Emotional Intelligence in
the Workplace
A study on Emotional Intelligence in Workers’ Occupational
Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) in the workplace
MASTER THESIS WITHIN: Genera Management NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15
PROGRAMME OF STUDY: Engineering Management AUTHOR: 1) Nasim Mobli
2) Prasad Ramlubhai Pillamari JÖNKÖPING August 2020
MASTER THESIS WITHIN: Genera Management NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15
PROGRAMME OF STUDY: Engineering Management AUTHOR: 1) Nasim Mobli
2) Prasad Ramlubhai Pillamari JÖNKÖPING August 2020
Master Thesis in General Management
Title: Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: A study on Emotional Intelligence in Workers’ Occupational Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) in the workplace
Authors: Nasim Mobli, Prasad Ramlubhai Pillamari Supervisor: Sambit Lenka
Date: 2020-08-10
Key terms: Emotional Intelligence / Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) / Safety Performance / Incidents / Human Error
Abstract
Work-related accidents emerge from potential hazards that can cause different negative outcomes in different situations. Human errors are specific actions that can either directly (active errors) or indirectly (latent errors) cause an accident in the workplace. Nowadays in order to establish an applicable system in the way of maintenance and preferment of a work environment without any accidents that are trying to develop the HSE system. In fact, this management system has been using as a significant tool to control and improve the performance of health and safety and the environment in all development programs of industries and organizations. In this term, one of the important perspectives of HSE management is Emotional Intelligence which deals with the management’s ability and safety performance in the workplace.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Occupational Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) management in the workplace, to reduce industrial incidents of human factors. Therefore, there is a requirement for a better understanding of how Emotional Intelligence factors influence health and safety performance in the workplace.
A qualitative study has been done to achieve this purpose. In this case, data has been collected through eight semi-structured interviews with HSE managers and officers that participated from different industries around the world. The main focus of this collection data was extracting the perspectives of the individual’s views. Afterward, to create a theory, the data has been analyzed according to different steps for a grounded analysis regarding discovering how the Emotional Intelligence factors of employees impact their health and safety performance in the workplace.
The results of this study have shown that there are mainly two areas to study which are key roles of Emotional Intelligence in safety performance and key roles for effective Healthy, Safety, and Environment management. It has shown that the key roles of Emotional Intelligence in safety performance is being able to manage your own and being able to deal with other’s emotions. Besides, key roles for effective Healthy, Safety, and Environment
management only three factors have been important to improve the safety act which is being able to make the correct decision in the emergency situation’ and ability to prevent incidents at the workplace as well as the level of perception of risk. These results demonstrated that strong factors of Emotional Intelligence are vital to improve the health and safety performance at the workplace and the improvement of these abilities should be approached for the workplace.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 5
1.1 Background 5
1.2 Concept of Emotional Intelligence in HSE 6
1.3 Problem Statement 7
1.4 Purpose and Research Questions 8
2. Literature Review 9
2.1 Work-related incidents and Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) 9 2.1.1 Reasons for Incidents in Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) 10
2.1.2 Understanding human failure 10
2.1.3 Human Factor and Incidents 12
2.2 Effective Model of Emotional Intelligence in Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) 12 2.3 Emotional Intelligence and Implementing Health, Safety and Environment 15 2.4 Emotional Intelligence as a tool to make safety workplace 16
3. Research Method 19
3.1 Importance of Research Design 19
3.2 Research Design 19
3.3 Research Technique 21
3.3.1 Data Collection Method 21
3.3.2 Choice of Participants 22 3.3.3 Interview Design 22 3.4 Trustworthiness 22 3.4.1 Credibility 22 3.4.2 Transferability 23 3.4.3 Dependability 23 3.4.4 Confirmability 23 3.5 Research Ethics 23 4. Results 25
4.1 Interviews and Findings 25
4.1.1 Interview Questions 26
4.1.2 Overview of Answers for Questions 27
5. Analysis 36
5.1 Purpose and research questions 36
5.2 Key roles of Emotional Intelligence in Safety Performance 37 5.3 Key roles for effective Healthy, Safety, and Environment management 38 5.4 Model of the Relationship of Emotional Intelligence and safety performance 40
6. Conclusion 42
6.1 Theoretical implications and contributions 42
6.2 Practical implications and contributions 42
6.3 Societal implications and contributions Error! Bookmark not defined.
6.4 Limitations and suggestions for future research Error! Bookmark not defined.
1. Introduction
_____________________________________________________________________________________ This chapter aims to describe for the readers what will be found in this study. This is presented at the start of each chapter and is adapted to reflect the content of the chapter.
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1.1 Background
Industrial accidents are the performance of a highly complex socio-technical system, which is dependent and these factors can be main contributors to incidents that could potentially lead to a catastrophic event (Gorden, 1998). The emergence occupational of Health, Safety, and environment system has been helped to identify the risk of accidents or hazards in the workplace as well as have made a considerable effect on both the performance and safety of industry workers (Makin and Winder, 2009). The research has shown that the main areas where the risk of accidents might improve in the workplace can be grouped into both the physical workplace and workers (Makin and Winder, 2009). From a physical workplace view, mechanical, structural, and process project failures are potential incidents as well as from a worker view, carelessness and lack of attention have frequently been among the key causes of accidents (Ifelebuegu, Awotu-Ukiri, Theophilus, Arewa, Bassey, 2018).
Nowadays in order to establish an appropriate system in the line of maintenance and promotion of a healthy work environment without any accidents, injuries, and pollution, organizations are trying to utilize the HSE system (Farshad, Khosravi, & Alizadeh, 2006). One the other hand, in order to control and improve the performance of health and safety and the environment, HSE management can be used as a tool in all industries and organizations. In fact, HSE is an integrated system, hence that all human business and equipment properties will support each other in order to provide safety and a convenient environment with no accidents and injuries (Farshad et al, 2006). Therefore, occupational Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE), as an alternative approach, is of great importance for the industry (Mohammadfam, Nekoomaram, Fardin, 2015).
The HSE management system is essentially a system, wholly based on the ‘Human factors refer to environmental, organizational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics
which impact behavior in the workplace in a way which can affect health and safety’. Consequently, manage risk and control hazards is regarded as the heart of new HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment) management systems (Farshad et al, 2006).
In addition, as described by Kathryn & Steven (2009) the important perspective of HSE management which deals with the management’s ability to take the risk and make decisions to ensure the protection of the health and safety of workers in their environment. In addition, risk and safety management has an impact on workforce behavior and subsequent accident rates. Incident research into most concerning disasters in the industry has revealed that the underlying cause of these accidents was human error (Frank, 2000).
Besides, Rasmussen (1980) claims that human errors are specific acts that can either directly (active errors) or indirectly (latent errors) cause an accident. The serious accidents due to human errors have been discussed and a proper addressing measure has been conceptualized in the framework of Emotional Intelligence and decision making (Murata,2008). A study found that Emotional Intelligence is a requirement for effective implementation of HSE management tasks. Furthermore, Emotional Intelligence and creating a safe workplace, in conjunction with indirect influence from interpersonal skills, promote the development of health, safety, and environment which is an important management indicator of safety performance in the workplace (Sunindijo & Zou, 2013).
1.2 Concept of Emotional Intelligence in HSE
According to Alkozei, Schwab, and Killgore (2015), Emotional Intelligence can be defined as the ability to recognize, identify, and manage emotions. Emotional Intelligence includes the ability to carry out accurate cognitive knowledge about emotions and the ability to use emotions and emotional knowledge to enhance thought (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso,2004).
Emotional Intelligence can be a direct or indirect derivative of various reasons. Emotional Intelligence in the workplace which is found through the careful measurement and management of personal emotions, and definitely the emotions of others, may successfully influence or control human behavior to achieve developed occupational health and safety performance and work environment (Ogińska-Bulik,2005). To effectively manage risk and accidents in the workplace, the critical success aspects of health, safety, and environment management systems must be given strict attention in day-to-day actions. However, the challenge remains that human error, carelessness, inattention, and levels of intelligence affect the maintenance of
stated standard health and safety during work routines (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002, White & Harper, 2013).
The diversity of levels of Emotional Intelligence among workers is the main reason in determining workers’ ability to support work environment standards (Spector,2005). Emotional Intelligence is an important tool for site management especially supervisors and team leaders with frontline roles in active HSE management in the industry to touch and engage employees as well as the ability to influence HSE performance on preventive and corrective actions within the industry project (Wandah, 2019).
1.3 Problem Statement
Nowadays, workplace accidents became worse and known to be a major concern to the organization involved and this kind of problem also became one of the most important issues being faced by industries (Aksorn &Hadikusumo., 2008). The total number of accidental works has grown to an estimated 125 million worldwide each year (Kirschenbaum, Ludmilla, & Goldberg, 2000). As well as increasing trends of deaths and injuries in both developed and developing countries have led industries to accurately investigate the accidents to find preventive methods (Päivi, Kaija, & Jukka, 2009). Prior to attempting identification of the solution and prevention for workplace accidents, it is important to better understand what the elements are or factors that cause workplace accidents first (Zakaria, Mansor, & Abdullah, 2012). Although human errors are significant factors in almost every operability problem in the workplace, one of the underlying aspects of such methods is identification hazard and preventing incidents which can be done by improving health, safety, and environment (HSE) managers (Tahira M & Estrada, 2010).
Further, involving HSE managers in accident prevention decisions builds trust, commitment, and handles an accidental situation that needs improving Emotional Intelligence in the workplace. As described by Green (2012) smart emotions make smart people; smart people make smart decisions and also emotions affect the way people perform, behave, concern, and respond to problems around them. Responses to problems can be different from one person to another for the reason that there are different emotional personalities. To effectively identify and understand these key factors, it will be necessary to understand Emotional Intelligence and impact on the accidental situation in the workplace.
Since there is a lack of studies that discuss roles of Emotional Intelligence in workers’ occupational health, safety, and environment (HSE) in the workplace, therefore in this study Emotional Intelligence and HSE management will be the main focus. Besides these two main factors, safety at the workplace will be discussed as well.
1.4 Purpose and Research Questions
The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Occupational Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) management in the workplace, in order to reduce industrial accidents of human factors. Derived from the problem discussion, there is a requirement for a better understanding of Emotional Intelligence and impact on the accidental situation in the workplace. In order to accomplish the stated purpose, the following research questions (RQ’s) will be addressed in this thesis:
RQ1: What are the Role of Emotional Intelligence in workers’ occupational Health, Safety, and Environment in the workplace?
RQ2: How Emotional Intelligence can be used to manage Health, Safety, and Environment in the incidental workplace?
2. Literature Review
_____________________________________________________________________________________ The purpose of this chapter is to provide the theoretical background to the topic of Emotional Intelligence in workers’ occupational health, safety and environment (HSE) in the workplace.
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2.1 Work-related incidents and Health, Safety and Environment (HSE)
Accidents in the workplace arise for a number of reasons. It may affect a minimal or tragic, causing minor injury, damage to equipment, or even in some cases, major injury, or death (Zakaria et al., 2012). Work-related accidents occur from potential hazards that can cause different negative consequences in various situations. Diverse hazards in the workplace have different levels of risk, and as an accepted principle, elimination of risks in the industry is practically impossible. Instead, the solution for the decline of accidents and losses is management and control of the risk of the hazards (Khan, Rathanayaka, Ahmed, 2015). In order to avoid accidents workers, need to stay aware and responsive while managers need to know the most common reasons and causes of work-related incidents and be able to determine the risk factors early to prevent it (Khan et al., 2015). Furthermore, safety in the workplace is one of the most essential issues that cannot be taken lightly. Because even if only a minor incident, it may cause a serious and huge effect on the organization's situation (Zakaria et al., 2012). Studies stated that the application of practical safety measures is not sufficient to protect human, economic, and environmental effects in the workplace (Mohammadfam. et al., 2015).
Currently, the HSE system has been founding a proper method with the way of preservation and raise safety in the workplace without any incidents (Farshad et al., 2006). Therefore, the HSE management system can be used as a tool to control and improve health and safety and environmental performance in all organizations and industries. One the other hand, an integrated system, for all human financial and equipment resources could support and provide a convenient environment with no incidents and injuries (Zakaria et al., 2012). Consequently, occupational Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE), as an alternative approach, is of great importance for the industry (Mohammadfam et al., 2015). The HSE management system is essentially a system, wholly based on the ‘Human factors refer to environmental, organizational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics which impact behavior in the workplace in a way which can affect health and safety.
2.1.1 Reasons for Incidents in Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE)
Work-related incidents can be described as unexpected and uncontrolled happenings that come from the action or reaction of an objective, material, personnel, or radiation outcomes in individual injury or the possibility thereof (Heinrich, 1980). All accidents in the workplace could be a model with a chain of five factors. They are the social environment, the fault of a person, an unsafe act or physical hazard, an accident, and the resulting injury. As well as with moderate and high emotional and psychological distress it is more likely leading to the risk of workplace accidents (Hilton and Whiteford, 2010). Generally, studies stated that work-related accidents have mostly been attributed to two fundamental reasons: internal causal factors which include dispositional characteristics of the workforce and external causal factors include characteristics of the work environment (Gyekye, 2010).
As argued by Male (2003), human factors are likely to contribute to occupational accidents on the different levels which are including related factors to individual attitudes, the nature of the job such as the design of the workplace, and management systems in the organization. Leplat & Rasmussen (1984) state it is a general experience that human acts play a significant role in work-related accidents and considerable effort is spent to include human performance in the causal accident models. Furthermore, human errors that could potentially cause an occupational accident is called risky and unsafe acts that might be defined to be a human action that causes unnecessary exposure of a person to hazards in the workplace (Joel, 1997). Achieving the zero-accident goals in the work environment is almost impossible but the effective fundamental analysis of human error patterns may lead to the implementation of a successful intervention strategy that will efficiently control the associated of humans with occupational accidents (Gyekye, 2010).
2.1.2 Understanding human failure
According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), human errors are classified as two main resources that are human error and violations. Human error is an unplanned act or decision problem. Violations are intentional error or purposely doing the wrong thing (Health and Safety Executive,2014).
Human errors can be skill-based errors or mistakes. Skill-based errors can come from slips and lapses which are made accidentally by expert workers in routine tasks. Mistakes normally come
from decisions consequently creating wrong things however the creator thought they could correct at the time. Violations divide into different deliberate deviations from rules for the safe action of equipment (Health and Safety Executive,2014).
Figure 2-1 Human Failure (Health and Safety Executive,2014).
One the other hand, as mentioned in Health and Safety Executive (2014) different factors contribute to human errors. These factors affect work conditions, human ability, organization, and equipment that those can mention:
● Job condition: interruptions, lack of time, insufficient procedures, poor lighting, or extremes of temperature.
● Human ability: physical appearance, capability, tiredness, pressure, or drugs. ● Organizational condition: work stress, long hours, or lacking observation. ● Plant and equipment: poor equipment design or workplace arrangement.
Even though not all errors can be predicted, companies are responsible to avoid or control factors that make a human mistake on the part of their employee (Health and Safety Executive,2014).
2.1.3 Human Factor and Incidents
Recently, the human factors approach in the safety system at work is used to create better insights into the causes of incidents in various safety-critical domains (Lenné, Salmon, Liu, Trotter, 2012). Most industrial incidents are connected to human factors, the most common being inappropriate behavior, followed by safety violations, known adequate training or instruction, and occasional fatigue. Human factors can be involved in movement, performance, and speed of work responsibilities which are increasingly being accepted for their potential contribution to injuries and work-related accidents (Cantley, Taiwo, Galusha, Barbour, Slade,2014).
In addition, many of the studies are based on Reason’s (1990) Generic Error Modelling System (GEMS), which describes two general categories of human factors: active and latent errors. As stated by (Wiegmann and Shappell, 2003). The common frameworks for incident analysis in the industry based on Reason’s (1990) model, is the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS). HFACS defines four levels of error which involve the unsafe acts, preconditions for unsafe acts, unsafe supervision workers, and organizational influences. The result of using four levels of the HFACS as a tool is to understand incidents in the different levels of the industry (Madigana, Golightly and Maddersc, 2016). Furthermore, workers have inherent strengths and weaknesses that have a huge effect on their performance. Problems such as fatigue, stress, and motivation can adversely have an emotional impact on performance (Westfall‐Lake,2000). Therefore, Understanding the performance‐affecting factors is important for workers to know more about their emotions with the help of Emotional Intelligence assessment. Being more emotionally aware can help workers to be emotionally strong which is significant to maximize human reliability and minimize human error in the future (Michael and Broad,2012).
2.2 Effective Model of Emotional Intelligence in Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE)
To effectively identify and understand the key factors of Emotional Intelligence in health, safety, and environment (HSE), it will be necessary to comprehend models of Emotional Intelligence and their impact on leadership and in the workplace. Different models of Emotional Intelligence have been developed since the discovery of the importance of Emotional Intelligence in the workplace. These models include (Salovey & Mayer, 1990) and models of Emotional Intelligence of Goleman (2012) as the effective models in occupational
health and safety (Ifelebuegu, et al, 2019). The Salovey and Mayer model of Emotional Intelligence consists of three competencies: evaluation and expression of emotions, use of emotions, and regulation of emotions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Benjamin, et al (2012) described the ability of a person to create emotions as the expression of emotion that is competent in influencing both the emotions and the actions of others. The use of emotion requires skills regarding successful purposes or established goals by using Emotional Intelligence as a tool. The third competence of the Salovey and Mayer model of Emotional Intelligence refers to the ability to regulate emotions towards supporting a specific line of action (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2004) Figure2-2 illustrates the representation of the Salovey and Mayer model of Emotional Intelligence.
Figure 2-2 The model of Emotional Intelligence (Salovey & Mayer, 1990).
The other effective model of Emotional Intelligence is the model of Goleman which includes 4 principal domains and 19 confidences (Goleman,2012). As figure 2-3 shows two dimensions are focused on the person's awareness, namely the awareness of self (self-awareness) and the awareness of others (social awareness), while the other two dimensions assess the ability to use person's self and social awareness to effectively manage self (self-management) and relationships with others (relationship management).
In the Goleman model (2012) self-awareness is to identify one’s own emotion and use it in decision making. Besides, high personal self-awareness is cognizant of their weaknesses and strengths, open to criticism, and enthusiastic to learn from previous experiences. Next, self-management is the ability to handle stressful effects, for instance, anxiety and anger, and to restrain emotional impulsivity. People with self-management are able to have positive feelings in mind that will help to achieve goals and prevent negative feelings. As well as high self-management often helps to improve motivation. The third focus on the Goleman model is social awareness which enables people to identify other people’s feelings. People with high social awareness are able to understand nonverbal cues for emotional flows from others. It is the most critical ability for job performance while the focus is on relations with people. The final part of the model is relationship management which is the ability to adapt oneself and influence the emotions of others (Cherniss & Goleman, 2003).
Figure 2-3The four broad domains of Emotional Intelligence (Goleman 2012).
The Goleman model of Emotional Intelligence is a popular used model that includes social and emotional competencies linked with superior and effective performance in the workplace (McCleskey, 2015). The Goleman model indicates the different dimensions of emotions that
are required to perform health, safety, and environment management tasks, therefore this study will be focused on the Goleman model.
2.3 Emotional Intelligence and Implementing Health, Safety and Environment
Human behavior is influenced by the various component that involves reaction, culture, attitude, ability, morals, belief, genetics, well-organized, chemical/biological impacts, environment, personality, enthusiasm, mood, exercise, and knowledge. Any gap in any one of these components might cause unusual human behavior, which in casual presents a human threat to the process. In order to effectively manage hazards in the workplace, the important success factors in occupational health and safety management systems must be given strict attention in day-to-day operations. According to Green ‘smart emotions make smart people; smart people make smart decisions. there are some key success factors of Emotional Intelligence to manage human error (Ifelebuegu, et al., 2019).
● Level of grasp and perception of risks in the place of work
● Willingness to take part in the implementation of risk-reduction action plans in the place of work
● Ability to take consciousness of a colleague’s incapability to make the right decisions in times of emergencies in the place of work.
According to (Khandan et al., 2019) emotions provide humans to make quick physical responses and this helps them to attain really useful consistency via making ready an appropriate cognitive approach and complicated social behaviors are shown flexibly. Though feelings can also be concerned in adaptive behavior, however, the optimized emotional response is achieved when the humans recognize how to regulate, experience, and categorical their emotions and besides, research how and when to practice them in order to form the required emotion, something that differs among more than a few individuals. Excitement and interest are closely related to each other, emotional states have an impact on the content of attention and performance of tasks that require stimulus selection or deep focal points. It is clear that the absence or lack of concentration and attention is of human mistakes which are motives that consequently lead to the prevalence of accidents. EI is a period that has attracted a lot of interest and contains a huge wave of management, psychology, and health sciences. Social abilities focused greater on how to deal with others and social awareness and relationship management are its two realms. EI determines how to manage our own behaviors, how to cope with problems, and how to make choices that lead to high-quality
results. This is a component that industrial corporations want to make the place of business tons safe (Ifelebuegu et al., 2019).
Emotional Intelligence is an interpersonal skill, and transformational leadership, to improve safety in the workplace (Sunindijo & Zou, 2013). Slaski and Cartwright (2003) state that Emotional Intelligence can be taught, can be learned and may be useful in reducing stress and improving health, and safety performance. According to Sunindijo & Zou, (2013) project management can use Emotional Intelligence as human skills to create safety in the workplace. The study found that Emotional Intelligence at work is a requirement for effective implementation of safety management. Furthermore, Emotional Intelligence and safety management tasks, in conjunction with indirect influence from interpersonal skills, promote the development of health, safety, and environment which is an important management indicator of safety performance in the workplace (Sunindijo & Zou, 2013). In order to use human skills, safety project managers should start with their Emotional Intelligence, particularly their self-awareness. Self-awareness is a core factor that contributes to the improvement of individual performance and the development of effective relationships with others. Following this, they should develop their self-management and social awareness, which are important to control one’s own emotions and understand the emotions of others (Sunindijo & Zou, 2013).
In addition, two important dimensions of Emotional Intelligence, self-management, and relationship management, are required to perform safety management tasks in the workplace. Self-management can be described as the process of arrangement, organizing, leading, and controlling oneself. It can be a kind of self-leadership where managements need to motivate themselves to achieve their goals (Stephen P & Phillip L, 2012). A study stated that workers practicing self-management should include safety as one of their values and goals. The result will impact workers’ decisions and behavior, motivating them, and controlling stress in creating a safe workplace (Cherniss & Goleman, 2003).
2.4 Emotional Intelligence as a tool to make safety workplace
Creating a safe work environment along with reducing risks leading to incidents, decreasing the number of days lost to injuries, and finally reducing or eliminating fatalities is important for both employees and industry. According to Geller (2001), safe behavior is typically supported by engineering a safer work environment, educating employees, and making opportunities for workers to be observed and receive beneficial feedback for improving safety. In order to eliminate conditions to incidents of injuries and accidents, it is vital to go beyond
previous and current initiatives and address the individual workers' attitudes as they relate to the working conditions, workers' safety, and the safety of others (Jeffries, 2011). Although workers' EQ can help predict susceptibility to unsafe behaviors, attitudes toward safety and safe behavior in the workplace can be more influenced through training to improve individual workers' Emotional Intelligence (Jeffries, 2011).
The attention on Emotional Intelligence has increased since the early 1990s among academicians and human resource specialists because of the statements that EI is a stronger interpreter of job performance than IQ (Goleman, 1995). In addition, Emotional Intelligence in the workplace is potentially helpful in reducing burnout for some individuals, especially in those professions that report frequent burnout (Gohm & Clore, 2002). The importance of Emotional Intelligence in safety management is considered to involve the ability to perceive, evaluate, and demonstrate emotion successfully in the workplace (Wiegand, 2007). The study states that Emotional Intelligence allows safety managers to identify their own emotions as well as understand the way the management process is being received by the participant and adjust their style.
Grandey (2000) believes that the stifling of emotions can motivate worker burnout and stress, which can provide unwelcome distractions and expend energy outside the vicinity of work. According to the Theory of Planned Behavior Ajzen (1985) is applied to show that ethical maturity and emotional talent can act as intrinsic drivers, positively influencing safety attitudes and behavior. It has been proven that training increasing ethical maturity has high-quality outcomes on the behavior of human beings in business presumably because of the effective effect on attitudes.
Wiegand (2007) mentions that the safety leader must be able to engage in proper emotional presentations such as the expression of confidence and trust for training to be valued by the participant. As argued by Van Rooy & Viswesvaran, 2004 that “Emotional Intelligence has also been shown to affect performance in organizational contexts and this is presumably because it has a positive impact on attitudes associated with the performance”(p,462). Emotional Intelligence has an effective impact on high-quality leadership, mastering in classes, and overall performance on the job. This has resulted in inactivity among human resource professionals who are using EI as a tool for personnel hiring and coaching (Fineman, 2004).
The safety leader’s qualities of being able to reach out, connect, encourage and engage with employees are as central to an organization as its standard of safety structure in place (Swuste and Arnoldy,2003). Given this research on the key role that Emotional Intelligence plays in safety leaders, it is expected that it will emerge as an important aspect of the current research. Positive consequences associated with Emotional Intelligence concluded that employees who scored greater on EI assessments would be much less likely to undertake poor coping strategies in response to stress-related to job insecurity. (Jordan, 2007).
3. Research Method
_____________________________________________________________________________________ This part represents the research method and the research approach of this study. Furthermore, it is presented how we have collected and analyzed the empirical data. Furthermore, research ethics and research quality are discussed.
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3.1 Importance of Research Design
Research is a coherent and methodical search for novel and valuable information on a specific subject. In today's life new problems, events, phenomena, and processes occur every day. Implementable solutions and suggestions are required; researchers have a universal understanding of the philosophical positions, assumptions, and concepts of the research design (Rajasekar, Philominathan & Chinnathambi,2013). The purpose of describing the research design is to describe the various components of the research project (Myers, 2013) On the other hand, the research design is done to develop the problem-solving skills, and to create tools and techniques for the practical studies (Horváth, 2007).
Furthermore, a research design is a written statement of data assembling method which refers to the process of gathering data and knowing what kind of information is needed as well as measuring information on variables. It describes the proper method of analyzing collected data and answers to stated research questions. It has a direct impact on the ultimate finding of the research study. Therefore, a researcher must design research to answer the problem chosen (Rajasekar, et al. 2013).
3.2 Research Design
The research design is a fundamental plan which refers to how the researchers support the development of a specific theoretical from a starting point to a goal to complete the objectives and provide the answer to the stated questions (Edmondson,2007). In order to find the answer and achieve the goal, researchers need to manage the selection and timing of the appropriate research design based on the research objects. In this study, by answering the two research questions collectively, the study is designed to the research design that has been applied is qualitative research. Using qualitative research design supplemented by providing a perfect
guideline for this research project can in principle be applied in implementation to what researchers tend to do, how, and why.
In this study chapter, one is presented with an overall view of the research background and the existing problem then was developed into two research questions. Chapter two is given about considered relevant literature to show why it is important to find the answers to the stated research questions. The current chapter describes the decisions and details about the research design and also defines the arguments why the chosen research philosophy and techniques are appropriate for this research project. The adopted research design is summarized in a flow-chart (Figure 3-1), representing the progress of this study. Looking at Figure 3-1 the flow of it is bottom-up and starts with the Research design that was made and discussed to explore how Emotional Intelligence can be used to manage Health, Safety, and Environment in the incidental workplace. Therefore, this study addresses the qualitative research design to observe the worker's feelings, reactions, and thoughts about the safety of the workplace. Then it is followed by the adopted data collection- and analysis strategies that are further discussed in 3.3 Research Technique.
3.3 Research Technique
3.3.1 Data Collection Method
For this study, there are two data collection methods used: primary data and secondary data.
Primary data
In qualitative research, the most common techniques to collect specific and relevant data is primary data. According to Malhotra, interviews, focus groups and observations are an integral part of the primary data. (Malhotra, 2012). To generate qualitative data in focus groups can be used as group dynamics whereas in the interview technique can be used to explore beliefs and views of the individual participants in terms of the research. based on experiences of individual participants can also be used to derive data for the research. In this study, interviews are used to gain a more in-depth understanding and views among individual participants.
Interviews
There are fundamentally three types of interview techniques and they are, structured, semi-structured, and unconstructed (Gill, Stewart, Treasure, Chadwick, 2008). In this study, a semi constructed interview technique is used for data collection. The main reason to choose this technique for an interview is the flexibility of the participants in answers. In semi-structured interviews, more open-ended questions emphasize more rich data for the study which is quietly useful to understand consumers' behavior. (king,2004). the participants that used to collect data were anonymous to decrease the risk of social desirability bias among the participants. decreases the risk of social desirability bias among the respondents (Malhotra, 2012).
Secondary data
This study includes data sources that can be collected by other researchers that are in the same field. for the main source for this study is Primo, the digital library database at Jönköping university that has a collection of over five million documents that consist of research studies, academic journals and other publications (Jönköping University library, 2020). Furthermore, google scholar has a collection of scholarly relevant literature across the world (Google scholar, n.d) so in this study google scholar used as a secondary source as well.
3.3.2 Choice of Participants
Qualitative research requires participants who can best inform about research questions and understanding of the research phenomenon. So, it is one of the most important phases for study design. The participants must be able to inform the important details and perspectives of research. For example, professionalism and perspective intervention, background, and experience level.
3.3.3 Interview Design
As research includes interviews, an interview contains a list of questions that want to cover during interviews to keep track and ensure that all topics need to answer research questions. Here are some points that involve interview design,
Identify which areas need to be explored to answer your question. One more thing added that interview questions are not the same as research questions but should help answer it.
Considered how much time can take with each interviewee and adjust the number of questions accordingly.
Avoided asking questions that can answer in a few words or can say closed-ended questions. This type of interview aims to gather a good amount of data for research.
Avoided compound questions. Asked one question at the time
Used particular professional language for a particular respondent
Allowed enough to deliberate on certain answers and examples. 3.4 Trustworthiness
There are risks when interdependent the words or meanings by the participants. there should be a balance between misconception and flexibility in the interpretations. For this study, researchers tried to achieve great trust among individual participants also keeping in mind that to get the maximum outcome from the answer for the research. researchers also asked for feedback if unknowingly not clear with the research questions.
3.4.1 Credibility
It's the part of the research study that confirms results with its intentions. There is much information that can be gathered by the observation so it's not only about collecting data by taking interviews. Furthermore, in order to ensure that experiences and realities have been gathered from different perspectives, we have included a wide range of companies and actors,
varying in size, scope, stage of development, and objectives. Researchers to use triangulation ways, that involves retrieving knowledge from many sources and employing a wide selection of informants (Guba, 1981).
3.4.2 Transferability
According to Denscombe (2014), findings of the research are not limited to some individuals and therefore can’t be transferred to different subjects although 37 unique contexts give broader ideas of findings. It's where that transferability should not be ignored. to ensure the transferability we included extensive information about our background and research purpose for the research study. further, we included all the necessary details about each participating volunteer as well as the length of the interviews. So, after that, we have got success taking interviews and data.
3.4.3 Dependability
Dependability is related to the act of confirming reliability in a qualitative study (Wahyuni, 2012). It includes all changes that can occur and their effects on research. To ensure dependability, we have enclosed an in-depth description of all the interviews that we have more established throughout our analysis.
3.4.4 Confirmability
confirmability refers to the extent to which an Associate in Nursing external person will ensure the findings of a study and guarantee sound judgment (Wahyuni, 2012). As antecedently mentioned, we tend to apply many triangulation strategies to cut back the potential for bias. Similar to overcoming problems with credibility, researchers might here conjointly apply triangulation ways to scale back the potential for investigator biases (Shenton, 2004).
3.5 Research Ethics
It is common to have ethical issues while conducting a research study. ethical issues are part of the research study; it can't be ignored (Easterby-Smith et al. 2013). There are several steps considered to protect research participants. All the participants who took part in the interview are informed about the research and the purpose of the study. Moreover, researchers also gave surety about the information provided by individual participants for the research, and it is only used for the research purpose. Primarily, while asking questions we made sure about the
questions that may be offensive for the participants. Then we also considered and respected participants' privacy and anonymity. Further, after taking the data, we also respected the confidentiality of the data by saving in cloud storage.
4. Results
_____________________________________________________________________________________ This section of the report will present the findings of the gathered empirical data, interviews, archival records, and blogs. First, the different HSE managers and workers in the different industries and countries are listed and presented in a table and briefly described related to their context within this research. Furthermore, the aim and purpose of the asked questions are given and repeated followed by the presentation of the interview results.
___________________________________________________________________ 4.1 Interviews and Findings
In this chapter, the outcomes will be presented in the same order according to the interview topic guide which was used for the semi-structured interview with all the research participants. In this study, 8 HSE managers and officers participated from different industries of the world in order to examine how employees' Emotional Intelligence factors impact on their health and safety performance. In this chapter, the outcomes of interviews are presented and they are grouped per question.
The summary of the interview that formed the foundation of the outcomes. In order to have the well-arranged outcomes and compact way, the coded method had been used for the name of interviews, shown in table 3. Furthermore, the coding method is used throughout this thesis to refer to the interviewed participants.
Table 4-1 Coding of the interviewed participants
Code Company name Location Position Industry
A Mapna Turbine Iran HSE
manager
Manufacturing
B SINOPEC Iran HSE
manager
Oil & Energy
C Anonymous Canada HSE officer Security & Investigations
D Anonymous Sweden HSE officer Manufacturing
E Anonymous Saudi Arabia HSE
manager
Oil & Energy
F Rah Shahr Group Iran HSE
manager
Consultancy & Construction
G Anonymous Sweden HSE
manager
Manufacturing
H Anonymous Sweden HSE officer Construction
4.1.1 Interview Questions
This section contains the results of the interviews which are presented by describing all questions. The first part of the questions was linked to how Emotional Intelligence can manage and prevent an emergency situation as well as help to understand and perceive risk in the workplace. The purpose of these questions was to understand the importance of Emotional Intelligence and Being aware of one’s own emotions in order to control and handle risky situations.
The next group of questions was formed to identify the relationship between HSE managers with other workers. These questions aimed to identify the roles of Emotional Intelligence in being able to recognize the emotions of other employees in order to be able to empathize with colleagues as well as deal with their emotions which is important to convince them to follow the safety roles and be regular at the workplace.
The third part of the question was asked to identify the importance of the ability to control the stress of emergencies. The ability to manage stress is an important indicator of Emotional Intelligence which can be effective health and safety in the workplace
The fourth part of the questions was related to investigating the perceived ability to make the correct decision as to the crucial part of Emotional Intelligence. In addition, it was focused on the identity of understanding other's inability to make correct decisions in times of accident situations.
As a final point of all interviews, it was asked to come up with any interesting points or suggestions that related the research in order to improve the level of interview and question as well as get more knowledge of the purpose of the research.
4.1.2 Overview of Answers for Questions
In this part, all questions and the answers from the interviewees will be presented from the different views of the interviewees. In some interviews, a question had not been asked and there was no direct answer for it because the answer to the question was already given during the interview.
Question 1) In your perspective, which emotions help to manage and prevent an emergency? How do your emotions help to understand and perceive risk in the workplace?
● Code A: In an emergency, it is important for me to keep calm and act according to HSE ERP (Emergency Response Plan). I always have tried to be confident about the knowledge and experience. Because in this case, being confident and keeping calm helps me to handle the situation, and also it is the best way for me to make other workers follow me to prevent the incident at work.
● Code B: Since I am a serious person, I am strong in face to face speaking in both situations. No matter if I am in emergency or prevention, I should be strong to motivate and participate in myself and others to get jobs done. It doesn't mean I become angry, it actually means without being angry I try to get tasks done or provide safety.
● Code C: The first thing that an HSE officer needs to shape the emotion and skills by following the EPR as Initial Response Guide. During the years I shaped my emotions and wanted to be able to understand the level of risk and how it is dangerous or not. So, it allows me to trust my ability and be able to respond correctly. This is exactly what reflected on the staff and they can trust you as well.
● Code D: I always stay calm and behave like a friend, in face to face speaking. From my experience perspective, knowledge and plan are required but not enough to control the situation. As far as I am concerned, in order to be successful in risk management in every situation, there is a need to act in time from your understanding of workers and their willingness. This is a parallel that can use your knowledge and other knowledge at the same time in a nice way.
● Code E: To perform safety, it is important to have control over your emotions and other’s emotions, I mean try to self-control and other-control are a really important factor. When I face an unplanned situation or hazard in a special area, it is normal to get stress and lose confidence but I try to not show these emotions to others and manage my emotions which have directly affected other’s emotions.
● Code F: I have been working for a long time and I found that what kinds of people then I focused on the starting side of my personality and feelings. My strengths are that I have a good perception of emergency and rely on my previous experience and knowledge. By that feeling, I am able to make a list of the risks and difficulties of the situation and be ready for every risk.
● Code G: From the point of my background and experience for handling risk, I passed the different courses to get the ability, first of all, to understand my feeling and also predict other reactions in case of managing their feeling and their association at risk.
● Code H: whenever I face this type situation, the first thing I always try to do is controlling my emotions because it is very necessary to be calm that time and then I look out the situation and try to understand to manage this type of situation and yes, HSE ERP helped to shape my emotions as well as my decisions in such situation.
Question 2) How do you show your emotions in an emergency situation? What's the first act that comes to mind in an accident at the workplace? please give an example
● Code A: I try to keep calm and call superior. The first act is to call CCR, Fifi, and Clinic and call the emergency on the radio. At the same time, I call my manager who has been trained several times. We had an oil leakage in the export pipeline and the observer called us. Then I acted as mentioned according to the ERP flow chart prepared by myself. ● Code B: Firstly, I have focused on managing employees and personnel. Managing personnel is an important act to control accidents in the industry because they should know what they are supposed to do or not. I have tried to make a strong relationship with my personnel this term, it would be easier to manage them.
● Code C: My first act is to make the best decisions and take corrective responses as soon as I can. As I mentioned earlier, I can recognize the level of risk and know how to face it so I try to respond correctly and my workers can trust my decision and help me to implicate my decisions in the best possible way.
● Code D: Effective HSE supervisors can influence safety actions and other behaviors in advance. Then my first act in the emergency is to organize my team and use our ability and Knowledge according to our training course and implement EPR as perfect as possible.
● Code E: To act safely, I have to control my emotions and other’s emotions as well, I should have self-control and other-control which are a really important factor when something unplanned happens. If an officer or supervisors can have self and other control they probably can control the situation and then they can refer the situation to HSE structure and follow better structure.
● Code F: The first section is devoted to the analysis of risk and response to its base on emergency response planes and represents the HSE Emergency Planning Unit in the hazard site. I have tried to coordinate HSE’s response to a civil incident event.
● Code G: I always try to control my emotions as a first act then I call the supervisor and other staff and listen to them. My priority is only to make good decisions to prevent risks and to build good relationships in person and try to implicate those decisions at the right time.
● Code H: I have to understand the motivation of our staff. Understanding their motivation helps me to make a better work environment for safety and also helps me to learn how I can use their language to build a social relationship.
Question 3) How is the relationship between you and your colleagues at the workplace? How do you try to empathize with your colleagues?
● Code A: My relationship with HSE department personnel is friendly and with other departments is formal. We have a training plan and training matrix conducted by me, Tool Box Meetings before starting the job, PTW system, site inspections, and audit system, etc.
● Code B: As I said before, I am a serious person, and strong in both conversation and practice positions. And also, I have been forcing myself and other people to motivate and participate in training courses and every safety task has to do without any problem. ● Code C: I behave in a friendly and polite way that requires performance for HSE
managers. I try to show care for my employees and workers. In my perspective, it would be nice if they know that they and their health are important for the company and department and we want to protect them from risk. They listen to us and do what we tell them.
● Code D: My social skills and relationship at the workplace or workshop have been helping me to get work done through other people. I have done work on my socially skilled for instance I try to have the meeting fun and also productive, involve them to identify our safety gaps, and implement solutions at the workplace
● Code E: Making co-workers and other people convenient to have safety attitudes is not an easy job, so being kind and friendly is not enough for the HSE department. Sometimes I need to act as seriously as possible. So, I try to understand when I should be nice to them and when I shouldn't be so nice to them and also show appreciation for their work ● Code F: I always make my relationship based on respect and support. I show respect
for everyone in my team and I expect respect from them as well. Treating respect provides good teamwork that people listen to together. I also try to be a supportive person and solve my team's problem.
● Code G: I believe to build good social relationships; we must have a good mutual understanding. I always show respect for their views and try to support them as much as possible. Working together with good understanding is the best thing I think we have. ● Code H: I have to understand the motivation of our staff. Understanding their
motivation helps me to make a better work environment for safety and also helps me to learn how I can use their language to build a social relationship.
Question 4) Which barriers/challenges have you faced while empathizing with your colleagues?
● Code A: Most of them are tired when they come to training classes, few are not interested in the subjects, hot weather especially when we emphasize wearing PPE, time-consuming for PTW taking process and few try to make shortcuts, etc.
● Code B: 80% of my colleagues would be willing to work without using personal protective equipment (PPE) at work.
● Code C: Most challenges we have faced are that workers become confused or they are uncertain over new roles which can lead to backlash and make implementing safety roles and safety systems hard.
● Code D: The attitude of my employees is the biggest barrier that has affected the success of a safety program. I mean sometimes the HSE team has faced a lack of trust and I focus on the past that can frame any change as a negative, so it’s important that we work together.
● Code E: The train system takes time for team members, it is hard to change old habits of people and adjust them. Additionally, it is frustrating to address different fears as my employees are learning and I have to make sure their responsibilities are evenly distributed.
● Code F: I have a daily problem with my employee engagement due to them wanting to use mobile phones and other mobile devices while they are working. The mobile devices might distract them at work.
● Code G: The obvious thing is that we have faced different perspectives or different views on a particular thing but I try to explain to them how to implement their safety roles and how to prevent such an accident in the future.
● Code H: One challenge for me is to identify the root cause of why risk or accident occurred and another challenge is that workers forget to use hearing protection or neck protection. They usually replace their equipment with health protection.
Question 5) How are you able to recognize and deal with the emotions of your colleagues at any given moment in time?
● Code A: The way they look at me and listening when I am talking.
● Code B: Everyone can feel emotions especially leaders or managers who work directly with people, I can feel both negative or positive emotions.
● Code C: I understand from their act and behavior if they accept my words I understand that they adapt themselves and their emotions according to my word and work requirement condition.
● Code D: I consider the way that my colleagues interact with me and others. To deal with their emotions I get help from them and involve them in making important decisions. ● Code E: Every respondent from my colleagues has meaning behind it, therefore, I am
able to find out what the response is meaning. Besides that, I mentioned that in terms of dealing with their emotions I respect them and support them in a difficult position. ● Code F: If my co-workers refuse me and are treated with an impolite way I would know
that I wasn't successful in my relationships, for dealing with them calmly leaves the situation.
● Code G: First, I try to notice and understand their views because everyone has their own emotions
● Code H: When the personnel's emotions start to appear, immediately I begin to notice what kind of feeling there is. As long as I know personnel wants to put themselves away from negative thinking and being positive is going to help me to deal with others.
Question 6) How do you deal with your colleague who does not accept your proposal? How do you respond when a co-worker challenges you? (For example, when they try to ignore protective regulations for machines or equipment)
● Code A: Normally they accept most of them. In rare situations, I try to stop them and make a report. In an emergency case, I let the worker continue his job then I make a report of that.
● Code B: I normally take a short break and also want to hear more from my colleague because I need to keep the focus on the person who’s rejected me. if they keep going to reject our team should decide on a specific way.
● Code C: I don’t add pressure for them and usually wait to explain their reasoning. And I try to open up a more productive conversation. In some cases, I need to make a formal complaint about my employees.
● Code D: Generally, I will ask for more information to see their side of thinking or, firstly HSE department has to explain the goals aren’t being met here, then we report it to HR management.
● Code E: I actually open the door for discussion and start to talk more with this kind of person. Eventually, I get to the real problem, and then I will maybe understand what my client feels and where we missed their feeling.
● Code F: I will surely stop doing this and no matter how fierce they oppose me I try to solve the problem otherwise it becomes a huge issue because it has connections to safety. If I cannot be suspenseful I have to talk with consultancy or stop working with them. ● Code G: Primarily, I try to discuss with co-workers a try to understand his/her problems.
I understand they must have some disagreement on some events or agreements so I try to resolve them.
● Code H: In most cases, job conditions and job satisfaction affect behavior and performance. For the first action, I discussed with my colleagues and found the root of the problem, sometimes I ask to change their job position or whatever is possible for them.
Question 7) How do you control stress in a pressure situation at work or accidental moment? example
● Code A: Working on a rotational basis in the desert makes too much pressure and stress. Recently I tried to control the stress by meditation but it still exists. Our rotation is 20 days’ work and 10 days’ rest. I try to go walking for one hour per day. I started reading a book about how to manage my stress. But it causes me to argue with colleagues sometimes.
● Code B: I decided to take my stress as an advantage. Stress becomes a good motivator for me. A healthy amount of pressure will be efficient and increase quality work along with will provide a picture of what my personnel needs.
● Code C: As an HSE manager, I have done many things in advance to prepare staff and services for control risk. Such as I always teach staff if they are 100% prepared it would be easy to handle the situation, I mean by practicing and being sure about yourself you can control everything especially your stress.
● Code D: I believe that stressful situations are part of our work but our team trained for stressful conditions and got help from this. So, it can bring our team together, and can see some of our best work come from pressure. To handle stress my team and I do some daily exercises.
● Code E: Planning is the best tool to control stress for me. The HSE department should provide detailed plans for every line and project. Beware of the risk for each part of the project helps me to get ahead of stressful conditions. So, planning is the best way to handle the pressure.
● Code F: One step to figuring out the stressful situation is to prioritize response at risk. In the second step I would recommend reading our guideline to claiming risk at work. The next step is sure all responses will be done in an efficient way.
● Code G: Being an HSE manager, this all situations are part of my work, the best thing I can prevent such accidents by planning correctly and implementing that on time. Execution is also an important part of my job. Try to overcome pressure so I can minimize the risks.
● Code H: Typically to tackle the pressure I need to discover when, where, and how often stress arises. I try to fix simpler, I call it more efficient workflows with less room for error. In this term, if something will be happening we all know what we should do, we don’t need to panic.
Question 8) How do you make decisions in times of emergencies or prevention of accidents in the workplace?
● Code A: All authorities have been identified for all types and levels of emergency situations based on the ERP. QHSE department is a part command system in an emergency. Normally we decide on different meetings with other authorities and record them.
● Code B: We have a Decision-Making Map, we all need to check the type of hazard or exposure and apply one of the following types of HS.
● Code C: Generally, I have made decisions according to HSE operational roles and have to be aware of the level of risk in advance in order to have an incident response plan. In an emergency or accidental situation, I have to make decisions as quickly as possible. The point that is noticed in making the decision.
● Code D: for making good decisions about the implantation of safety at the workplace I sometimes research more detailed information, advice, or consult with other staff. But if the decision making is related to a certain accident or problem.
● Code E: Risk management decisions are the most complex part for me. This subject includes different balancing issues for example civil liabilities, human rights, and costs of insuring activities. I need to recognize where the advice is given is relevant, or general advice is not relevant to the actual activity.
● Code F: Our HSE Assisted Decision Making Guidance and Documentation group has been working on updating guidelines and documents about Assisted Decision Making (ADM) to performance safety. So, I have to follow ADM to make better decisions in a healthy and safe way.
● Code G: In such situations, decisions play a vital role that can help to minimize risks and I am aware of the response plan that depends on the level of risk and I try to keep my plans updated in advance that helps to prevent incidents in future.
● Code H: If I have I will discuss it to act and make the decision. I normally record the meeting of discussion which can be accessible to all personnel. Then I try to follow up with them and later review all of them.
