EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AT CALL CO. PHILIP HANCOCK AND MELISSA TYLER
Daljeet is a section manager at Call Co. He is responsible for managing 34 staff, who between them, work across three shifts covering a 24-hour period, seven days a week. Daljeet’s team is employed in the home insurance section of an offshore call centre that handles customer service enquiries on behalf of a US-based bank. They are well-educated and IT-literate, but many are aware that their salaries are considerably lower than their US-based counterparts. Daljeet’s managers are concerned because of high levels of voluntary staff turnover in his section. Staff exit interviews have suggested that the use of scripts and anglicised names make them feel ‘fake’, and that dealing with difficult, abusive, angry and cynical customers is a particularly demanding aspect of the job. Combined with the stresses associated with undertaking shift work in a high-volume call centre, the emotional burnout experienced by staff is causing them to seek employment elsewhere.

One of the main problems seems to be that many staff members within his team do not feel that Daljeet really understands the emotional demands of their work, or that he listens to them. Few report being encouraged to seek promotion or to consider staff development opportunities. Daljeet and his line manager have reached the conclusion that while Daljeet is coping well with the logistical and technical aspects of his role, he would benefit from developing his skills in managing people. The HR Director has identified a training consultancy that runs courses on recognising and nurturing emotional intelligence and has asked Daljeet to outline his staff development needs, and to explain how developing his own emotional intelligence might help him to manage staff more effectively.
Questions
1 Clarify what the term ‘emotional intelligence’ means, and outline the kind of skills and abilities that Daljeet might improve as a result of developing his emotional intelligence.
2 What might be the main benefits of providing Daljeet with an opportunity to develop his emotional intelligence – for him, for the call centre, and for the call handlers he is responsible for line managing?
3 With reference to this particular example, what criticisms might be made of the concept of ‘emotional intelligence’, and of the deployment of emotional intelligence as a way of addressing the problems outlined in this case?