The world is constantly undergoing change and, as a result, many employees are faced with several challenges, including diminished job security, reduced employment, evolving technology and pandemics (Ineson, Benke, & Laszlo, 2013). As evidenced in research, the psychological contract of predictability, stability and permanence has evolved into a contract that defines casual, flexible and continuous changes, the value of skills and competence and temporary work (Ferreira, 2012; Maree, 2013; Tolentino et al., 2014; Zacher, Ambiel, & Noronha, 2015).

Both globalisation and demographic change are becoming more diverse in organisations and, thus, it is imperative that employees are skilled to ensure they possess the knowledge required to enable them to contribute to an organisation’s overall performance. Career adaptability is defined by Savickas (1997) as an individual having the readiness to cope with the predicable task of preparing for the adjustments, which are occasioned by changing work environments. Savickas and Porfeli (2012) have also linked career adaptability to professional duties, traumas, transitions and events with the majority of employees having to develop the strategies that are needed in order to cope and adapt. There are four global dimensions of career adaptability, namely (1) career concern, (2) career control, (3) career curiosity and (4) career confidence. These dimensions that are coined as adaptive readiness behaviour through the sub-dimensions of career concern, points to the plan fullness in relation to future careers, career control are feelings of self-determination, career curiosity, which amount to a degree of self-knowledge and career confidence, a significance of self-efficacy to deal with challenges and barriers (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012).

The working environment is characterised by unpredictable and uncertain careers. The human capital performance in the Water and Sanitation Department is a determining factor in the department’s overall success during challenging economic times. It is incumbent on employees to adjust and cope with the ongoing changes taking place in the department. In the Water and Sanitation Department, employees have become more responsible more than ever before for their own careers and in ensuring that they develop the skills required to remain employable. Employees are expected to become more flexible, efficient and adaptable to high demands when pursuing careers (Maree, 2013; Tolentino et al., 2014; Zacher et al., 2015). Research has revealed that individuals will redefine themselves through internal self-regulatory mechanisms in an effort to adapt to changing contexts (Coetzee, Schreuder, & Tladinyane, 2014; De Guzman & Choi, 2013).

Various definitions of emotional intelligence refer to an individual’s ability to be aware of, to control and to express emotions and to deal with interpersonal relationships in an empathetic way (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Traditionally, many public sector employees tend to separate emotions from their work when it comes to decision-making (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, Schutte et al., 1998). Societal expectations of the public sector are tied to individuals’ emotions because of their trust in public service employees to provide a service. Studies have revealed that emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in explaining employees’ job-related success (Schutte et al., 1998; Wong & Law, 2002). Employees who possess the capability to understand and self-regulate their emotions and to motivate and empathise with others and who possess social skills may be more adaptable to their careers as compared with their counterparts (Schutte et al., 1998; Wong & Law, 2002).

Emotional intelligence comprises the following four dimensions, namely perception of emotion, managing own emotion, managing others’ emotion and the utilisation of emotion (Schutte et al., 1998). The perception of emotion refers to the ability to recognise one’s emotions or those of others, and any other stimuli in our environment. Managing own emotions refers to the ability to handle and control self-emotions whilst managing others’ emotions is explained as the ability to handle and control the emotions of others. Finally, the utilisation of emotions is the ability to use emotions effectively (Schutte et al., 1998).

It may be stated that gender plays a role in the Water and Sanitation Department in South Africa. For many years career paths of women and men differ in the public sector. There is very little representation of women aspiring for leadership positions, this could be because of organisational factors and deeply embedded societal norms (Bangani & Vyas-Doorgapersad, 2020). In South Africa, the careers of women may be said to have been liberated after 1994 with the new labour legislation. The theoretical concepts of careers for woman and men in the public sector have proved to be socially constructed, in which women are traditionally marginalised and undervalued (Bimrose et al., 2014).

Research into the concepts of emotional intelligence and gender is based on social and emotional competence rather than on intellectual ability and personality (Fernández-Berrocal, Cabello, Castillo, & Extremera, 2012; Fischer, Kret, & Broekens, 2018; Fischer & Manstead, 2016). Empirical research point to woman being socialised differently as compared with men, as women tend to possess high empathy and are more aware of social responsibilities and interpersonal relationships as compared with men, who are portrayed as abstaining from expressing emotions, thus showing less emotions in a work environment (Fernández-Berrocal et al., 2012; Fischer et al., 2018; Fischer & Manstead, 2016).

Based on the review of relevant literature, it was expected that the gender and emotional intelligence of individuals would significantly predict their career adaptability.

The research study involved a cross-sectional design that collected primary data using self-administered questionnaires. The internal consistency reliability was determined using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients.

An electronic self-reported questionnaire was used to collect the requisite data from the participants. The research objectives were made known to both the management and the head of the Department of Water and Sanitation, South Africa. The researcher then sought for permission of the head of the Department of Water and Sanitation, South Africa to engage workers in a researcher exercise and this was granted. Their informed consent to participate in the study was sought directly from the employees of the department who were ensured that participation in the exercise was voluntary. The participants were given the opportunity to opt out of the exercise at will. The respondents were assured of the confidentiality of the information they provided and it was promised that this information would be used for research purposes only.

IBM^® SPSS^® (25 version) software was used to analyse the data collected in the study. The biographical data of the respondents was analysed using descriptive statistics such as the mean, standard deviation, frequency distribution and percentages. The variables under study included gender, which was dichotomised into male and female (male coded 0 and female coded 1) and emotional intelligence (perception of emotion, managing own emotions, managing others’ emotions and utilisation of emotion) and career adaptability (career concern, career control, career curiosity and career confidence). In order to achieve the research objective, the bivariate correlation as a preliminary analysis established the relationships between all relevant variables in the study. The hierarchical multiple regression was computed in order to determine the independent and joint contributions of the predictor variables in the criterion variables (career adaptability). Certain assumptions were considered before the use of hierarchical multiple regression as an appropriate statistic for the study. Firstly, we established the sample size based on the assumption that a minimum of 96 participants was considered adequate as a sample for five predictor variables in hierarchical multiple regression (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). Thus, the sample size in this study (160) exceeded the minimum of 96. Secondly, we ensured that the significant coefficients between the predictor variables and criterion variable (career adaptability) in the bivariate correlation were moderately related and not strongly correlated and this could have indicated singularity in relation to the predictor variables. All these steps were taken to affirm the appropriateness of the use of hierarchical multiple regression. All results were significant at either p < 0.05 or 0.01.

Institutional approval to conduct the study was obtained from the Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, University of South Africa. The authors declare that the study has been carried out strictly in accordance with the Policy for Research Ethics of the University of South Africa (UNISA). The authors took great care to ensure that the research was conducted with the highest integrity, taking into account UNISA’s Policy for Infringement and Plagiarism. Ethical clearance number: 2018_CEMS/IOP_010.

The mean, standard deviations, internal consistency reliabilities and bivariate correlations are reported in Table 1.

A composite Cronbach’s alpha of emotional intelligence was at a coefficient of 0.86, which indicates the high internal reliability of the scale. The subscales were found to have 0.69 (perception of emotion), 0.50 (managing own emotion), 0.71 (managing others’ emotion) and 0.67 (utilisation of emotion), respectively, suggesting moderate internal reliability for managing own emotions. According to Sekaran (2000), a coefficient that is less than 0.6 shows moderate reliability. The overall career adaptability scale was found to have a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.95. The subscales were calculated as 0.88 (concern), 0.87 (control), 0.93 (curiosity) and 0.92 (confidence), respectively, thus suggesting a strong internal reliability coefficients.

The bivariate correlation results reveal that total emotional intelligence correlated significantly (r = 0.83, p < 0.01), with career adaptability (r = -0.28, p < 0.01). The sub-dimensions of emotional intelligence, namely managing own emotions (r = 0.58, p < 0.01), correlated significantly with the sub-dimension of career adaptability career concern (r = 0.39, p < 0.01), career control, (r = 0.32, p < 0.01), career curiosity, (r = 0.35, p < 0.01), career confidence (r = 0.24, p < 0.01) and managing others emotions with sub-dimension of career adaptability , career concern (r = 0.61, p < 0.01),career control, (r = 0.62, p < 0.01), career curiosity, (r = 0.54, p < 0.01), career confidence(r = 0.53, p < 0.01), utilisation of emotions with -sub-dimension of career adaptability, career concern (r = 0.33, p < 0.01), career control, (r = 0.38, p < 0.01), career curiosity, (r = 0.35, p < 0.01), career confidence (r = 0.36, p < 0.01),

In order to assess whether individuals’ gender and emotional intelligence positively and significantly predicted their career adaptability, five stepwise regression models were performed (see Table 2).

In order to achieve the study’s objective, we computed a five-model hierarchical multiple regression using career adaptability as an outcome variable and gender alongside the four dimensions of emotional intelligence as predictors. The results are presented in Table 2, which revealed a significant negative association with career adaptability and contributed to the regression model F (1, 158) = 13.51, p < 0.01 by accounting for 8% of the variation in career adaptability. In the second model, perception of emotion was added and the result indicated a positive association with career adaptability and contributed to the regression model F (2, 157) = 18.60, p < 0.01, with an increase of 9% of the variation in career adaptability. Managing own emotion was included in the third model with the result showing a positive association with career adaptability and contributing significantly to the regression model F (3, 156) = 31.24, p < 0.01, which led to an increase of 18% in the variance of career adaptability. With the addition of managing others’ emotion in fourth model, the result showed a positive association with career adaptability and contributed slightly to the regression model F (4, 155) = 25.12, p < 0.01, which led to an increase of 2% in the variance of career adaptability. Utilisation of emotion was added to the fifth model but showed no significant association but jointly predicted the regression model F (1, 154) = 20.02, p < 0.01, at a 0% variance of career adaptability. Although all the predictor variables jointly predicted career adaptability at 39%, managing own emotion accounted for 18% of this prediction, followed by perception of emotion (11%), then gender (8%) and managing others’ emotion (2%). There was, however, nothing significant in the direct contribution of utilisation of emotions.

A Mann–Whitney U test (depicted in Table 3) indicated the significant mean difference between men and women.

The Mann–Whitney U test was applied to test whether there were differences in the dimensions of career adaptability between male and female workers. Specifically, the career concern scores for male workers (mean rank = 87.38) and female workers (mean rank = 69.90) were statistically different with U = 2388.00, Z = -2.33, p = 0.019 (< 0.05). The career control scores for male workers (mean rank = 84.62) and female workers (mean rank = 74.16) were not statistically different with U = 2656.00, Z = -1.40, p = 0.162 (> 0.05) whilst the career curiosity scores for male workers (mean rank = 91.26) and female workers (mean rank = 63.94) were statistically different with U = 2012.00, Z = -3.66, p = 0.000 (< 0.01). The career confidence scores for male workers (mean rank = 96.37) and female workers (mean rank = 56.06) were statistically different with U = 1516.00, Z = -5.39, p = 0.000 (< 0.01).

The study focused primarily on employees in the Water and Sanitation Department in South Africa. The sample comprised mainly of permanently employed public service employees. The constructs of the study used self-reports. There may have been bias because of the common methods variance. Although the study was cross-sectional, it was not possible to ascertain the causal direction between the variables. The replication of the study in other work contexts is needed if the study’s findings are to be generalised. Nevertheless, notwithstanding these limitations, the study highlighted the importance of taking into account emotional intelligence in the career developmental processes in the future. Future research should be conducted to investigate the role of emotion in career development whilst the study of the emotional manifestations regarded as self-regulatory resources may enhance an individual’s use of their meta-competencies in responding to career-related tasks.