Indian Railways Want Emotionally Balanced Employees; Start Emotional Intelligence Test For These Posts

The Indian Railways will start adding mandatory ‘emotional intelligence’ (EQ) tests for officers applying for the top 36 posts such as chairman or general manager.

Only for the top brass 

The 15-20 minute online EQ test will be used to determine personality and role fitness of the candidate.

This is the first time such an online test will be conducted as part of the process to fill up around a dozen vacant posts for the position of GM.

Indian Railways employs over 1.2 million people, but this test has been made mandatory only for its 36 top managers so far.

How it’ll be used

The test scores will be used to assess whether the applicant is fit for operations or administrative jobs.

For example, the role of GM pertains to fieldwork whereas an equivalent post of director-general of the National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR) is an administrative or desk job.

In a board decision in May, the national carrier merged seven secretary-level positions, including railway board chairman and members as well as 29 positions, mainly GMs.

New entity, new norms

The merged entity is now the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) at the top of the railway hierarchy.

The IRMS was formed in line with the cabinet decision taken in December 2019.

It said that this was done in order to “remove departmentalism” amongst railway officers.

The resolution mentioned a “psychometric assessment” to judge the psychological profile of the applicants in addition to appraisal reports and feedback from coworkers.

The new norms are part of the railway ministry’s attempt to revamp its bureaucracy and management.

Five levels of assessment

The psychometric assessment of officers will be done using standard tools.

There will be five scales.

The first scale’s parameters are self-perception of one’s strength, weakness, development needs, life goals, self-confidence and ambitions.

The second parameter of self-expression will include assertiveness and independence of thinking.

The third scale will be interpersonal qualities.

The fourth will be on decision making.

The fifth and final scale will be stress management of the applicant.