Background & Objectives: The most important asset of organizations and the main factor in achieving the goals and plans of any organization are the employees who work in it. Experts believe that without skilled, capable, committed, and satisfied human resources, it is impossible to achieve organizational goals. In recent years, improving job performance and empowering employees as a human resource strategy have been used to create greater efficiency, productivity, and employee satisfaction in the workplace. It seems necessary to study the factors that affect the improvement of employees' job performance in organizations. Among various professions, the firefighting profession is one of the most sensitive and vital because it deals with people's lives and property. Accordingly, the performance of firefighters requires capabilities and skills that enable them to provide maximum services in the shortest possible time. They must also be trained to make correct and rapid decisions in emergency rescue and relief operations and to anticipate and prevent mistakes that may occur during decision–making. Therefore, the present study was conducted to predict the job performance of fire department employees based on emotional intelligence, with the mediating role of communication skills.

Methods: This study employed a correlational design using structural equation modeling (SEM). The statistical population consisted of all employees of the Sari Fire Department in 2024, totaling 1,000 individuals. From this population, 260 participants were selected through a multistage cluster sampling method. Initially, all employees were categorized according to the two municipal districts of Sari city, with each district comprising four fire stations. Within each station, employees were further classified based on their working units. Subsequently, participants were selected proportionally according to the number of employees in each unit relative to the total workforce of the fire departments in the studied districts. The inclusion criteria were: being an official employee of the Fire Department, having at least one year of work experience, willingness to participate in the study, and completion of the informed consent form. The exclusion criterion was incomplete questionnaire responses. Informed consent was obtained from all participants in the present study. Data were collected using the Job Performance Questionnaire (JPQ) (Paterson, 1922), the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ–i) (Bar–On, 1997), and the Communication Skills Test–Revised (CST–R) (Queendom, 2004). Data analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum scores) and inferential statistics (Pearson’s correlation coefficient and Structural Equation Modeling) through SPSS version 26 and AMOS version 26. The level of statistical significance was set at 0.05.

Results: The results indicated that emotional intelligence positively and significantly predicted communication skills (β = 0.495, p < 0.001) and job performance (β = 0.403, p < 0.001). Communication skills also positively and significantly predicted job performance (β = 0.549, p < 0.001). Furthermore, emotional intelligence indirectly predicted job performance through communication skills (β = 0.271, p = 0.010). In addition, the obtained fit indices demonstrated a good fit between the data and the proposed research model (χ²/df = 1.265, GFI = 0.957, CFI = 0.995, AGFI = 0.938, RMSEA = 0.031, PCLOSE = 0.948).

Conclusion: Based on the findings of the study, emotional intelligence and communication skills play a significant role in enhancing the quality of employees’ job performance and can be considered effective predictors of job performance. Therefore, it is recommended that organizational managers and psychologists pay greater attention to these factors when designing and implementing strategies aimed at improving the job performance of fire department employees.