The Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Work-Life Balance and Employee Behavior: A Case Study of Production Employees at Selected manufacturing company in Colombo District

The purpose of this study was to identify the impact of Emotional Intelligence on Work-Life Balance and Employee Behavior of Production Employees at Selected manufacturing company in Colombo District. A standardized questionnaire was employed to gather primary data from a sample of 248 production employees, utilizing convenience sampling for the selection of participants. Correlation analysis and simple regression analysis were used to measure relationships and to test the advanced hypotheses of the study by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 26). Furthermore, employee behavior suggests a mediating and moderating relationship between EI and work-life balance. As a moderator, employee behavior can influence the strength or direction of the relationship between emotional intelligence and work-life balance. As a mediator Employee behavior can help explain the relationship between emotional intelligence and work-life balance, providing insight into how certain factors influence employee actions. Thus, the paper presents a mediation model that depicts the relationships of these variables. It builds an integrated model that will help theorists and researchers expand the literature on work-related well-being and assist organizations in designing their HR policies and practices. The results indicate that emotional intelligence has significant direct effects on employee work- life balance. While there is an insignificant impact of employee behavior as a mediator on the relationship between emotional intelligence and work-life balance. Management can take necessary actions to enhance the EI of their employees so that it will help them to have a proper work-life balance. Management needs to focus on the level of EI of their employees to enrich work-life balance to achieve higher level of productivity, commitment, and involvement.