Do you have employees who don’t dare to speak up? If they feel this way, it won’t only cause dissatisfaction in the long run, but it could lead to serious accidents. Imagine someone has a safety concern no one else expresses, and they don’t feel comfortable to do so either, a small concern could turn into a safety risk with disastrous consequences. So what can you do to create that psychological safety, to ensure that your employees come to you with their thoughts?

Here’s what you can do today…

Professor Amy Edmondson extensively researched the theme of psychological safety in the workplace, and she found that the right combination of motivation and psychological safety led to the happiest and most productive teams. If your employees are kept accountable to reach high standards, and they feel secure enough to express themselves and give feedback, they’re in the best place to learn and progress. Being in a place where workers are put under significant pressure, but there’s no psychological safety, creates anxiety. Consequently, anxiety leads to a decrease in performance, and even burn-out. Her tips for leaders to create psychological safety are threefold:

• Frame problems as opportunities for learning. If there is an issue, everyone needs to express their thoughts, not just the most seasoned employees, so the most informed decision can be made.
• Seeing encourages doing, so own up to your mistakes. If you admit you messed up, your employees will feel comfortable doing the same. Talking about mistakes prevent them in the future.
• Stay curious. Keep asking employees how they’re doing, and if there’s anything on their mind. Another aspect of this is to be aware of what your people are doing: be out and about with them, show you’re part of their world, and they’ll spontaneously come to you with issues.

If you want to learn more about it dive right in into Professor Edmonson’s inspiring TEDx talk:

Prevent fatal accidents by creating an ongoing dialogue

Communication is the most crucial aspect of a psychologically safe workplace. Rosa Antonia Carrillo wrote extensively about this topic in her book The relationship factor in safety leadership: achieving success through employee engagement. She points out the importance of re-defining safety in a way that looks beyond the numbers. Zero accidents indicate a safe workplace, sure, but so does a culture of resilience, where people positively react to change and successfully bounce back from hardships. This psychological aspect of safety is also emphasized when you look at how safety procedures are managed. Carrillo mentions the most famous safety incidents, such as BP Texas Refinery, Gulf of Mexico, the NASA challenger shuttle, etc. and points out that in all of those situations, the procedures were well-known but not followed. The solution? Talk about it. To keep risk and safety awareness front of mind for everyone, people need to be constantly talking about it. An organization works if ideas are shared, and conversations and dialogues fuel the work. If people are constantly discussing safety procedures, work methods, and risks, they are exchanging the right information at the right time, and they’re never skipping crucial steps that could lead to incidents.

So how do you foster dialogue in your workplace? Are your colleagues discussing risk, safety, and incidents? Are they sharing what they should be sharing? Share it with us, and let’s continue our conversation.

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Source: Carillo, Rosa Antonia. The relationship factor in safety leadership: achieving success through employee engagement. Routeldge, 2019.