Emotional intelligence, occupational stress and employee performance among employees at Makerere University Medical School Mulago

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to establish the relationship between emotional intelligence, occupational stress and employee performance among employees at Makerere University Medical School Mulago. The study adopted a quantitative study design which was correlation in nature with a population of 35 employees. Simple random sampling technique was used to draw a sample of 32 respondents from the population. Data was collected from respondents using self-administered standard questionnaire and entered in the computer for analysis through Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software version 23. Descriptive statistics showed that 78.1% of the respondents were male and 21.9% were female, majority was between 20-30 and 31-40 years (37.5%). Results from Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r) further indicated that there was a significant negative relationship between emotional intelligence and occupational stress, (r= -. 475**, p=.006), as occupational stress and employee performance (r= -. 319**, p=.000), however, there was significant positive relationship between emotional intelligence and employee performance, (r= .633**, p=.000). Therefore, the present study provides a basis and implications for further investigation on the relationship between emotional intelligence, occupational stress and employee performance among employees in different institutions. It was recommended that the management of Makerere University Medical School Mulago to needs to ensure that employees’ emotional intelligence is enhanced in order to reduce on occupational stress of workers and improve employee performance.