What is psychological safety in the workplace?
People often assume psychological safety at work is about creating a psychologically healthy workplace by protecting employees from psychological harm. But this concept is only one component of a psychologically healthy workplace.
Psychological safety is present in a workplace when everyone feels comfortable being their authentic selves without fear of being judged, humiliated or punished. This means that everyone in the workplace has a shared belief that they won’t experience negative consequences if they:
- express their ideas
- speak up when they disagree with a decision
- admit to and discuss their mistakes
- openly discuss problems and difficult issues
- seek help and feedback.
Creating a psychologically safe work environment can significantly boost mental health. It allows individuals to trust that they are valued members of the team and that no one is out to get them. They feel confident that they can approach their manager to discuss problems, for example, with workplace stress or their struggles with mental health. And with an average of 9 deaths by suicide each day in Australia, mental health is a major issue.
Reasons to create a psychologically safe workplace
A psychologically safe environment is one in which people feel free to express themselves and their ideas. This can benefit organisations in a number of ways, including the following.
- Improved wellbeing and mental health: Feeling comfortable expressing yourself in an open and supportive environment without negative consequences can help to reduce levels of stress and anxiety, leading to improved mental health and wellbeing.
- Higher employee engagement and motivation: In psychologically safe workplaces, employees may be more engaged and motivated because they are able to be themselves, and they see that their contributions matter.
- More creativity and innovation: Feeling safe to express unconventional thoughts and explore new ideas without fearing criticism or judgement can allow innovative concepts and solutions to emerge.
- Better decision-making: Similarly, an environment in which people feel free to express their opinions and concerns can lead to a more diverse range of perspectives being incorporated, which can result in better decisions being made.
- Continuous learning and improvement: By encouraging employees to talk openly about their mistakes and learn from them, psychological safety in the workplace can foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
How employers can take action on R U OK? Day
As an employer, it can be difficult to know where to start with creating a psychologically safe work environment. R U OK? Day is a suicide prevention initiative that encourages people to have conversations that can help others to get through tough times. It can be a great springboard for your initiatives to create a psychologically safe workplace. Here are some ideas of ways you can take action.
Start a conversation
The simplest – albeit often very difficult – way to promote psychological safety in the workplace on R U OK? Day is to simply start a conversation by asking, ‘Are you OK?’ The R U OK? charity organisation offers a range of resources for employers aimed at helping you to have this important conversation with your employees in a safe and supportive way.
Host an R U OK? Day session
Hosting a day session for R U OK? Day is a great way to promote a psychological safety at work. This is an opportunity to teach your team to recognise the signs that someone may be at risk of suicide and what to do about it. In doing so, you can help to break down the stigma around the topic. You could also include activities that allow team members to open up to each other about their issues and struggles in a supportive, non-judgemental environment.
Assess the psychological safety of your workplace
It can be helpful to get an understanding of the baseline level of psychological safety in your workplace. You can conduct surveys, one-on-one interviews or focus groups, with the aim of finding out how psychologically safe your employees feel and exploring the reasons why they may psychologically unsafe.
Bear in mind that some employees may be reluctant to participate, particularly if they’ve had negative experiences. Letting them know that they can give their feedback in a survey and assuring them that their responses will be completely anonymous may encourage them to get involved.
Offer mental health days
A growing number of organisations are offering their employees the option to take a paid mental health day. This is paid leave that employees can take without the need to present a medical certificate. Providing this type of leave can help to reduce the stigma around mental health, encouraging your employees to show their authentic selves at work.
However, it’s important to be aware of the underlying issues that may be causing your employees to feel burned out. For example, if they are struggling with workplace stress due to an unrealistic workload, taking a day off isn’t going to fix the issue.
Lead with compassion
Compassionate leaders are not only able to understand and empathise with their team members’ struggles – they take concrete actions to address these difficulties. You can lead with compassion by:
- helping your team members to achieve a healthy work-life balance
- scheduling regular check-ins to find out about your employees’ psychological wellbeing
- giving your team access to resources that can help with their personal or professional challenges.
Special considerations for remote work teams
Fostering psychological safety at work is beneficial for any workplace. But it’s especially important if you work with remote teams. Psychological safety can strengthen trust, which is the basis of a healthy remote work culture.
But creating psychologically safe remote teams can be challenging. With the lack of face-to-face interaction, there’s a higher chance of miscommunication when working with virtual teams. The lack of non-verbal cues can also make it more difficult to notice when a team member is struggling.
Here are some suggestions for promoting psychological safety in virtual teams.
- Be actively inclusive: In distributed teams, it can be more difficult to see if a team member is not engaged. Actively including everyone by inviting participation in meetings, asking questions, and making sure that everyone has a chance to speak in a meeting can help to build psychological safety.
- Promote engagement: Remote employees can feel isolated and excluded from the rest of the team. Organising in-person catch-ups with both home-based and office-based team members can promote engagement and help to overcome feelings of isolation. If this isn’t possible, virtual team building activities or social events also work well.
- Schedule one-on-one meetings: Frequent one-on-one check-ins are especially important for remote team members. They are an opportunity to discuss your team member’s performance, but also to find out how they are going and to get to know them on a personal level.
- Take advantage of video conferencing: Video calls don’t have to be restricted to meetings. You can promote a sense of togetherness and belonging in remote teams by using video calls for coffee catch-ups, daily huddles or drop-in sessions where team members can join and leave whenever they want.
- Foster a culture of appreciation: Showing that you value your team members’ contributions is a big part of fostering psychological safety. It’s easy to forget how often we say thank you in person, and remote employees can feel undervalued if you don’t replicate this appreciation in the virtual space. Making a point of celebrating successes and showing your gratitude for the team’s efforts can help to make home-based team members feel valued.
Encourage employees to speak up
Poor mental health is a problem that affects almost everyone at some point in their lives. But fostering psychological safety at work can improve the mental health of your entire workplace by creating an environment where people feel that they can speak openly about their problems. Beyond boosting mental health, psychological safety can also help you to get the best out of your employees. When they aren’t afraid of speaking up or making mistakes, they tend to produce better work.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please seek assistance by contacting your trusted healthcare professional or calling Lifeline on 13 11 14.
If you are concerned for your safety or the safety of others, seek immediate assistance by calling Triple Zero (000).
