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Emotional Intelligence Can Protect Your Workforce And Grow Your Organization

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Emotional intelligence informed the decisions that have allowed Paul Scharfman to grow his business over 20 years, even in a rural area with declining population.

Emotional intelligence. Self-awareness. Mindfulness. These are all buzzwords common in today’s thought leadership on management. By now, many agree that understanding our emotions, and the emotions of others, is important at work.

But just as many leaders and managers struggle to strike a balance between considering people’s feelings and doing what’s best for the organization. Paul Scharfman is striving to eliminate that struggle for managers at the Specialty Cheese Company.

“When we teach supervisors, we say, ‘The first thing you’ve got to do is get to the point where you want to forgive the other person. You wish him well,’” Scharfman explained. “There may well be some tough road hurdles to overcome. But we tell supervisors that, whatever they’re about to say to a subordinate, they’re not doing it to appease their own anger.”

This approach reveals Scharfman’s deep understanding of how self-awareness and emotional intelligence are linked: when you understand your own emotions, you become less reactive. And being less reactive allows you to more acutely tune in to the wants, needs, and motivations of other people.

It’s crucial for Scharfman to have that level of understanding with his employees. Without it, business growth would be nearly impossible.

“Over the years, our company has been very fortunate. Every five years the company has doubled. We have an increased number of jobs available, but we're in an area with a decreasing population. So, the question becomes, how do you get workers?”

Scharfman’s answer to that question was the Rural Revitalization Fund, an effort to attract new employees, retain existing ones, and reduce the issues faced by a rural workforce with limited transportation options.

“Rural workforce is considered non-existent, but that's false,” Scharfman said. “The unemployment rate is low, but the employment rate is also low, which indicates there are a lot of people who have given up work. They're trapped at home.”

Scharfman pays an average of $13 per employee as part of a rideshare program to secure them a ride to and from work each day. The benefits were impossible to overlook.

“Absenteeism is trivial. No-call, no-shows are almost eliminated,” Scharfman said. “And I don't want to say we have an unlimited number of people, but in our county, there is essentially one car per household. When one parent leaves for work, the other is trapped at home. If we go and pick them up, we have a lot more people who are willing to work for us.”

Solutions based in empathy are the hallmark of Scharfman’s leadership. He strongly believes in second, third, even fourth chances. Again, none of this is at the cost of his business. It’s another part of maintaining a robust rural workforce.

“If you run a business in rural America and you say, ‘This is the time you have to be here. You have three strikes, then you're out.’ Pretty quickly, you're not going to have a workforce anymore,” he explained. “In rural America, if mom has a childcare issue, she doesn't have a lot of alternatives. If there's a car screw up, or whatever it may be. You need to have a workforce development strategy that recognizes your people are people. You have to flex to their needs.”

Flexing to the needs of employees doesn’t mean bending to their every whim. But it does require managers to spend more of their time and energy finding solutions with direct reports. The benefit of that investment in time and energy is longer-term relationships with employees.

“We're expanding our factory right now. The walls that we put up have a shelf life of 50 years. I need workers. We best treat our people pretty well, or we’re going to have an empty building in the future.”

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