24 Synergy (July, 2010), Vol. VIII No. II Importance of Emotional Intelligence for Enhancing Employee’s Perception on Quality of Working Life Vanmathy Anbarasan 1 Mehta Nikhil K 2 Abstract The pressure for performance in the industries has certainly lead to emotional disturbances affecting the quality of working life of the employees. An emotionally intelligent employee can better contribute to the humanization of work atmosphere and democratization of work relations. The purpose of this study is to identify the intermediating variables that influence both emotional intelligence (EI) and quality of working life (QWL) for future research. Emotional intelligence is an individual parameter, whereas qual- ity of working life is an organizational parameter, therefore to understand the association between these two, it is essential to explore both the person and the environment together to explain the person-envi- ronment interaction. Our study intends to fulfill this gap, by hypothesizing that, employee’s perception on quality of working life, depends on his/her emotional intelligence. The inductive and deductive analysis of an exhaustive literature on emotional intelligence and quality of working life has revealed that irrespective of any reference/model considered for defining EI, it will have relevance for developing one’s perceived QWL. The study has also identified the contextual moderation of some of the behav- ioral and attitudinal dimensions like relationship management, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, affective commitment, stress management and performance, as interlinking variables be- tween EI and QWL. Therefore it is concluded that any HRD program intended for improving the em- ployees perception on quality of working life in the organizational setting should focus on their emo- tional intelligence training, for the appraisal of emotional connection to the content and context of their work. Key Words: Emotions, Emotional Intelligence, Quality of Working Life, HRD. 1. Introduction Understanding and dealing with human resources is a key function in any organization, despite of its technical expertise. But a longitudinal analysis of HR publications over the past 30 years (1976-2005) has reported a stable research gap in areas like motivation, employee/labor relations and human resource developments (Deadrick and Gibson, 2009). Therefore focus on these topics has become the need of the hour for both corporate and academicians for better human resource development. 1.1 Non-Economic Aspects of Working Life Today’s intellectual capital base, expects more than just pay from their work. Hawthorne studies (19th century) has already thrown light on this issue that, money is not the only motivator, there are number of other environmental factors that also play a significant role on employee’s performance. Moreover the evolution of dynamic work environment also demands equal importance for both technology and human needs, to sustain business growth. Here arises the need to emphasize on the non-economic aspects of working life, where the emotional aspects of employee should be taken care of, in addition to their 1 Vanmathy Anbarasan, Research Scholar, National Institute of Industrial Engineering, P.O. NITIE, , Vihar Lake, Mumbai 400087 (MS), vanmathy.anbu@gmail.com 2 Dr. Nikhil K. Mehta , Assistant Professor, National Institute of Industrial Engineering, P.O. NITIE, Vihar Lake, Mumbai 400087 (MS), nikhil2375@gmail.com