Guidelines for Best Practice in Behavioral-Skills Training

The following guidelines represent the best current knowledge about how to promote emotional intelligence in the workplace. They were developed for the Consortium on Emotional Intelligence at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. The guidelines apply to any development effort in which social and emotional learning—and behavior change—is a goal. The guidelines are divided into four phases that correspond to the four phases of the development process: preparation, training, transfer and maintenance, and evaluation.

1. Assess the organization’s needs: Determine the competencies that are most critical for effective job performance in a particular type of job.
2. Assess the individual: This assessment should be based on the key competencies needed for a particular job, and the data should come from multiple ratings from sources such as 360-degree assessments that include boss, peer and subordinate ratings.
3. Maximize learner choice: People are more motivated to change when they freely choose to do so. Allow people to decide whether or not they’ll participate in the development process, and have them set the change goals themselves.
4. Encourage people to participate: People will be more likely to participate in development efforts if they perceive them to be worthwhile and effective.
5. Link learning goals to personal values: People are most motivated to pursue change that fits with their values and their hopes.
6. Adjust expectations: Build positive expectations by showing learners that social and emotional competence can be improved and that such improvement will lead to valued outcomes. Also, make sure that the learners have a realistic expectation of what the training process will involve.
7. Gauge readiness: Assess whether the individual is ready for training. If the person isn’t ready because of insufficient motivation or other reasons, make readiness the focus of intervention efforts.

8. Foster a positive relationship between the trainers and learners: Trainers who are warm, genuine, and empathic are best able to engage the learners in the change process.
9. Make change self-directed: Learning is more effective when people direct their own learning program, tailoring it to their unique needs and circumstances.
10. Set clear goals: Be clear about what the competence is, how to acquire it, and how to show it on the job.
11. Break goals into steps: Change is more likely to occur if the change process is divided into manageable steps.
12. Provide opportunities to practice: Lasting change requires sustained practice on the job and elsewhere in life.
13. Give performance feedback: Ongoing feedback encourages people and directs change.
14. Build in support: Change is facilitated through ongoing support of others who are going through similar changes (such as a support group). Coaches and mentors also can be valuable in helping support the desired change.
15. Enhance insight: Self-awareness is the cornerstone of emotional and social competence. Help learners acquire greater understanding about how their thoughts, feelings, and behavior affect themselves and others.
16. Prevent relapse: Use relapse prevention, which helps people use lapses and mistakes as lessons to prepare themselves for further efforts.

17. Encourage use of skills on the job: Supervisors, peers, and subordinates should reinforce and reward learners for using their new skills on the job. Change also is more likely to endure when high-status persons model it.
18. Develop an organizational culture that supports learning: Change will be more enduring if the organization’s culture and tone support the change and offer a safe atmosphere for experimentation.

19. Evaluate: Find unobtrusive measures of the competence or skill as shown on the job, before and after training, and also at least two months later. One-year follow-ups also are desirable. In addition to charting progress on the acquisition of competencies, assess the impact on important job-related outcomes and indicators of adjustment such as absenteeism, grievances, health status, etc.