New data reveals ethnically diverse groups have higher emotional intelligence in the workplace

• Untapped AI finds ethnically diverse groups in work score higher in emotional intelligence than white counterparts, with ‘Black British’ scoring the highest
• Two-thirds of users on the AI-powered platform believe more emotional intelligence is needed in leadership roles

London, UK; 30th November 2021: Untapped AI, the company that combines transformational human relationships with the disruptive power of AI feedback, has found that ethnically diverse groups have the highest emotional intelligence (EQ) among colleagues.

The new research, revealed by Untapped AI’s platform, found diverse ethnic groups have a three per cent higher EQ than their white counterparts. Out of all the ethnicities recorded, ‘Black British’ scored the highest EQ on the platform, producing six per cent greater EQ than colleagues that are white.

In order to acquire the results and deal with the complexity of EQ, Untapped split EQ into ‘EQ self’, in relation to self, and ‘EQ other’, in relation to other people. This showed that women on the platform not only score eight to ten per cent higher overall, but they also score especially high in the EQ other category.

Alongside this, two thirds of the 10,000 users on the Untapped AI platform believe it is crucial for leaders in the pandemic and the hybrid working environment to expand their capacity for emotional intelligence.

Commenting on the findings, Kendal Parmar, co-founder and CEO of Untapped AI, said: “On average, Black employees on our platform have 6 per cent higher EQ than all other groups on our platform, and yet, black employees are sitting on an ‘untapped resource’ as they navigate systems in various environments at work.

“The sad reality is that instead of utilising their EQ in leadership roles black employees can often find themselves using their high EQ to ‘read the room’, avoid conflict, and diffuse microaggressions. This is neither inclusive, nor an effective way to approach diversity, and workplaces need to do more than introduce training programmes that do not open constructive conversations. Organisations that want to truly drive change will need to put inclusion at the heart of everything they do and harness the best in technology to identify where they can improve.”

Using AI feedback, Untapped AI works by combining the psychology of leadership with AI to create a personalised development programme that provides long-term insights and trends for businesses and employees.

The technology provides accurate, raw, unfiltered grassroots data for companies and helps employers and individuals identify problems before they become apparent. This way, organisational change can be driven from the bottom up using the Untapped AI platform to improve the environments they find themselves in at work using this ‘untapped resource’.