A study on the Role of Emotional Intelligence in Virtual Workspaces
Joshi, Chaitali; Kaur, Harpreet (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202504247608
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202504247608
Tiivistelmä
This research was conducted with two basic questions in view, they are, what is the role of emotional intelligence for the employees working in virtual workspaces? And what are the factors that affect employees’ emotional intelligence in virtual workspaces?
The objectives of the study are to assess how employees perceive emotional intelligence, to know the source of employees’ knowledge of emotional intelligence, to know whether they had received any formal training on emotional intelligence, to study the influence of the technological tools: How it affects the emotions and overall productivity of the employees in remote work environment?, to study the effects of organizational culture and way of working on employee’s emotional intelligence and overall productivity, to study the links between cultural diversity in the team and emotional intelligence of employees, to study the individual factors affecting the emotional intelligence of the employees.
The beneficiaries of this thesis will be all the employees working in virtual workspaces / are in remote work. This will also be beneficial to the organizations / companies which allow remote / hybrid work to their employees.
The study design is qualitative as it gives opportunity to study various dimensions of Emotional Intelligence like Self Awareness, Self Regulation, Social Skills, Motivation and Empathy. The sampling technique which has been adopted is snowball sampling method for the selection of respondents working in the virtual workspaces.
We found in our study that all the respondents believe that being emotionally intelligent is very important in virtual workspaces or in remote working. All the respondents were of the opinion that being emotionally intelligent definitely helps and improve your productivity in workspaces.
In our study we found that majority of the respondents believed that organization culture is very important factor that affects your emotional intelligence.
We also found that our respondents believed that cultural diversity affects your emotional intelligence initially when you are new in the team. As you grow old with the team you understand how people from different cultures think, behave and work you get used to it and start working accordingly. Thus, after spending some time with the team cultural difference does not affect your emotional intelligence. All the respondents believed that individual factors do affect your emotional intelligence.
In conclusion, we can say that our research is in line with most of the studies in our literature review. Our study also emphasizes the importance of Emotional Intelligence in Virtual Workspaces. We found that it is very important that all the employees are emotionally intelligent to improve the team harmony and thus the productivity of the team. We also found that our respondents believe that not only employees but also employers need to be emotionally intelligent. Because in hierarchical structure in the organization if the top management is not emotionally intelligent, they might create a bad organization culture which will in turn affect the emotional intelligence of the employees.
We have some recommendations for the organizations based on our study. All the virtual workers/ remote workers must be provided formal training on Emotional Intelligence by their organizations. It is a responsibility of the top management to create an enabling organization culture which helps and encourages the development of emotional intelligence of the employees. If the team is culturally diverse there can be get together events to get to know each other well. Management must make sure that all the employees get equal opportunity and importance in the team. Powerplay by management negatively affects the emotional intelligence of the employees. The workload of the employees should be manageable otherwise it negatively affects the emotional intelligence of the employees.
The objectives of the study are to assess how employees perceive emotional intelligence, to know the source of employees’ knowledge of emotional intelligence, to know whether they had received any formal training on emotional intelligence, to study the influence of the technological tools: How it affects the emotions and overall productivity of the employees in remote work environment?, to study the effects of organizational culture and way of working on employee’s emotional intelligence and overall productivity, to study the links between cultural diversity in the team and emotional intelligence of employees, to study the individual factors affecting the emotional intelligence of the employees.
The beneficiaries of this thesis will be all the employees working in virtual workspaces / are in remote work. This will also be beneficial to the organizations / companies which allow remote / hybrid work to their employees.
The study design is qualitative as it gives opportunity to study various dimensions of Emotional Intelligence like Self Awareness, Self Regulation, Social Skills, Motivation and Empathy. The sampling technique which has been adopted is snowball sampling method for the selection of respondents working in the virtual workspaces.
We found in our study that all the respondents believe that being emotionally intelligent is very important in virtual workspaces or in remote working. All the respondents were of the opinion that being emotionally intelligent definitely helps and improve your productivity in workspaces.
In our study we found that majority of the respondents believed that organization culture is very important factor that affects your emotional intelligence.
We also found that our respondents believed that cultural diversity affects your emotional intelligence initially when you are new in the team. As you grow old with the team you understand how people from different cultures think, behave and work you get used to it and start working accordingly. Thus, after spending some time with the team cultural difference does not affect your emotional intelligence. All the respondents believed that individual factors do affect your emotional intelligence.
In conclusion, we can say that our research is in line with most of the studies in our literature review. Our study also emphasizes the importance of Emotional Intelligence in Virtual Workspaces. We found that it is very important that all the employees are emotionally intelligent to improve the team harmony and thus the productivity of the team. We also found that our respondents believe that not only employees but also employers need to be emotionally intelligent. Because in hierarchical structure in the organization if the top management is not emotionally intelligent, they might create a bad organization culture which will in turn affect the emotional intelligence of the employees.
We have some recommendations for the organizations based on our study. All the virtual workers/ remote workers must be provided formal training on Emotional Intelligence by their organizations. It is a responsibility of the top management to create an enabling organization culture which helps and encourages the development of emotional intelligence of the employees. If the team is culturally diverse there can be get together events to get to know each other well. Management must make sure that all the employees get equal opportunity and importance in the team. Powerplay by management negatively affects the emotional intelligence of the employees. The workload of the employees should be manageable otherwise it negatively affects the emotional intelligence of the employees.