Effect of Emotional Intelligence on Employee Commitment in Savings and Credit Co-Operative Societies in Kenya

Abstract

Savings and credit co-operative societies (SACCOs) require committed employees if they are to reverse the poor performance trends that they have been experiencing. Employee commitment in the SACCOs cannot be left in anticipation that it will occur naturally, despite the employee’s natural desire to perform and be rewarded for it. This desire needs to be accommodated, facilitated and cultivated. SACCOs need to develop an ideal framework that can help improve their employees’ commitment and hence achieve their overall organizational goals. The general objective of this study was to establish the effect emotional intelligence on employee commitment in the Kenyan SACCOs. This was towards an effort to establish ways of improving the employee commitment and hence reverse the SACCO’s overall poor performance. The specific objectives of the study were to establish the effect of; self-awareness on employee commitment, self-management on employee commitment, social awareness on employee commitment and relationship management on employee commitment in the Kenyan SACCOs. The research adopted survey research design. The study focused on the 625 employees in the 51 deposits taking SACCOs operating within Nairobi and Kiambu counties. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 243 respondents. Survey questionnaires were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data which was analyzed using SPSS and by descriptive statistics were presented through percentages, means, standard deviations and frequencies. Correlation results of the study demonstrated a strong relationship between emotional intelligence and employee commitment. Regression results showed that social awareness has the highest contribution to employee commitment at 24.7% followed by relationship management at 18.4%, self-management at 10.3% while self-awareness was at 6.2%. However, analysis of perceived emotional intelligence showed that self awareness was the strongest driver of emotional intelligence. Overall, the results showed that emotional intelligence explained 29.4% positive variations on employee commitment. Further, the results showed higher impact of emotional intelligence on commitment in males compared to females. The study recommends that SACCOs should develop emotional intelligence competencies of their employees. Emphasize should be on social awareness and relationship management competence of emotional intelligence especially in males in order to enhance employee commitment. Lastly, the overall model showed that self-awareness and self-management are statistically insignificant when fitted in the overall model yet when they are fitted individually, they are significant therefore, further studies are recommended to establish moderating variables that can improve the overall model on employee commitment.