How does emotional intelligence relate to employee engagement?

Introduction

Rapid technological advancements, globalization, and the coronavirus pandemic have triggered seismic shifts within organizational and employee workforce structure, resulting in the global transition to flexible and remote working approaches (Govender et al., 2018). While remote workers participate within their organization roles from spatial location and temporal time basis, organizational leadership and management remain concerned regarding the employee engagement, commitment, and performance from these remote settings (Orsini & Rodrigues, 2020). Leadership styles and management practices applied within the organizational structure and workforce highly shapes employee motivation, engagement, and performance within varied remote roles and duties (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). The psychological capital, emotional, economic, and physical welfare of employees is an indicator of the degree of employee engagement and the quality of remote work outcomes based on the welfare status (Zahra & Kee, 2019). While the lack of social interactions and engagements manifests as a significant drawback among extroverted remote workers, their level of employee engagement and performance among the extroverted teleworkers significantly diminishes, thereby affecting the ultimate productivity and profitability outcomes of the organization. Servant leadership styles remain admissible for addressing the work engagement and performance issues arising from the challenges within the isolated remote working environments (Eva et al., 2019). Within servant leadership practice, organizational leaders actively interact with the employees for the cultivation of resourceful personal relations and authority, which allows for improved cooperation and commitment of workers.

Employee-related problems that affect productivity, financial performance, and profitability require the review and implementation of dynamic leadership styles and management practices for maintaining the organization’s market share and competitive edge. The difference between organizational leaders and managers revolves around the roles and duties performed by a leader and the managerial personnel. Leaders function to offer direction, vision, and guidance to the organization by influencing the behavior of workforce personnel for the achievement of specific organizational goals (Leroy et al., 2018). Conversely, managers manifest as the organizational representatives responsible for management and appraisal of employees and groups of workers through applying specific actions, tasks, and strategies, which are mediated by the leader’s vision and direction. Both organizational leaders and managers rely on the engagement and productivity of workers, which necessitates the application of servant leadership styles and effective management practices for addressing the challenges subjected to extroverted remote workers (Koh & O’Higgins, 2018). Considering the adverse influence of personality traits among extroverted workers, the adoption of servant leadership capacitates the organizational leaders to interact with these employees, thereby offering guidance and direction through inspiration, support, and motivation (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018; Hajro, 2019). While leaders act on cultivating a sense of direction and guidance for extroverted remote workers, the organizational managers actualize the vision of leaders through applying relevant actions and managerial practices to ensure employees follow the direction and guidance offered by leaders (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). In essence, leaders apply servant leadership style to provide vision and guidance on achieving desired organizational goals of engagement and productivity among remote workers, whereas the managers act on goals and tasks that seek to achieve the vision of these organizational leaders.

Characterized by high levels of socialism and interactions, extroverted remote workers have a limited capacity to maintain proximal engagement and productivity while working from remote areas with minimal social interactions (Iqbal et al., 2018). Managers and leaders remain responsible for explicitly reviewing and addressing the emotional problems arising from the limited social interactions while working from remote settings. Emotional intelligence allows for the capacity and ability of the HR managers to identify, examine and manage the psychological states, circumstantial feelings, and behavioral responses (Issah, 2018) among the extroverted remote workers identified to lack sufficient social support (Quisenberry, 2018). Introverted employees are more inclined to lower social interactions, communication, and social energy, thereby can be highly engaged and productive while working from remote settings (Blevins et al., 2022). The current research explores the influence of emotional intelligence and empathic practices on extroverted remote workers while seeking to establish effective means of increasing the productivity of extroverted teleworkers with limited social interactions.

Background of the Problem

Dynamic changes in the social, economic, and corporate structure due to modern globalization and technological advancements have attributed to the increased adoption of remote working across various organizations in the bid to appraise productivity, organizational performance, and profitability, while significantly reducing associated costs (Zahra & Kee, 2019). The expanding global markets, product differentiation requirements, and modernization triggered the need for automation and e-commerce to be integrated within the traditional working approach to achieve proximal performance outcomes. The global coronavirus pandemic profoundly accelerated the existing remote working (Spurk & Straub, 2020), e-commerce, and automation resulting in a 25% increase in automation and the number of remote workers for varied organizations across the globe. Legal and health restrictions imposed due to the spread and severity of the coronavirus highly affected the traditional working approach considering the requirement of social distancing and regional lockdowns. Statistical evidence from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed a tremendous growth in remote workers across the US, with a 159% growth rate recorded from 2000 to 2021 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). The coronavirus pandemic greatly accelerated the adoption of remoting working structures among varied companies that inherently applied traditional works models.

Although remote working improves work flexibility and the capacity of employees to work from home settings, the challenges exposed to remote workers highly affect their degree of work engagement and productivity, thereby reducing the overall organizational performance (Eisenberg & Krishnan, 2018). Limited team communication, poor social interactions, isolation, and low direct organization support emerge as challenges affecting the remote workers considering their engagement with organizational roles from remote environments. Barnes (2018) illustrated the need for extroverted employees to have adequate access to teamwork communication and social interactions, which are critical to the engagement and productivity of these remote workers. While extroverted workers have a natural inclination to social interactions and support within their environments (Raja, Akhtar & Hussain, 2020), isolated remote settings affect the level of concentration, engagement, and commitment of these workers, ultimately affecting the overall productivity.

Servant leadership styles applied within organizations demonstrate the inclination of leaders to serve through improving individual and work interactions with the organizational followers and workforce (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). While extroverted remote workers are adversely challenged by the limited social interactions and support, servant leadership skills are highly admissible for the cultivation and sustenance of social and emotional connections between the management and employee workforce (Lee, 2019). Within leadership and managerial practice, emotional intelligence capacitates the leaders and managers to effectively review, perceive, understand and manage the socio-emotional issues affecting the productivity of extroverted workers (Semenets-Orlova et al., 2021). While leaders apply servant leadership for establishing vision and guidance for challenged extroverted remote workers, the managers remain tasked with establishing applicable actions, tasks, and strategies for employee-level support, thereby endorsing motivation and productivity among the remote workforce. Bru-Luna et al. (2021) illustrated that high emotional intelligence remains critical within the manager’s skills to evaluate and regulate the emotions of the workers in the bid to achieve a variety of adaptive outcomes, including increased engagement and performance.

Statement of Problem

Remote employees are highly affected by remote isolation and limited social interactions attributing to low outcomes in employee engagement and productivity. Although remote working significantly promotes flexible work schedules and conditions, extroverted remote employees are highly accustomed to traditional social interactions with work colleagues and organizational managers. Working from remote settings presents varied challenges ranging from limited team communication and trusted collaborations (Choi & Cho, 2019), poor social interactions, isolation to low direct organization support. The limited social interactions, teamwork communication, and support from managers arising from the remote working actively contribute to adverse effects on the degree of engagement and productivity of the affected extroverted remote workers. Tuzovic and Kabadayi (2018) demonstrated that the subjection of extroverted employees to remote workers significantly forces these employees to adapt to introversion, considering the high levels of social isolation within remote working settings. Subjecting extroverted employees to remote settings attributes to the development of negative emotions and work attitudes, which adversely affect the level of employee engagement, commitment, and performance within their assigned duties (Quisenberry, 2018). Social isolation and reduced teamwork communication account for the development of varied negative emotions and perceptions, which facilitate low motivation and interest in the effective engagement and completion of designated organizational roles (Barnes, 2018).

Purpose of Study

The current research purpose is to explore the influence of emotional intelligence on the productivity and engagement of extroverted employees working from remote environments. While reviewing the concept of emotional intelligence and the associated influence on extroverted remote workers, the study focuses on understanding the application of emotional intelligence by the organizational manager for the assessment, identification, and management of varied socio-emotional issues affecting extroverted remote workers. The current research seeks to establish a resourceful link between the mastery of emotional intelligence among organizational managers and the performance outcomes of extroverted remote workers as indicated by employee engagement and productivity.

While exploring the application of emotional intelligence to offset challenges faced by extroverted remote employees, the present study purpose is to review the regulation of individual emotions of the managers and their employees, as well as the strategic use of emotional intelligence for facilitating the performance outcomes of employees. The performance outcomes of employees are assessed based on employee motivation level and overall job performance, as mediated by the strategic use of sustainable emotional intelligence practices by organizational managers (Manzoor et al., 2019), to identify and manage negative emotions arising from the isolated remote settings.

Significance of Study

Research outcomes offer resourceful information and insights on the application of emotional intelligence for addressing the productivity problems faced by remote extroverted workers. Findings and conclusions established from the current research process contribute to expanding the base of research concerned with understanding the influence of emotional intelligence-based leadership styles and management practices. The increased remote working in modern society has necessitated research exploration to establish dynamic management practices to ensure the maximum degree of employee engagement and productivity (Nakrošienė et al., 2019). Through addressing the research objectives and problems, outcomes from the present study generate critical knowledge and insights on the virtual management of remote extroverted employees through leveraging the emotional intelligence of managers. The review of the literature within the current study provides an in-depth analysis of the current research studies, theoretical and empirical evidence on how emotional intelligence influences the motivation, work engagement, and productivity of extroverted remote workers. The comprehensive review of the existing research allows for the identification of a critical literature gap, which significantly needs to be filled.

Human resource managers and organizational leaders are bound to highly benefit from the current study’s outcomes on the influence of emotional intelligence on the productivity and performance cues of extroverted remote workers (O’Connor et al., 2019). Managers and organizational leaders highly leverage emotional intelligence for the identification and management of emotional challenges subjected to extroverted workers, considering the reduced social interactions and colleague communication within the isolated remote settings (Iqbal et al., 2018). Organizational managers with high emotional intelligence possess the capacity to significantly review and improve the motivation, work engagement, and performance of extroverted employees. Through the active evaluation and management of the socio-emotional status of the extroverted employees, well-informed managers can perceive, express, understand, and act on the extraversion challenges that adversely affect the engagement and productivity of the affected remote employees (Bru-Luna et al., 2021). The information established from the current research process provides a comprehensive review of emotional intelligence cues and varied management concepts that are admissible for improving the levels of employee motivation, regardless of working from socially isolated remote settings. Managers and leaders can leverage the resourceful information and insights from the study’s outcomes, thereby improving their emotional intelligence practices and understanding of how emotions can be applied to facilitate motivation and employee productivity. In addition, organizational policymakers highly benefit from the outcomes of the current study, where resourceful policies can be structured and implemented within the organizational structure to significantly improve the engagement and performance outcomes of extroverted remote employees.

Research Questions

The guiding research questions for the current study include the following:

1. How does emotional intelligence relate to employee engagement?
2. How can organizational leaders and managers apply the principles of emotional intelligence to eliminate the adverse effects of remote working on extrovert employees?