Gender and emotional intelligence as predictors of career adaptability in the Department of Water and Sanitation in South Africa

People generally regard employment as an important aspect of their everyday life. However, several challenges exist in the work environment that may impact both their productivity and their health. Accordingly, it is vital that individuals are able to adapt resourcefully in a changing environment (Brown & Lent, 2016). There are various challenges that affect employees in the public sectors, for example, in the Water and Sanitation Department in South Africa, employees are exposed to precarious situations such as poor governance, volatile economic conditions, poor service delivery, ambiguous job roles and career uncertainty (Brown & Lent, 2016). This has resulted in employees acquiring new skill and competencies to enable them to contribute to the global business market. Career adaptability may be regarded as psychosocial resources and a cardinal construct useful for having a better understanding of vocational behaviour in which individuals continually adapt throughout life in the ever-changing personal needs and environmental demands (Ambiel, De Carvalho, Martins, & Tofoli, 2016; Duffy, 2010; Savickas, 2012; Tolentino et al., 2014).