Co-worker incivility and employee engagement among Ghanaian bank workers: does emotional intelligence matter?

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to ascertain the mechanism through which an employee engages at the workplace when faced with an uncivil act.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a cross-sectional survey design to sample 482 participants drawn from commercial banks operating in Ghana. The population of the study (employees working in banks in Ghana) was selected owing to the recent reforms in the sector coupled with the emerging fear of loss of jobs as a result of the corona virus pandemic and the potential impact on employee work attitudes. Participants were however selected conveniently and employees who were available and willing to participate given questionnaires to complete.FindingsCo-worker incivility significantly and negatively predicted employee engagement, while emotional intelligence (EI) predicted employee engagement positively. Furthermore, EI served as a mediator between co-worker incivility and engagement.Research limitations/implicationsDespite these encouraging findings, the mechanism underlying these effects could not be identified. Therefore, future studies can establish the underlying mechanisms of these effects by using qualitative studies or the mixed-method. Future studies can also explore other personal resources such as psychological capital or personality traits in mitigating the negative effects of workplace incivility.Practical implicationsGiven the fact that incivility has a significant negative influence on employees within the organisation, there is the need for government and policy makers to enact an inclusive policy that deals with employee mistreatments and most especially low key mistreatment. This could be done through the promulgation of a national policy on psychosocial risk management (PRIMA) as most of the uncivil acts in organisations present as psychosocial risk factors. Secondly, at the organisational level there is the need to consider EI of employees most especially when recruiting employees so as to avoid squared pegs being placed in round holes.Originality/valueThis research found out that for an employee to engage or not when faced with an uncivil act, one's EI has to play a role. The appraisal theory was used to provide a sufficient grounds in exploring the role of EI in the evaluations and determination of occurrences in organisations as intentional or unintentional, positive or negative and hence the resultant work outcomes.