Social and Emotional Intelligence SkillsIntroduction
Social skills can be termed as both the intra and interpersonal skills that are required by an individual in order to function successfully in his social environment. Intrapersonal skills are the flexibility, perseverance, creativity and self-management, problem solving, orientation to learning, motivation, and perseverance. On the other hand, interpersonal skills entails the capacity to communicate and persuade, coaching and leadership, as well as participate in the teamwork. Social skills are a variety of competencies, capabilities and other correlated skills, which are required in any successful undertaking or business management. These are skills that also integrate technical experience through a focused arrangement of competencies.
Emotions are the important feelings that hold an individual and society together. Emotions impart a powerful force on human behavior. Strong emotions may force a person to perform the actions, which he or she may not have done under normal circumstances. In the course of people’s interactions, emotions skills assist them to understand each other’s tastes and preferences in relation to their own. This helps people to determine compatibility relationships, whether in the family, society, or work settings.
Benefits of Social Skills to Individuals
Individuals are encouraged to shape and utilize their own judgment and social skills in their settings. High quality relationships are required in order to make new organizational structures effective, and that people’s investment is the main factor of their development during important performance. There is wise sentence saying that no “man is an island”. Therefore, each man needs to interrelate with one another in any possible form.
Chibbaro observes that the ability to communicate effectively as well as to cope with pressure and conflicts, not only in societal or in workplace settings, but also in business contexts, is an essential aspect for an individual. The high expectations in relation to the development and opportunity are consistently requiring from many individuals to exhibit a high level of social skills. This will enable them to interact positively as well as in creating a safe and dignified work context.
Many analysts have described the change in the workplace and business environments not only in relation to the structures, but also the essential competencies which individuals require. For example, according to Chibbaro the dynamic trend of business development and work organizations have necessitated placement of priorities in communication and social skills for its people. In general, there is an affirmation that social skills are increasingly becoming significant in an attempt to cope with the change level and to work with more participatory approach.
Benefits Social Skills to Hospitality Organizations
Many hospitality organizations in the word have started to realize that in order to effectively gain a competitive advantage; they have to ensure that people understand how to handle themselves at their work or enterprises, and how to associate with the colleagues or customers. In the current standpoint, it is no longer satisfactory to be just an expert in a given field of knowledge. The extreme competition is a major aspect that can enable one to resist. For those whose businesses include sales, social skills are an essential element for survival and growth. A study done by Charlene in order to define whether social skills influence the volume of sales showed that the customers preferred individuals who exhibited social skills over those who did not possess them. A further evaluation noted that the reason for improved performance was exhibition of social skills. It was also revealed that social skills are not only important in the matters related to the customers, but also they are necessary for of the majority of people in any particular organization. Additionally, social skills were among the major factors that placed people at the top of the organization hierarchy.
According to Crawford, when an individual is operating in a vast white space in the present day organization, with a few direct reports, he or she can demand and coerce, but no one will pay any attention”. The author continues to explain that successive leaders were those who knew how to influence, collaborate, and gain trust of other people. This required acquisition of social skills.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence is the skill required by service workers as part of their duties to portray particular aspects of emotions while executing their work. These requirements are aimed at inducing specific responses and feelings among the end users (in this case, the clients) of the services being offered. In essence, according to this concept, the workers are mandated to employ and control their emotional aspects while performing their jobs in an endeavor to influence the feelings and emotions of clients. The acting in expressions of emotions is considered as part of the profession and has been encouraged in performance assessments. This concept is more relevant to such professions as therapists, nurses, physicians, health service workers, and protective service workers.
Benefits of Emotional Intelligence to Individuals
In its essence, expression of proper emotions directly to a frustrated, enraged, sad, or ashamed client entails many aspects. The display regulations across the various occupational areas are not the same. For example, it is a requirement retailing that the employees should be friendly and cheerful when interacting with their clients in order to enhance service delivery and to encourage more visitations. On the contrary, security officers or detectives may express anger to the people in order to make them comply with their orders or acquire confessions from criminals. Other professionals, such as judges, have to display the aspect of neutrality in their emotions and to avoid their emotions influencing the proceedings or outcome in a trial. Apparently, medical professionals must be neutral in ensuring objectivity in their profession. Emotional intelligence is, therefore, important in enabling individuals to understand how to act in a particular context.
Given the fact that the individuals experience different levels of emotions during the day, the emotions that are required for their work activities and those that are felt by the individual’s, may not be aligned always. If the mismatch of real and required emotions occurs, a worker may choose not to follow the stipulated display policies and portray real emotions, especially in encounters that appear to be stressful. The resultant emotional deviance may negatively affect the wellbeing of an individual. This is more particular when the worker is well aware of the display rules of his or her profession. In some instances, a discrepancy may happen between the felt and expressed emotions, resulting into an emotional dissonance, a factor related to the negative psychological consequences to workers.
Karabanow explains that employees working in the service industry have to control the aspect of emotional display and their own emotions in order to establish an environment where interpersonal interactions between their clients and their employers will occur. Debt collectors, for example, are trained in the issues how to employ appraisals while detaching themselves from the debtors. According to CHERNISS the basic obligation of employees, while offering services that are of high quality, is not to make material goods, but to provide an action, speech, and emotion, which depict the individuals’ willingness to be purposeful for the client.
Benefits of Emotional Intelligence to Organizations
The incongruence between felt and expressed emotions (for example, employees who are required to display cheerfulness though they may be angry) may be an impediment to the EL process in an organization. Therefore, it is crucial for the organizations to recruit individuals with personalities and attributes that match the specific area. This rationale demonstrates the reasons for which many organizations in Australian perspective administer personality tests to be recruits in measuring the affectivity of their traits. In this case, job seekers who depict high sense of affectivity in positive ways are considered as befitting the organization. Relating the individual to the emotional and psychological needs of the task has happened to be a cost saving endeavor. The reason is that the individuals whose traits happen to be aligning with the emotional needs of the job are prone to stay in the job longer and are not associated with high absenteeism.
The discrepancy between displayed and felt emotions is a stress, which the employees have to contend. For example, feeling a sense of angry, but faking happiness to meet the work requirement may be stressful. In most cases, this aspect may result in- authenticity feelings and emotional dissonance among the workers. This shows the reason for which many organizations in Australia have found the aspect of training their employees as a crucial and valuable issue.
CHERNISS observe that the relevance of effective performance in emotional labor is portrayed by the existing perceptions concerning the quality of services. While demand for the workers with capabilities in offering services of high quality in the hospitality industry is consistently increasing, there is no a clear definition regarding what constitutes quality services. The service quality constitutes an elusive and abstract construct owing to its three characteristics that are unique to the services. These include the nature of inseparability to production and consumption, intangibility and heterogeneity.
According to Baird, the current events with regard to regulations in the labor market are aimed at controlling the activities of individuals or organizations engaged in production of goods or services. Baird continues to observe that industrial relations constitute the study of organizations with regard to regulation of jobs through both internal and external sources. The external sources of regulation are aimed at protecting employees from influences of the market that is largely unregulated in order to reduce confusion between internal regulation forms, employers, and organizational behavior.
A study by Doniel on “the role of emotional labor needs and work resources” was meant to determine the impact of burn out by which emotional labor is caused. The study also measured the interactive influence and potential additive of job resources such as social support, job control, and rewards. The sample used was 208 service workers in the public sector. Findings from regression analysis indicated that the display regulations, which many organizations in the labor market had incorporated, required from the employees to express positive emotions towards the clients. However, the research indicated that this requisite did not lead to a variation in emotional fatigue while the necessity of emotional exhibits requiring from a person to suppress his unconstructive emotions were more of challenging emotionally. Provision of work resources were consistently related to the lower emotional exhaustion. The study also revealed that employee’s colleagues were quite significant in assisting him or her to attenuate the negative influence of emotional demands.
Owing to these findings, the study recommended that the management of organizations ought to encourage team work among its employees. In addition, the organizations are also required to specify expressions of work related emotions that are appropriate to their employees. For example, job resources ought to be provided to the employees at risk of burn out to facilitate the reduction of job stress and the related burden.
Conclusion
The conclusion that can be drawn from these reviews and study findings is that the workers and hospitality firms should understand the importance of social and emotional intelligence skills. They should also realize how their actions will affect their colleagues, clients, and, consequently, the ultimate business results. Innovative work systems depend on the workers who are responsible for their performance. Implications connected with the need for social and emotional skills of the individuals for effective operations are an evident fact. The prerequisite for success depends on the possession of social and emotional skills.
