The past year has certainly thrown up some challenges and now that we are returning to offices and interacting more closely with each other, it has led to a few tricky situations arising when someone sneezes or coughs at work.
A client recently mentioned that her young son coughed in the supermarket (he swallowed some food too quickly!) and said she was met with glares and some mutterings about COVID from shoppers nearby. At a recent workshop, a participant commented about a team member repeatedly sneezing in the office. That team member suffers from hay fever and hadn’t taken an antihistamine drug that day. No-one in their team knew what to say or how to broach the questions on everyone’s mind at the time – “Have they had a COVID test? Should they go home? Who is monitoring this?”
Emotional Intelligence (EI) can be defined as a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.
I read a newspaper article today commenting on how employers are currently seeking and recruiting for staff who have ‘likeability’ as well as technical ability in their field. The description of traits linked to ‘likeability’ fell very much into the domain of what Daniel Goleman labelled Emotional Intelligence in his 1994 book of the same name. Goleman had the same conclusion as the newspaper article; organisations want employees who get on with others, have a positive approach, are good to be around and get the job done. Good social skills, empathy for others and a level of self-awareness are important traits for developing and maintaining effective relationships in and out of work.
