Emotional Intelligence and its Impact on Employee Performance: A Case Study of Australian Hardware

This article explores the impact of emotional intelligence on employee performance through a case study of Australian Hardware. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses of emotional intelligence and provides coaching using the GROW model. The article also provides tips for team building and improving communication skills.

Running head: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Australian Hardware is a growing and large hardware retailer business. It has almost 140
stores in Australia. The focus of the organization is to build a huge market share by enhancing
the customer satisfaction. They also intend to control the indirect and direct costs by efficient
internal function and also want to establish a reputation of environmentally and socially
responsible organization in the market.
However, the problem is related to the Wollongong store that is located in New South
Wales. The issue is one with one of the key employee of the store. Pat is the star employee of the
organization who is allocated in the sales team. Pat has been a consistent performer for the team
and has achieved the sales target regularly. Customer rating for Pat has also been quite well but
recently Pat has been a setback for the team. Pat’s effectiveness has increased and for which the
team cannot rely on Pat when it comes to serve the customers. It has been analysed that Pat is
preoccupied with something that is hampering the performance of Pat. This has affected other
employees to give full focus on handling the customers effectively, which in turn hampering the
overall work climate of the organization. This also affected the new employee by giving them an
impression that the senior employees of the organization cannot be trusted and this result in their
ineffectiveness. The present situation will decrease the performance of the sales team. This is the
reason why the coaching sessions are occurring to help Pat overcome the situation.
According to the interview where Pat was asked to describe his own performance,
feelings, performance obstacle and job satisfaction he gave the following feedback:
 According to Pat, the work environment needs to be more employees friendly (Tsai
2013). Pat explained that the bonding between the employees is less although the
coordination between the employees is at par.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
 Pat said that the stress level in the organization is excessive in the peak seasons and it
becomes very tough for her to handle the stress sometimes (Lopez-Patino et al. 2014). Pat
also said that the company, need to give them proper break so that they can get refreshed
and again work effectively.
 Pat also explained that the employee retention rate of the company is low, which is
affecting Pat’s production by a huge margin.
 The equipment that are used in the store to lift or for any other function are not so
effective and it often leads to accident or any other issue. Pat had discussed this issue
with the management for a number of times but they have not received proper respond
from the management.
 The deadlines that are given to them are not realistic and most of the employees often
failed to meet the deadline within the time. Pat said that the job satisfaction is less and the
work environment needs to be making for employee friendly.
 Pat has achieved the sales target consistently but he said in the interview that the work
pressure affects his productivity and sometimes it leads to fatigue and other health issues.
GROW model:
GROW model is the method of objective or goal setting and solving the problems in
executing those goals. The GROW model was developed in the United Kingdom and was used
for coaching in the 1980s and 1990s. GROW is the acronym for Goal, Reality, Options and Will.
The Goal explains the objectives that the individual wants to achieve from the coaching, the
Reality explains the current position of the employee where he is standing, the Option describes
what can be done to rectify and solve the issue and the Will describes what the individual is
willing to do to bring the change.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional intelligence is an important factor that influences the performance of the
employee. A high emotional intelligence helps in managing the organization effectively. High
rate of emotional intelligence helps in managing the employee, communicating effectively with
others, motivating others, handling the employees and it helps in supporting other employees if
they are facing any problems with the job satisfaction. The weakness and strengths of Pat’s
emotional intelligence are:
Strengths:
 Pat’s strength is that he can manage his own emotions better than the others can. Though
there is a lot of work pressure Pat never failed to achieve the target that is assigned to
him. He has been a consistent performer and this proves that Pat can manage his
emotions quite well.
 During any conflict in the working environment Pat is the one who approached in the
scene first and managed to solve the issue. This managing capacity of Pat has helped in
gaining the star performer’s position in the organization.
 Pat’s another unique quality is that he always try to understand the feelings of others
without judging them. This has helped the other employees to be motivated and has
increased their productivity.
Weaknesses:
 Recently Pat has been engaged into many verbal fights or arguments with the co-workers
of the organization this has resulted into lack of trust and unhealthy working
environment. This has occurred due to the lack of communication an untimely decision
made by Pat.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
 Employees have complained that Pat is not hearing the points of others. People with low
emotional intelligence tends to ignore the point of others and do what they think is right.
This has affected the organization as the employee thinks that their opinion does not
matter in the organization anymore.
 Pat has been recently weak in focusing in the task that is given to him and often blame
others for not executing the tasks in time.
GROW model:
Goal:
 Being a star performer of the organization the management has decided to assign Pat for
managing the new employee.
 Pat has been given a target to increase the sales of the store by 12% comparing to the
sales that the store have achieved in the previous year.
 Pat has also been instructed to keep track of the employee’s progress of meeting the
target within the time and to guide them if they fail to manage time and work
accordingly.
Reality:
 Due to frequent arguments in which Pat is involved, the working environment has been
unhealthy. The new employees cannot fully rely on Pat due to his recent behaviour. The
employees are often seems to be less motivated and are getting unnecessary pressure in
achieving the target.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
 The sales target that the organization has aimed to achieve is nowhere close to 12%. The
sales have not increased by 1% rather its less than the previous year target. This happened
due to the loss in the working hour and proper direction from Pat.
 The employees are facing many problem regarding handling the customer and providing
them with the correct product that they want. In short, they are finding problem in
managing the customer. Pat has been ineffective in guiding the employee to provide full
customer satisfaction which resulted
 Pat has not been effective in handling the tasks and the responsibility that is aligned to
him and it may affect the organization in the upcoming years. To avoid this unwanted
issue Pat needs to be given proper coaching so that this issues can be minimized.
Options:
This point describes what options are available to solve the problem.
 The problem can be solved if Pat tries to understand the situation and then respond
according to that instead of reacting. He should understand and hear the opinion of others
and then work according to that. This will create a feeling among other individuals that
their opinions also matters in the organization.
 Handling the customer is a very difficult task as each individual has his or her own
requirements. Pat needs to guide the employee and teach them to be patient with the
customer. Understanding the customer needs a high level of emotional intelligence is
required. Emotional intelligence will help Pat to understand how the employee can be
managed so that they can get a proper idea about how to handle the employees and
provide them full satisfaction.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
 By developing the emotional intelligence, Pat will be more focused on achieving the
target and at the same time, he will handle the stress more effectively.
 The sales target that the organization aims is to increase by 12%. Due to the frequent
argument the working hours is affected and this resulted in the lower sales.
 The communication between the employees needs to be increased so that the lack of trust
in the ability of other members reduces. Pat needs to organize more meetings so that the
issue that the cop-workers are facing can be solved.
 There should be proper analysis of the task of every member in the organization so that
the progress of the tasks can be monitored. The monitoring of the tasks will help the
employees to finish the work in time and will help Pat to reduce arguments. This will also
help in performance appraisal of the team.
Team building is an important factor that leads to the success of the organization. A good
team helps in effective operation of the environment and also help in achieving the task within
the deadline.
To build a good team climate the following things are necessary:
 Establish leadership: The trust of the employees should be mostly on Pat. The employee
should trust on the judgement of the leader. The employee works effectively only when
they judge the decision of their employees (Northouse 2018).
 Establishing relationship: Building relationship with the employees, understanding the
team’s potential, skill sets and their likes and dislikes help in understanding the employee
in a better way. This will help the employee in increasing the emotional intelligence
(Osman-Gani, Hashim and Ismail 2013).

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
 Foster teamwork: After building the relationship with the employee its necessary to
check whether they are compatible with each other and if they are not compatible the
leader should under the differences between them and then work accordingly. The
communication should be made more effective so that no problem arises between them.
 Understanding the problem: A team is motivated and effective only when the leader tries
to understand the problem of their employees and take steps towards solving the issue.
Pat should understand the problem of his co-workers and provide necessary solution to
resolve the issues.
 Setting ground rules: Setting some rules for the employees will help them in guiding
them to work within some rules and regulations. This will help them in maintain the
ethics of the organization. Setting some rules will help in improving the working
environment and will also reduce conflicts in the organization.
 Building communication: Communication is necessary steps to build trust and Pat should
work on increasing and building effective communication. Communication will reduce
wastage and will also help in improving the work environment.

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Coaching
phase
Activities/questions
Introduction The reasons for the coaching session from my point of view:
● Poor customer satisfaction and increased level of
arguments between the employees.
Ask Pat for input, to describe own perspective:
● The working environment should be more employee
friendly.
● The stress level in the peak season are huge.
● Low employee retention rate.
Goal Ask questions to establish Pat’s understanding of performance
expectations, personal goals and aspirations:
● Increase the sales by 12%
● Keep track of other employees and help them if they face
any problem in the work process
Reality Ask questions to establish understanding of:
● the real gap between Pat’s performance and expectations/
performance goals:
- Lack of trust between the employees and Pat has
created an unhealthy working environment
- Sales have reduced in the recent times.
● potential obstacles to achievement, such as Pat’s EI skills
and personal/work situation:
- Stress level
- Poor communication skill
- Lack of trusts
Options/ Ask questions to help Pat generate options or opportunities to

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
opportunities help achieve goals and close performance gaps:
● Understand the opinion of others and then respond
according to it.
● Increase the emotional intelligence to provide better
customer satisfaction.
● The communication should be improved between the
employees.
Will Ask questions to establish Pat’s willingness to agree to concrete
and time-bound measures to improve performance:
● Pat should use emotional intelligence to understand the
behaviour of the customer.
● The time-bound for the desired task to perform is 1 years,
within which Pat should increase the EI.
● Employee should be given proper support so that they can
provide creative ideas.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
References:
López-Patiño, M.A., Hernández-Pérez, J., Gesto, M., Librán-Pérez, M., Míguez, J.M. and
Soengas, J.L., 2014. Short-term time course of liver metabolic response to acute handling stress
in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A:
Molecular & Integrative Physiology, 168, pp.40-49.
Northouse, P.G., 2018. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Osman-Gani, A.M., Hashim, J. and Ismail, Y., 2013. Establishing linkages between religiosity
and spirituality on employee performance. Employee relations, 35(4), pp.360-376.
Tsai, S.Y., 2013. Impact of a breastfeeding-friendly workplace on an employed mother's
intention to continue breastfeeding after returning to work. Breastfeeding Medicine, 8(2),
pp.210-216.