Creating psychological safety in the workplace

As a leader, it is your job to ensure that the working environment is safe for all employees and leaders. But when we talk about safety, what are we talking about specifically? Often when we think about WHS, we think solely about the physical side of things. In recent times however, there has been a global push to redefine the meaning of workplace health and safety, placing further emphasis on psychological safety.

The importance of psychological safety at work

Creating a psychologically safe workplace is not only the key to organisational success, but it is also a matter of moral and social responsibility. One important thing that we know about the brain is emotional and physical pain to the brain are the same. Not all emotional pain is visible like physical pain, but that fact doesn’t make it any less real or prevalent. This is very important to understand as a leader. If you are breaching an employee’s psychological safety, to the brain it’s the same as physically hurting them. 

Much like when team members are experiencing physical ailments, psychological injuries can hinder performance, lower job satisfaction, elevate employee stress levels, increase fatigue and contribute to deeper mental health issues. These reasons, coupled with a business’s ethical responsibility should be enough for any business to want to focus on cultivating a psychologically safe workplace.

Characteristics of a psychologically safe working environment

For a workplace to be considered psychologically safe, employees should:

• feel comfortable speaking up
• be empowered to be themselves at work
• hold and express mutual respect for their team mates
• know that they are valued by their organisation, leaders and team members
• feel included and interested in the organisational culture
• be able to manage their workload
• have appropriate support

Contact Performance by Design to learn more

Want to improve the performance of your business and enhance the wellbeing of your employees? Performance By Design are industry leading experts, helping organisations to create psychological safety within their workplace. Get in touch with us today and learn how to pursue an enriching and successful work environment.