Emotional intelligence on job performance: A study on Malaysian employees

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the emotional intelligence of employees through the negative effects on their mental health, and led to poor workplace performance.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this research is to examine the level of EI of Malaysian employees in various sectors affecting their job performance through the mediating influence of psychological capital by using the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Test (SSEIT), 24-item Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ-24) and Role-Based Performance Scale (RBPS) theories.

METHOD: A quantitative study was conducted. 350 sets of questionnaires were given out to Malaysian employees, of which 311 were returned. Data were analysed through regression analysis.

RESULTS: The results showed that all emotional intelligence subscales, except for utilising emotions, have a significant relationship with job performance through the effect of psychological capital.

CONCLUSION: This study offers valuable and insightful implications by combining the SSEIT, PCQ-24, and RBPS models to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence on job performance in Malaysia, which is an unusual combination model to analyse employees' job performance. It helps Malaysian companies, managers, employers, and other related parties to recognise the processes and elements that influence employees' work performance. This research also successfully developed an extended SSEIT model together with PCQ-24 and RBPS and verified their applicability on workplace performance.