Engaging staff through emotional intelligence

Business area: Organisational Development & Learning

Directorate: People Branch

Division: Corporate Services

Project summary

People will partner with the DEN and an external provider (Global Leadership Foundation) to roll out Emotional Intelligence workshops. These workshops will be designed to increase the level of empathy demonstrated by managers and support them to more effectively engage staff with a disability.

Focus Area:

• Supporting access to meaningful employment.

Project objective

• Improve engagement and the employee experience for people with a disability.
• Increase the inclusiveness of teams by better supporting people with a disability.
• Increase manager awareness and confidence in working with people with disability.
• Improved manager confidence and decision making when responding to requests from staff with a disability.
• Improve feedback to/from the Disability Employee Network (DEN) around manager capability in working with staff with a disability.

The challenge

Repeated feedback from the DEN has highlighted the need to build manager capability in working with employees with a disability. This could be due to a lack of ability to put themselves in the shoes of others and understanding of how their own behaviours impact on the experience and performance of their team and individuals (particularly those with a disability). By leveraging emotional intelligence to address this capability gap DCJ will be able to build more inclusive teams and a better employee experience.

Why is this important?

Repeated feedback from the DEN has highlighted the need to build manager capability in working with employees with a disability. This could be due to a lack of ability to put themselves in the shoes of others and understanding of how their own behaviours impact on the experience and performance of their team and individuals (particularly those with a disability). By leveraging emotional intelligence to address this capability gap DCJ will be able to build more inclusive teams and a better employee experience.

What will success look like?

Success would see employees with a disability having a better employee experience, be more engaged in their work, and feel as through their disability is not a barrier in their role. Employees with a disability would also experience increased inclusiveness within their teams and feel more supported by their manager through quicker and more meaningful responses to requests.

Success would also see managers reporting an improvement in disability awareness and understanding of the needs of employees with a disability through their increased understanding of emotional intelligence and how to apply it.

How will you measure success?

Success would see employees with a disability having a better employee experience, be more engaged in their work, and feel as through their disability is not a barrier in their role. Employees with a disability would also experience increased inclusiveness within their teams and feel more supported by their manager through quicker and more meaningful responses to requests.

Success would also see managers reporting an improvement in disability awareness and understanding of the needs of employees with a disability through their increased understanding of emotional intelligence and how to apply it.

Summary of key stages

Key Actions	Outcome	Due date	Status
Scope project	Project scope completed		Not started
Seek endorsement and budget	Endorsed project scope and budget		Not started
Create project plan for delivery	Project plan, schedule and other documentation completed		Not started
Implement project (procure, schedule and run workshops)	Emotional intelligence workshops run		Not started
Review and evaluate project outcomes and success	Project evaluation report completed

Status report

Current Status: Not started

Date: 20/11/2020

Status Notes:

Status Explanatory Note:

Status reports provided: