I will be the first to say that I am not an HR professional. However, I partner and collaborate with HR professionals to bring consulting and training services to their organizations. I love these collaborative endeavors. As a Certified EQ Consultant and Master Trainer, I particularly enjoy helping leaders, teams and whole organizations build greater cohesiveness through assessing and developing their individual and collective emotional intelligence. There is a vast and growing body of research that supports the correlation between higher EQ and better performance. It has been continuously empirically validated since the 1940′s.
So, I am curious – and hopefully someone will share their perspective – why there is a tendency with some HR professionals to shy away from using EQ assessments in their selection process? In general, I understand they are concerned about legal ramifications. However, just as skills testing can give information about a candidate’s abilities and help make objective comparisons across applicants, EQ abilities can be compared through normed, standardized assessments, adding highly valuable information about an otherwise “unseen” skillset. Behavioral interviewing techniques are essential, but will always include some level of subjectivity. Adding a valid and reliable assessment tool would serve to substantiate (or not) an interviewer’s judgment.
I utilize the Bar-On EQ-i assessments, independently rated as the most reliable and valid tools on the market. Global, highly respected companies use these tools, i.e. American Express, Air Canada, Mass Mutual, to name a very few. So, I am sincerely curious to gain more understanding from the HR perspective as to why some are hesitant.
Lack of interpersonal skills and poor relationships in the workplace accounts for the vast majority of poor performance, conflict, low morale and reduced engagement and productivity. Imagine a workplace where these skills were naturally inherent – particularly in leadership. Couple this with high knowledge, skills and cognitive abilities and you have a true winning combination. Why would an organization not want to add EQ assessments to their hiring toolkit?
Your thoughts?
