Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour. It comes down to four abilities: perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotions. It is clear that being proficient in these abilities is highly sought after in people working in care roles, but how can you spot people high in emotional intelligence?

Different models of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence has been the topic of research for many years resulting in different models, such as: The Ability Model, the Mixed Model and the Trait Model. This last model is the focus of this post as it is measured by self-report and linked to the Big 5 Model, which is the basis of our Personality assessment. 

Trait Emotional Intelligence
Trait Emotional Intelligence (Trait EI) refers to a person's self-perception of their emotional abilities. Emotional self-efficacy. It has been linked to outcomes in clinical, educational and organisational settings. For example, ​high trait EI pupils tend to have fewer unauthorised absences and are less likely to have been expelled from school due to rule violations, compared to their low trait EI peers. Trait EI also influences children’s peer relations at school and decreases the likelihood of aggressive and delinquent behaviour. Furthermore, high trait EI facilitated prosocial behavior and prevented antisocial behavior in primary-aged children and similar results have been obtained in samples from different countries and age groups. 

Trait EI in the Workplace
Trait EI predicts important outcomes in the workplace. Perhaps the most robust evidence comes from meta-analyses confirming its strong positive effects on job performance. Specifically, high trait EI was associated with lower levels of stress and higher levels of perceived job control, satisfaction, and commitment. It has also been linked to a higher level of commitment to the employer.

Linking Trait EI to the Big 5
So is it possible to use the insights from the Care Advantage Personality Assessment to find out if a person has high Trait EI? It possibly is! Research has shown that there are strong correlations between certain traits of the Big 5 and Trait EI. Specifically Neuroticism (in our assessment "Stable"), followed by Extroversion and Conscientiousness, as well as Agreeableness (Tough Minded) and Openness (Conventional). Being aware of these links can help gain even more insight into your candidates, not only about their 5 personality traits, their team orientation, but also their trait Emotional Intelligence. 

Contact us to find out more.

With thanks to the following sources:
Wikipedia | Theory and Applications of Trait Emotional Intelligence | Relationships between trait emotional intelligence and the Big Five​ | The Relationship between Trait Emotional Intelligence and Personality

​In a consumer driven market with frontline staff being the regular and principal touch point for service users, providers have to manage employee related risk in both traditional and emerging areas of their business.

Misconduct Risk
The commitment to protect service users in the sector is clear and undiminished. The processes to ensure this, however, are often found wanting and scrutiny from the regulator, media and community has never been greater. Reputational damage in a competitive marketplace haunts provider for years, especially in the local community near an incident. Misconduct extends beyond high profile incidents seen in the media to include indifference, neglect, culpable behaviour and dishonesty impacting on clients/residents.

Performance Risk
User Experience is the new battleground in the aged, community and disability sectors. Empowered clients, with choice, and increasing expectations continues to move social care into a consumer driven competitive marketplace. The engagement and relationships built by frontline staff, combined with the quality of the support provided are pivotal for success in today’s care sector. Ensuring employees are suited to roles requiring the delivery of care, support and compassion is fundamental to effective staff performance in social care.

Frontline capability now translates directly into Bottom Line Performance

Some Facts
We took a sample of over 15,000 frontline care applicants screened during the past year. Using the standard Care Advantage assessment for counter-productive work behaviours - Hostility, Integrity and Dependability, we found the following:

Some Quick Wins
Are our applicants ‘right’ for the sector?
Care Advantage screens specifically for job fit in the Social Care sector. It identifies those candidates with the values, empathy and personality necessary for success in a human services environment. It compares your applicants to a benchmark of proven good performers in the same role and identifies those with a strong job fit. Benchmarks exist for around 40 roles in the care sector including personal carers, disability support, home care assistance, Registered Nurses, Clinical Managers.

Can we identify the level of risk with our applicants?
Care Advantage also screens for counter-productive work behaviours, specifically hostility, dependability and integrity. Flagging high-risk profiles allows providers to avoid or increase scrutiny of applicants.

How do we Avoid Missing Good candidates?
Most Care Advantage users screen applicants high in the recruitment funnel, when the candidate first applies. The screening platform has been designed, and priced, to allow employers to review high volumes of frontline applicants in an effective and rapid manner.

Identifying strong job fit and lower risk candidates early in the recruitment process provides significant competitive advantage by reducing misconduct and performance risk whilst improving efficiency and speed of recruitment processing. As the assessments are based on personality, the screening identifies all good job fit, lower risk candidates, regardless of work history, enabling our clients to find the ‘Hidden Gems’.

Governance
With 'Standard 8' of the, now legislated, compliance regime starting next year, there are a number of new requirements. The majority of these involve the ability to demonstrate that the organisation possesses a governance framework that recognises the organisation’s purpose, its legislative, policy and ethical obligations, as well as its workforce and employment responsibilities. Care Advantage allows users to demonstrate an effective framework, as part of a contemporary recruitment process, that identifies candidates able to support service users in a person centred and safe manner.

Contact us to discuss your situation. 

.. and how can they be best used?
 
Did you know that personality assessments are constructed for different purposes? These design differences mean that they are not all alike and cannot be used for the same application. Some tests are ipsative and some are normative and there is a fundamental design difference between them and this design affects their suitability for purpose.
 
What is normative?
A normative assessment measures proven quantifiable personality characteristics on individual scales. A person’s “score” for each construct measures a specific set of traits against group data or patterns of normality represented on a bell curve and usually includes a social desirability (faking) scale to measure accuracy of responses. Normative testing allows people to be compared to other employees who have met with success or failure in a job – so this can predict candidates who will have the best chances of success if hired or promoted and to help avoid placing people in the wrong positions. Normative tests are therefore well suited to recruitment and selection applications.
 
And what about ipsative?
An ipsative assessment presents applicants with options equal in desirability and requires them to indicate which items are “most true” of them and which are “least true” of them in their everyday behaviour. Unlike normative assessments which measure clearly identifiable traits, ipsative assessments indicate only orientations and the relative type of person being assessed. What it does not reveal or predict is how two people with similar patterns or types will actually perform in a job. It is generally accepted that ipsative assessments are ambiguous, because ipsative literally means using yourself (rather than others or a defined population) as the norm against which to measure something, for example, your present performance against your past performance (rather than the performance of others). Ipsative tests are well suited for applications like development, coaching or team building where comparisons among people are not necessary.
 
The Care Advantage Assessments are Normative and best used for recruitment and selection applications. 
source: Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2009)