What If Encouraging Emotional Intelligence Development in the Workplace Was a Better Way to Prevent Burnout and Job Dissatisfaction?

The modern workplace is not always a human-friendly place. Job dissatisfaction, uncertainty, and burnout are extremely high here in the United States. We’re no strangers to burnout ourselves. As former and current library team members, we’re very familiar with being asked to do all manner of “other duties as assigned” and taking on workloads that stretch our capacity with few supports or resources while living off of limited compensation. However, the recent dramatic spike in professional burnout indicates that here in the United States and elsewhere, adults are facing an epidemic of dissatisfaction with work. Which leaves us to wonder: What’s at the root of our frustration with work? And how do we help event hosts plan meaningful and results-driven professional development experiences in this kind of climate? One of the core answers to these questions surprised us with its simplicity…


Fighting the burnout epidemic is going to require a culture shift where progress is a secondary goal to supporting the full potential of each member of your team and building up your team’s emotional intelligence and resilience is the key to unlocking a supportive environment.


Before digging in, it’s important to mention that there are, of course, the usual struggles of providing a healthy work environment and cultivating compensation that keeps up with a comfortable cost of living for employees. Compensation and quality of life will always remain key factors when discussing job satisfaction. However, it’s also important to think about how your company’s priorities impact employees. In most workplaces, progress is the goal. Reach higher, do more, achieve better results… Centuries of centering capitalism as a society brought about a lot of progress, but at what cost? What have we set aside to arrange our lives around progress? When results are elevated over human well-being, is it really all that surprising to learn that burnout is rampant?


Workplaces that proactively support flexibility and mental health benefits in addition to providing clear, achievable goals are discovering a surprising benefit: Their teams are happier and less likely to slide into burnout or leave for another position. In fact, after compensation, flexibility and mental health support are key factors that employees look for in their roles. However, not all employees feel they can take full advantage of their mental health benefits and supports even when they have them, such as unused vacation time.


One way to support workplace boundary-setting and encourage everyone on your team to cultivate the resilience tools that prevent burnout is to proactively and consistently teach, share, and encourage the use of emotional intelligence skills.


According to Mental Health America, emotional intelligence is “the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you.” The five main elements of emotional intelligence include the following: 


  • Self-Awareness

  • Empathy

  • Motivation

  • Self-Regulation

  • Social Skills


Over the last couple of decades, our workplace culture has shifted so quickly that many employees, particularly those who are younger, have lost touch with how to healthfully implement emotional intelligence at work, and workplaces that do not prioritize emotional and mental wholeness quickly bear the costs of this lack of foresight. After all, supporting an employee through burnout or replacing a dissatisfied employee who leaves takes a lot more time, effort, and investment than dedicating a portion of your time to prioritizing emotional intelligence at work. 


Here are a few of our favorite ways to encourage healthy use of emotional intelligence in the workplace: 


Self-awareness: Regularly schedule, support, and reward self-reflection among your team members. This could include prioritizing journaling or meditation time or setting aside time to work through a book about communication styles or proactive listening strategies. Taking time to help your team learn how they can show up effectively for themselves and others will lay the foundation for a healthy workplace.


Empathy: One of the key elements of empathy is perspective-taking. Instead of suggesting ways to manage stress, try anonymously asking for suggestions of small changes you could make around the workplace that would help mitigate some stress. Maybe it’s mandating one “no meetings” day a month to allow for recalibration and catch-up. Maybe it’s an early out and covering the cost of their lunch of choice on one Friday a month. Maybe it’s asking each team to write down what they think the biggest challenge another department faces and encouraging your teams to share ideas of how to support their colleagues through it. If self-awareness is strategically looking inward, empathy is strategically looking outward.

Motivation: Most of work involves extrinsic motivation: You perform a task to earn a reward, often in the form of agreed-upon compensation. However, if you are able to encourage team members to tap into their intrinsic motivation– encouraging curiosity and self-direction–the team is more likely to be resilient and weather unexpected stresses. One way to do this is to regularly involve your entire workplace in part of the goal-setting process. Ask everyone to contribute ideas for annual goals and then have your workplace vote on one for the year. If your team feels like they are a part of the decision-making process, they are more likely to be intrinsically motivated at work. 


Self-regulation: At its core, self-regulation is the control and monitoring of one’s behavior. Most workplaces have processes in place to curb choices that lead to poor behavior. However, given that burnout is rampant and cutting into well-being and productivity, does your workplace have a structure in place to guide employees through healthy boundary setting? Encourage the separation of work and personal life with clear expectations while encouraging and respecting healthy boundaries. 


Social Skills: With the rise of technology, many folks struggle with the art of face-to-face communication. We’re getting much better at watching others do than doing ourselves. But even when guiding a remote workforce, it’s important to encourage communication and community building inside and outside of the workplace. Engaging with others who have shared interests, such as a hobby club, can be a powerful way to connect with people of different backgrounds. Consider implementing a wellness program that encourages (perhaps through financial compensation or a reallocation of work time) time away from other tasks to help team members develop or explore hobbies. Hobbies can sometimes cultivate joy outside of work while also enhancing communication skills as people compare notes on similar interests.


These are just a few of our favorite creative ideas of how to refocus your workplace to encourage the development of emotional intelligence skills! Although prioritizing emotional intelligence is not guaranteed to prevent burnout and job dissatisfaction, it is certainly a step in the right direction, as your colleagues will appreciate the time spent focusing on their success and well-being instead of the bottom line. And making your team feel valued is often a very strategic business decision, too. 


If this all feels a bit intimidating or overwhelming, we can assure you that lots of people think so too! Shifting a professional culture requires dedication, and sometimes you even need to kick-start things with an outside perspective to solidify the importance of what you’re trying to achieve. And an expert speaker is often a great way to do this!


Need suggestions about how to launch a workplace pivot prioritizing emotional intelligence? Check out these speakers/authors we recommend!



  • Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski are the bestselling authors of Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. They specialize in helping folks who are overwhelmed and exhausted in everything they do but still don’t feel like they’re doing “enough.” Be sure to check out their Feminist Survival Project podcast for laughs and practical advice. 


  • Omkari L. Williams is the coach you want on your side to help your workplace unite! Her book Micro Activism breaks down how even small commitments within your skill set make a difference, but she also specializes in realistic goal-making and community-building strategies. 


  • Are your colleagues having trouble letting go of their own debilitating expectations? Does your team need a session on proactive listening strategies? National bestselling author Jennifer Pastiloff is the queen of both! Check out her Substack Proof of Life for authentic human thoughts, humor, and freedom-giving encouragement to step into the proactive life instead of letting life passively happen to you.


  • Parents deal with more stressors than most. How are your parent and caregiver colleagues doing? Britt Hawthorne thrives off of providing parents and caregivers with practical, proactive strategies for raising children, and she has a soft spot for supporting professionals with cultivating intentional family life. 


  • Black women in leadership are one of the most vulnerable populations to burnout due to the additional stressors they face in our society today. Considering hosting a session about how to support and protect the mental health of women of color and others in your workplace with brilliant authors and speakers like Jamilah Pitts or Bridgett M. Davis.

  • Folks with disabilities who are not proactively supported are at great risk of burnout or having to leave the workplace. Ask an inclusion expert like Jezz Chung, author of This Way to Change, to present about intentional community building and how to make sure everyone can thrive.

  • Alisha Fernandez Miranda is an ex-CEO who brings practical strategies, humor, and heart to discussions about advocating for yourself and protecting your sanity in leadership. She’s also a fiction and nonfiction author!

Want help planning a kick-off event or workshop to shift your workplace culture? Get in touch with us!

Ayesha Pande