Originally published here.

Person with disabilities (PWD) have to face many worries and issues at the workplace.  There are many researches that provides confirmation on some of the problems on integrating PWD in the workplace such as  prejudice that results from  stereotyping (Piggott, Sapey &  Wilenius, 2005), problems with the building structure and environment (Newton, Ormerod & Thomas, 2007; Kim, 2017), communication barriers (Zahari, Yusoff, Jamaluddin, Radzi, & Othman, 2010) and lack of support (Wilson-Kovacs, Ryan, Haslam & Rabinovich, 2008).  Hence, the Disability Act 2008 was enacted  to  address  the rights  of PWD  in Malaysia.  

On  the other  hand, the  Welfare  Service Department is in charge of the welfare of this group while the Labour Department is responsible towards addressing and remedying the employment matters among them.              Despite the efforts done to help the disabled in the workplace, the turnover among them is high (Welfare Service Department, 2012).  Scholars have investigated ways on how to increase the  employment  duration  among  the  disabled  (Buciuniene  &  Kazlauzkaite,  2010;  Love, Traustadottir & Rice, 2018; Piggott et al., 2005; Ta & Leng, 2013).  However, there is a  lack  of studies focusing on the role of emotional intelligence in ensuring that PWD may stay longer with their job. 

It is believed that emotional intelligence has a pervasive influence on job performance in  diverse  career  setting  as  it  comprises  the  factors  of  consideration  in  a  relationship.  Furthermore, Carmeli and Josman (2006) and Wong and Law (2002) have put of some evidence that emotional intelligence has an influence on employee attitudes in the workplace.  Therefore, it is believed that emotional intelligence will help disabled employees in handling such feelings without having it swamp their mind.  

This  paper  will  focus  on  the  role  of  emotional  intelligence  to  ensure  that  disabled employees will be more embeded in their job.  Thus, the purpose of this study is to address this gap in  literature by proposing  a Disabled or  PWD Job Embeddedness Model.   The theoretical perspective  employed  is  based  on  the  Conservation  of Resources  Theory  (Hobfoll,  1989)  to explain how PWD employee’s emotional intelligence influences his or her job embeddedness.

This study suggests a conceptual model that will serve as a basis for developing practical human resource  tools  for  evaluating  the  possibility  of  improving hiring  and  retention of  PWD  in  an organization.    This  model  provides a  framework  for understanding  on  how  employees  with disability apply their emotional intelligence and how this involvement might stimulate their job embeddedness.   Furthermore,  this study  provides practical  application for  the PWD  and the organization’s decision makers. 

More specifically, the finding of this study provides insight into how PWD should apply their emotional intelligence to help them stay longer on their job.  Clearly, they can benefit from attempting to improve their feeling and  emotion in their daily life.  It is argued that emotionally intelligent disabled people can promote a high level of engagement in their job.   Thus, managers should  interact  closely with their disabled  employees to form high quality relationships with them as well as to ensure that they feel appreciated and perform on a high level of commitment.    Existing literature on disabled employment (e.g., Buciuniene & Kazlauskaite, 2010; Dibben, James & Cunningham, 2001; Newton et al., 2007; Vila, Pallisera & Fullana, 2007) offers a convincing case that few changes can be done in the employing of PWD which would help them to stay longer in a workplace.  While recent studies give  concentration on  the same  unsolved barrier issues on

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 9 , No. 11, November, 2019, E-ISSN:  2222-6990 © 2019 HRMARS  1556   PWD (e.g., Schur, Kruse, Blasi, & Blanck, 2009; Shier, Graham & Jones, 2009; Zahari et.al, 2010), a  systematic analysis  based on  the PWD  inner  reaction is  still limited.   Therefore,  this study provides a theoretical basis for understanding PWD emotion in the context of remaining with the same job and the same employer longer.  It  is  also  important  for  the  employers  to  understand  that  employees  with  disability’s  job embeddedness might be related to their emotional intelligence. 

The relationship of this concept suggests that the inner strength of these employees with disabilities shows their willingness and enthusiasm to be like other nondisabled people.  This is based on the assumption that emotional intelligence  may  help  them  display  remarkable  empathy  in their  feelings  and  changes  their approach towards  their colleagues  accordingly  (Nguyen, White,  Hall, Bell  &  Ballentine, 2019).  Disabled  employees  also  should  be  given  more  opportunities  to  show  their  real  talent  and succeed in their jobs.  On the other hand, employers must fulfill their responsibility to improve the working environment (Ma et al., 2018) to be more disabled socially friendly to the disabled as theorized in COR Theory.   In a nutshell, this model contributes to the way we understand how emotional intelligence plays an important role in influencing PWD to stay longer in their job. 

You can read the complete article here.