Does the EPeDeP Trial Prove EQ Training Raises Productivity?

The trial supports a local result, not a portable EQ effect

EPeDeP offers a narrow result: a broad soft-skills course was followed by higher recorded efficiency at one textile factory in Prilep, North Macedonia. It is evidence about a program, an output measure and a particular production setting, not a test of emotional intelligence alone or other jobs. “Training worked” can mean participants received the program, factory records showed an efficiency change, or workers became more emotionally skilled. These questions are related, but one does not answer the others. The study *Soft Skills, Hard Results: The Productivity Impact of On-The-Job Soft Skills Training, with Focus on Women* reports a 1.13% efficiency difference during training and about 0.4% afterward, with records followed through February 2025. Its curriculum combined emotional intelligence with communication, stress and time management, teamwork and other skills. The result supports a claim about that package at that factory, not a portable EQ effect. A separate garment-factory trial makes a coordination pathway plausible where production depends on connected tasks. Meanwhile, *Training emotional competencies at the workplace: a systematic review and metaanalysis* examines changes in emotional-competency measures; those changes do not establish gains in output. Until comparable trials measure productivity in other kinds of work, citing EPeDeP as proof that EQ training raises productivity generally goes beyond its evidence.

Sources: Soft Skills, Hard Results: The Productivity Impact of On-The-Job Soft Skills Training, with Focus on Women; Training emotional competencies at the workplace: a systematic review and metaanalysis

What did EPeDeP randomize, and what did it count?

“Soft Skills, Hard Results: The Productivity Impact of On-The-Job Soft Skills Training, with Focus on Women” studied workers in the production sector of Comfy Angel, a textile factory in Prilep, North Macedonia. Selection happened in two random stages. First, the researchers selected three of the factory’s seven production units. Then they randomly selected workers within those units, stratifying by job position. The methods section says 54 workers were selected for the treatment group. The study’s design figure, however, labels 51 as included in the treatment group. Those counts refer to different points in the report and should not be collapsed into one unqualified sample size.

The other eligible workers formed two comparison groups. The primary control consisted of workers in the four production units that were not selected. The second, called the spillover control, consisted of eligible workers in the three selected units who were not chosen for training. Comparing participants with workers in untouched units estimates the difference associated with the offer of the program, while the second comparison helps examine whether nearby untrained coworkers might also be affected. The report found similar headline estimates using either comparison.

The intervention was EPeDeP, a 40-hour course delivered over 12 weeks, from September to December 2024. Its modules covered time and stress management, communication, task execution and teamwork, problem-solving and decision-making, and leadership and team building. The researchers therefore evaluated a broad package of workplace skills. They did not assign a narrowly defined emotional-intelligence course, and the reported result cannot identify which module, if any, changed efficiency. Calling the trial an EQ-training experiment would overstate what participants received and what the comparison can isolate.

“Efficiency” also had a particular factory meaning. Comfy Angel set a target quantity for each operation from its normed production time, the time assigned to completing a product or task. Daily production sheets recorded how many units workers produced relative to that target, expressed as a percentage. The researchers aggregated the records monthly and adjusted the measure for hours worked. It is an administrative output measure tied to this factory’s products, tasks, and production norms, rather than a general scale that can be carried unchanged into other jobs.

The report used company records from January 2024 through February 2025. It estimated that treated workers’ efficiency was 1.13% higher during the program than the pre-program comparison, and about 0.4% higher afterward. For the post-program estimate, the primary control comparison yielded 0.41%; the spillover-control comparison yielded 0.39%. The results section describes these as statistically significant. The course ended in December, while the later observation covered January and February 2025, so the smaller estimate is evidence of a short post-course difference, not evidence about persistence over years. The study also reports no statistically significant salary difference.

Random assignment makes these estimates more informative about this intervention than a correlation between training and output: the groups were formed by a planned selection process, and outcomes came from records rather than participants’ impressions. Yet the trial involved one employer, a small number of production units, a bundled program, and a brief follow-up. Its measure depends on local norms and work organization. The evidence supports a cautious causal statement about EPeDeP and recorded efficiency in this setting. It does not supply a typical effect size for workplaces generally, or show that an EQ course alone would raise productivity.

Sources: Soft Skills, Hard Results: The Productivity Impact of On-The-Job Soft Skills Training, with Focus on Women

Was EQ the ingredient that moved output?

The trial cannot identify EQ as the ingredient that moved output. EPeDeP was a 40-hour program delivered over 12 weeks at one North Macedonian textile factory. Its curriculum combined time and stress management, communication, execution with excellence, problem-solving and decision-making, leadership and team building, plus a final session. In “Soft Skills, Hard Results: The Productivity Impact of On-The-Job Soft Skills Training, with Focus on Women,” the authors describe a package of skills and activities, not a controlled comparison between emotional-intelligence training and other modules. The measured productivity result therefore belongs to the package as assigned. It cannot show which component mattered, whether components reinforced each other, or whether a change in work routines carried the effect. That distinction matters because “soft skills” is broader than EQ. Here, EQ training means instruction explicitly aimed at emotional skills, such as recognizing and managing emotion or responding constructively to another person. Communication, teamwork and stress management may involve those capacities, but they also draw on practice, task knowledge, planning and workplace rules. EPeDeP’s communication module, for example, included assertiveness and giving and receiving feedback; its execution module addressed motivation, workflow and task standards. Calling the whole intervention EQ training would turn an overlapping ingredient into the name of the entire recipe. The report offers plausible routes from training to factory efficiency. If a worker notices frustration before a handoff, a calmer exchange might help a colleague understand what is needed. Clear communication with a supervisor might bring attention to a machine problem or request for assistance sooner. Prioritizing tasks could also affect pace, while problem-solving might help workers respond to disruptions. These are reasonable interpretations of why such a bundle might matter in a production process where work passes between people and stations. The report explains these mechanisms as rationale; it does not isolate and measure them as mediators. The efficiency change cannot tell us which route, if any, produced it. The report’s own survey results also resist a tidy story in which every measured quality improved alongside output. It reports a decrease in participants’ self-rated “organized and responsible” measure, including an overall estimate of -0.271, while its administrative analysis reports an efficiency increase. That mismatch does not show that the training reduced responsibility or explain the productivity result. The authors offer possible interpretations involving autonomy and support, but those explanations remain hypotheses. The important point is narrower: the observed output measure and a self-report about organization are different outcomes, and they do not move in a uniformly positive direction. To identify EQ as the active ingredient, a study would need to vary or isolate the emotional-skills component while holding other training features sufficiently comparable, and then measure both relevant behavior and output. EPeDeP did not make that comparison. Its randomized assignment can support a claim about the full program in the studied factory; it cannot assign the reported efficiency difference to one module. Readers may regard emotional skills as one plausible contributor, especially where interactions shape the flow of work, but should not cite this trial as proof that an EQ course alone raises productivity or will reproduce the estimate in another job.

Sources: Soft Skills, Hard Results: The Productivity Impact of On-The-Job Soft Skills Training, with Focus on Women

Why does a second garment trial strengthen only part of the case?

A second randomized study makes the textile result harder to dismiss as an isolated accident. P.A.C.E. was evaluated in five garment factories in Bengaluru, India, among workers who had volunteered for the program lottery. The J-PAL evaluation record describes 112 production lines and reports that access to training increased measured productivity, task complexity and firm returns. Its evidence supports a second productivity result in garment production. It does not replicate EPeDeP’s intervention or establish an effect of emotional-intelligence training on its own. The comparison is useful because the two trials share a feature that could connect interpersonal skills to recorded output: production is coordinated across a line. In P.A.C.E., researchers assigned lines to program or comparison groups, then randomly selected participating workers within offered lines. This two-stage design also left untrained workers alongside trained coworkers, allowing the researchers to examine spillovers. J-PAL reports that those untrained coworkers became more productive and took on more complex garment operations than untrained workers on comparison lines. That finding makes a shared-workflow pathway plausible: information, timing or problem-solving by one worker may affect what the next worker can do. The trial measured those workplace outcomes; the pathway is an interpretation of why a spillover could occur, not a separately proven mediator. The program was broader than EQ. P.A.C.E. provided about 80 hours of workplace-based life-skills training, with modules in communication, time management, task execution, financial literacy and problem-solving. The journal-linked account “The skills to pay the bills: Returns to on-the-job soft skills training” describes approximately 2,700 female garment workers, productivity gains for trained workers and positive indirect effects on coworkers. It also reports that productivity was tracked during the program and for nine months afterward, with no sign of a decline before data collection ended. The J-PAL summary uses a different comparison framing and reports a larger estimate, nearly 11 percentage points relative to its comparison-group mean. Those figures should not be blended: they describe results as presented in different summaries, and neither turns this into an EQ-only trial. The studies also summarize outcomes differently, so a direct numerical comparison would imply more comparability than these accounts establish. EPeDeP differs in country, factory, curriculum, duration and assignment details. Its 40-hour program took place at one North Macedonian textile factory; P.A.C.E. ran in five Indian garment factories and lasted substantially longer. Both bundled emotional or interpersonal content with practical skills. The convergence therefore supports a narrower claim: in production settings where workers depend on shared flow, broad training packages can coincide with gains in measured output, including benefits that reach coworkers. It offers a credible reason to test communication and teamwork as contributors to production efficiency. That is meaningful evidence, but the boundary matters. Neither study compares an EQ-focused course with the same program minus EQ content. Nor does the garment evidence test whether a skill that improves line coordination changes output in independent knowledge work, care, or service roles, where outcomes may depend on different constraints and measures. The second trial strengthens confidence in the production-line case. It leaves the cross-industry productivity claim unanswered.

Sources: Improving Productivity through Soft Skills Training for Female Workers in Ready-Made Garment; The skills to pay the bills: Returns to on-the-job soft skills training

What travels across professions—and what has not been measured?

Workplace training can change measured emotional competencies across several professions. It does not show that training raises productivity across sectors. The distinction matters because an improved competency score and a change in work output are separate outcomes. The 2024 review, “Training emotional competencies at the workplace: a systematic review and metaanalysis,” directly examined the first question. Its authors combined 50 pre/post studies and a separate set of 27 controlled studies of employed adults. The pooled changes were moderate: standardized mean differences of 0.44 before versus after training and 0.46 between intervention and control groups. Effects also remained detectable in follow-up assessments more than three months after training. The review included teachers, health professionals, managers and other workers. It found no statistically significant difference in training effects among those profession groups or among programs focused on emotional intelligence, empathy and emotion regulation. It is not a demonstration that every occupation benefits equally: a failure to detect differences across broad categories is not proof of identical effects, and the authors report high heterogeneity among studies. They also judge the underlying methods to be weak overall and call for more high-quality randomized trials. The pooled estimates summarize changes in emotional-competency measures, not a common measure of productivity. That last distinction sets the boundary for the EPeDeP comparison. The review calls for more research on job performance and other workplace outcomes. A training program may improve how workers recognize emotion, regulate a response or understand another person, while its effect on output remains unknown. The link depends on what a role requires and whether those skills can alter the task. For one job, calmer disagreement might help a team resolve a handoff; elsewhere, output may depend more on equipment, case complexity or decisions outside the worker’s control. These are possible pathways, not effects established by the review. Competency measures cannot stand in for output data when the question is whether a program made work more productive. A second garment-sector study shows why those endpoints should stay separate. The accessible abstract for “The effects of game-based soft skills training: A quasi-experiment with Ethiopian garment workers” describes 501 workers in Ethiopia, two board games and reflection activities designed to connect soft skills with work situations. Pre- and post-training questionnaires indicated significant improvement in participants’ work-related soft skills. The abstract does not report an objective productivity result. This contextualized garment-sector training informs delivery, not output or transfer beyond manufacturing. Taken together, the cross-profession review supports a measured conclusion: emotional competencies appear trainable in workplace studies, with changes reported across varied professions, though the evidence is heterogeneous and methodologically limited. Whether those changes raise productivity is a separate empirical question. Readers can take skill development seriously without treating the broader trainability finding as a forecast of output gains in their own occupation.

Sources: Training emotional competencies at the workplace: a systematic review and metaanalysis; The effects of game-based soft skills training: A quasi-experiment with Ethiopian garment workers

Why can a skill change without a productivity gain?

A change in emotional skill affects output only when the job gives that skill a route to the measured task. This is an interpretation of the evidence, not a mechanism EPeDeP tested. The trial’s participants received a bundled soft-skills program, while the factory recorded efficiency. Those two observations do not show which skill changed, whether a change appeared in daily interactions, or how any interaction altered production. A person may learn to notice frustration, then use that awareness during a tense handoff by asking a clarifying question. If it prevents delay or rework, the effect might reach output. A machine breakdown, missing material or lack of authority could block the same route. These are possible links, not events documented in EPeDeP. Comfy Angel’s production design makes one route plausible: the study describes successive operations and transfers of semi-finished goods between operators. A clear handoff could affect the next operator’s work, but an efficiency measure cannot show that this happened. EPeDeP included communication and teamwork alongside time and stress management, task execution, problem-solving, decision-making and leadership. The authors discuss improved work processes, motivation and habits as possible explanations; they do not isolate a mediator. Their report also records a decline in survey measures of self-organization and responsibility. That mixed pattern leaves the behavioral route unresolved rather than identifying one skill as the cause. “The skills to pay the bills: Returns to on-the-job soft skills training” describes P.A.C.E., a randomized program in five Bengaluru garment factories covering communication, time management, task execution and problem-solving. Treated workers were about seven percentage points more productive on normalized garment operations and received more complex tasks; untrained coworkers on treated lines also showed positive spillovers. This supports a possible behavior-and-coordination pathway in garment production. It does not isolate EQ or establish that the route transfers to office, care or service work. “Training emotional competencies at the workplace: a systematic review and metaanalysis” adds evidence that measured competencies can improve across professions, but those pooled changes are not output gains. The review describes diverse interventions and outcomes, and calls for more research on job performance. A score showing improved emotional competency cannot substitute for observing workplace behavior, and neither observation alone establishes a productivity change. Jobs also differ in what counts as output: a line may count completed operations, while case work may require attention to quality and client needs. A productivity claim therefore needs evidence along the chain: a specified skill improves, people use it in actual work, the surrounding process can respond, and a job-relevant output changes. Training may also coincide with technical practice, attendance changes, task assignment, supervisor attention or workflow adjustments. EPeDeP’s bundled curriculum cannot separate those possibilities. This chain is an inference from the study designs, not a finding either trial reports. Until studies track the links across distinct job structures, an emotional skill can be worth developing even when no productivity gain has been shown.

Sources: Soft Skills, Hard Results: The Productivity Impact of On-The-Job Soft Skills Training, with Focus on Women; The skills to pay the bills: Returns to on-the-job soft skills training; Training emotional competencies at the workplace: a systematic review and metaanalysis

What evidence would justify a claim beyond textiles?

A claim beyond textiles needs evidence that follows training to work behavior to output in more than one kind of job. EPeDeP paired an assigned program with factory records; the workplace meta-analysis asks whether emotional competencies can change across professions. Neither completes that chain across sectors. A stronger test should target the missing links rather than repeat a broad course and ask participants whether it helped. First, researchers must name the skill the intervention intends to change. “Soft skills” can include communication, planning, teamwork, stress management and decision-making; EPeDeP combined these with emotional-intelligence content. A trial could specify one emotional skill, such as noticing when frustration shapes a response, and describe how participants practice it. A comparison group receiving equal time and attention without that component, or a design comparing course components, would help distinguish an EQ-focused contribution from planning instruction, manager attention or other parts of a bundle. Without that contrast, a productivity difference belongs to the program as offered, not to the EQ label alone. The outcome needs two levels. A participant may learn to pause before answering criticism, but a self-reported habit does not show that behavior changed at work or affected output. Researchers should measure the targeted behavior in relevant interactions and separately define the job result. In a factory this might be recorded efficiency tied to a production norm; elsewhere it might be an appropriate measure of completed work, quality, service or timeliness. The goal is not one productivity scale for unlike jobs. It is to specify what improved work means in each setting and not substitute an emotional-competency questionnaire for that result. Random assignment can support a causal conclusion about a program offered to the studied group, if the comparison remains credible. It does not make the effect portable by itself. Recruit several employers and occupations, then repeat the intervention under different work arrangements. Where employees depend on coworkers, assigning whole teams or work units may limit contamination: trained and untrained people can share routines, blurring an individual comparison. Group assignment makes spillovers part of the question, so researchers should track whether untrained colleagues are affected and report those outcomes too. Replication across sites can show whether a result depends on one manager, one employer’s system or a feature shared by the occupation. Studies should record conditions that can interrupt the path from skill to result. Staffing, workload, equipment, authority and management practice affect whether clearer communication changes what happens next. EPeDeP tracked administrative outcomes through February 2025 and found no statistically significant salary effect. Longer follow-up, with wages and other worker outcomes reported alongside employer measures, would show whether an output change persists and how benefits are distributed. It would distinguish a brief shift during training from a durable work change. The “Training emotional competencies at the workplace” meta-analysis offers a reason to test transfer: it pooled 50 pre-post studies and a separate 27-study controlled analysis, reporting changes in measured competencies across professions. Those outcomes were competencies, not productivity, and the review notes substantial variation and methodological weaknesses. A cross-sector productivity claim needs studies measuring both behavior and job output in each occupation, without assuming pooled skill effects supply the missing output evidence. A fair standard is demanding but clear: identify the emotional skill, isolate its contribution where feasible, observe whether it changes behavior at work, measure a job-relevant result, account for spillovers and working conditions, and replicate across employers and occupations with follow-up after training. Randomization can show whether a particular program changed a measured result in one setting. Replication and mechanism measures support a claim that the result travels. Until then, the evidence suggests a plausible route from emotional skills to coordination and a narrow productivity signal in textile production. It does not establish a general EQ-productivity law. A transfer claim needs that pattern across distinct workplaces and beyond the initial course period.

Sources: Soft Skills, Hard Results: The Productivity Impact of On-The-Job Soft Skills Training, with Focus on Women; Training emotional competencies at the workplace: a systematic review and metaanalysis

What can an individual take from the evidence?

The trials give a reason to practice emotional skills, not a forecast of personal productivity. EPeDeP tested a bundled course in one textile factory; it did not test whether a particular employee would produce more after an EQ assessment or a single habit change. For an individual, a useful next step is smaller and observable: in a feedback conversation, ask for one specific example before deciding how to respond. Then notice what happens in that exchange. Did the example clarify the request?

The private 32-item Emotional Skills Profile offers another way to choose a reflection point. Its questions cover recent response habits and judgments about authored scenarios, kept as separate parts of the report. The assessment page presents it as an educational tool for self-reflection and development. It was not used in EPeDeP, and its results do not predict productivity or provide a standardized ability score. A profile can help you name a behavior to examine; the conversation itself supplies the evidence about whether that behavior is useful in your setting. If that kind of structured reflection would help, explore the [Emotional Skills Profile](https://eqtest.org/assessment) and choose one practice question to carry into a real interaction.

Sources: Emotional Skills Profile

Questions readers ask