Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence and Benchmarking Research

The emotional intelligence of a company's decision to lay off workers is dependent on a number of factors including federal law and the presence of an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) requires companies of 100 or more employees give 60 days' notice of mass layoffs of 500 plus, or one third of the total workforce (United States Department of Labor, n.d.). Companies who offer an EAP have the resource available for troubled employees to seek counseling after being notified of an upcoming layoff. EAP's address terminations, outplacements, financial issues, and credit counseling (DataLink, n.d.).

Employee layoffs tend to produce pessimism, rumors, and tension. Of the ten synopses submitted, three companies directly addressed the emotional intelligence of the layoffs. Hewlett Packard (HP), American Online (AOL), and Railroad made attempts to prevent the termination of employees or to soften the blow of the news. HP first attempted a voluntary pay cut, however, while they were indeed able to save money, the layoffs were still necessary (Anders, 2003). AOL offered their employees two month's severance pay along with career counseling to assist in job seeking (Hosley, 2005). The railroad labor decreased their labor by 50 percent with their layoffs began in 1980.

The three companies all individually have common issues with Global Communications (GC). The railroad has a union just as Global Communications. When the railroad decided to decrease the union's pay rate they went to the union representatives and presented them with a flat-rate pay. Whereas Global Communications management staff did not include the union representatives in there talks of layoffs and decreasing in pay. Unlike HP, Global Communications did not include the employees on reduction of pay or other benefits.