Role of emotional intelligence in moderating the relation between job insecurity, turnover intention, and work engagement

JOB Insecurity is emerging as a growing threat to the careers of aspiring, meritorious, and hard working employees in our country due to various reasons such as high demand of jobs, and government's inability to meet such high demand in a short period of time. This results in hiring of employees on temporary/contractual basis. This situation is especially bad among the teachers belonging to various government schools and colleges in Delhi. This research investigated emotional responses of Job Insecurity in terms of Turnover Intentions and lesser Work Engagement. Moderating role of Emotional Intelligence for the proposed relations was also investigated.

A sample of 110 temporary/contractual/ad-hoc teachers belonging to MCD schools and several colleges from University of Delhi was used for this study. ‘Partial Least Square’ technique of ‘Structural Equation Modeling’ was applied using ‘SmartPLS 2.0.M3’ to understand the proposed relationships.

Results show that a feeling of Job Insecurity is responsible for both the Turnover Intention and lesser Work Engagement towards the employing organization. Emotional Intelligence was found to be a significant moderator for this relation, with employees high on emotional intelligence found to be more capable of handling their emotional responses.

The accuracy of the analysis is dependent upon the accuracy of the data reported by the respondents.

The study has implications for the management and the employees who need coping from the stress related to workplace or job. Such organizations may choose to initiate employee assistance programs, which are known to be effective in dealing with employee stress and negative emotions. Such programs deal with a broad range of issues of the employees ranging from job stress to giving counseling on personal and financial problems, hence, ameliorating holistic well being of the employees.

Job Insecurity was measured using the item suggested by De Witte (1996). It was measured on a 5-point scale ranging from 1(highly likely) to 5 (highly unlikely). Emotional Intelligence was measured using 2 items adapted from Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) (Petrides, 2009) ranging from 1(completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree).‘Turnover Intention’ was measured using 2-items adapted from scale by Walsh, Ashford, & Hill (1985) measured on 5-points ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. Work Engagement was measured using 2-items adapted from the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale by Schaufeli, & Bakker (2003) measured on 5-points ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”.