys of the U.S. workforce. These broad economy-wide surveys are to be followed by in depth studies within specific organizations in the healthcare industry.
The questions examined include:
- What is the nature of passion at work (and why does it matter)?
- What are gender and power differences in how people feel at work? What impact do these differences have?
- How does emotionally intelligent behavior of supervisors create an emotional climate and predict creativity and innovation of employees?
- What are the patterns of engagement and burnout at work? Who are the workers most likely to be engaged, burned out, and both engaged and exhausted? What demands and resources predict patterns of engagement and burnout, and what outcomes are associated with these patterns?
- What does it mean to be an emotionally intelligent organization?
Creating Inclusive Workplaces: An Emotion Science Lens to Workplace Culture
This project aims to investigate the conditions necessary for active and positive employee engagement (which are the sense of trust, security, purpose and safety) through an emotion scientist vs. emotion judge lens (i.e., open and curious vs. closed and critical about emotion in the workplace) through collection and examination of actual employee experiences of positive and negative workplace events. Specifically, investigating organizational culture by examining employee experiences of the policies, practices, and behaviors associated with their organizations, their leaders and their colleagues.
This includes:
- The extent to which organizations value and accept emotions and give their employees permission to express their thoughts and feelings
- The perceived relevance and importance of emotions at work as well as shared purpose, values, and beliefs between and among colleagues
- Emotionally intelligent behavior such as the extent to which leaders model effective emotion regulation skills and approach support their employees in healthy emotion regulation.
- Organizational inclusiveness on key decisions such as DEI, strategic and tactical planning, and disruptive instance strategy.
Conclusion
In the context of staff with disability, how would it be to ask and answer these questions in your organisation?