would expect a high performing candidate to sit, as appropriate to the role that we are recruiting for. This means that when we receive the report containing each candidates’ results, we can also easily see for each behavioural trait, how near or far they are from our benchmark position.
What effects has employing emotional intelligent employees had on your students City University London?
Our students really appreciate the very genuine, caring and friendly service that they receive from our front-line staff and this is evidenced by the type of language they use when nominating staff for WOW! Awards, which they regularly do. Here are some examples taken from WOW! nominations which have been made for front-line staff:-
“… she made me feel welcome and showed her professionalism while dealing with my issue”
“… he is a very good listener, he understood me and did his best to solve my problem. He guided me very well and was constantly mailing me to make sure everything was ok and made me feel that I am not alone”
“… she kindly and patiently helped me for the 3rd time with my career and development loan! She was very sympathetic”
Like any organisation which cares about its service provision, we collect feedback from our customers on a regular basis. The feedback that we get from students is extremely good, with satisfaction levels consistently hitting the 85-90% mark. We know from what our students tell us that they really appreciate the service that they receive from our Student Centre team – so much so that they feel the Student Centre is “on their side” and is a place they can go to which is focussed on them and their needs. This very positive response is largely due to the way in which students are treated by the staff who work in the Student Centre and this in turn is because we’re employing staff in front line roles who have good EI capability.
When employing individuals with your chosen emotional intelligence characteristics, what is your experience of the impact this tends to have on the way that the team works together?
The behavioural characteristics that the CSP tool measures have also proved to be very important to the successful working of our team. For instance, if one individual is having personal problems which may prohibit them from carrying out their full share of the workload, the rest of the team are very empathetic and are flexible with regards to taking on extra work when necessary. Generally speaking, people with high EI capability are less change averse and are more adaptable, which from our experience means that our team has the agility to respond effectively to changing situations and unusual circumstances without getting stressed, defensive or being obstructive.
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