IMPERATIVENESS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR HR PROFESSIONALS-AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Every professional demonstrates an elaborate structure of technical skills that he has built through the inputs received from the professional course he pursued earlier. But, rarely do these courses address the all important issue of human skills to be able to eventually practice them in their careers. This calls for a special role for HR professionals in every organization. Their Emotional Intelligence (EI) becomes crucial for building individual and organizational competencies through their employees. The principal objectives of this study are to (1) discuss the current scenario of application of EI by HR professionals in Hyderabad, India, (2) examine the challenges facing HR managers in Small and Medium Companies in the area of Change Management through application of EI, and (3) identify the factors that make study and application of EI as an emerging discipline in professional management studies offered by business schools. In this study, it is conclusively proved that emotions such as productive anger, inspiration, and ability to shake them off are independent of specializations in HR professions and that EI factors studied are common across all HR Professionals. Large majority of respondents felt that they would have been better equipped in this area had there been inclusion of and inputs on EI factors in their professional curriculum.