What is psychological safety at work?

The work culture deeply influences employees’ engagement, satisfaction, and wellbeing. From unhealthy work-life balance to pushy manager, toxic work environment come in different forms. Considering psychological safety in the workplace is being aware of the challenges employees may face and addressing any toxic culture. This section provides a definition of psychological safety with examples.

Related: Work wellbeing for talent attraction, productivity and retention

Psychological safety defined

Psychological safety in the workplace is the environment created by the organisation for employees to be able to communicate openly, express their opinions, make mistakes, raise concerns and much more. The term is general and englobes any action that contributes to creating a healthy work environment rather than a toxic workplace.

There are four pillars to psychological safety. These are:

• A collaborative work environment where everyone has the willingness to help
• Promoting diversity and inclusion, ensuring everyone’s expertise and opinion matter
• Having a positive attitude towards failure and turning it into learnings
• Ensuring open conversations can take place without fear of repercussions

Related: How to become more diverse and more inclusive

Examples of psychological safety factors in the workplace

Psychological safety is a general term. Here are some essential examples of healthy and positive actions that encourage psychological safety.

• Instating open dialogue: Open dialogue encourages employees to share their opinions without judgement or fear of repercussion.
• Supporting collaborative leadership: Managers play a big part in psychological safety at work. Leaders should promote a supportive environment where two ways feedback is encouraged. Their focus should be on development as well.
• Ensuring inclusive decisions: Inclusive decision making is when everyone’s opinion is considered when making decisions. It promotes employees’ voice.
• Promoting creativity: Creativity in the workplace is essential for organisations to grow. However, it also contributes to motivating employees as they can proactively propose solutions without fear of criticism.
• Allowing failure: Mistakes are part of the learning process. Acknowledging mistakes is important and should be done with no retribution. Instead, failures should be seen as an opportunity for growth.

Related: Authentic diversity and inclusion initiatives require commitment and great leadership

The case for psychological safety

Creating a safe environment, away from toxicity, undeniably leads to having employees who feel more valued and safer to speak up. However, there are many more benefits to psychological safety at work, this particularly in today’s hybrid workplace. This section highlights the importance of psychological safety, beyond open dialogues, and explains why the phenomenon takes another dimension with current work practices.

The impact of psychological safety

Psychological safety in the workplace is critical to build a culture of performance. By creating an environment where employees feel valued, safe, and included, businesses encourage innovation and engagement. They invest in their long-term growth. Here are some core benefits of psychological safety:

Encourages teamwork

By ensuring open dialogues, psychological safety empowers employees to speak up and share their ideas. In turn, this has a positive impact no teamwork and overall collaboration. Leaders and their teams become better at problem-solving and make better decisions. A culture of transparency where open conversations can take place is created.

Boosted innovation

When employees feel safe to take risks, they experiment and think out of the box. Through these experiments, enabled by psychological safety, employees innovate and find better, more effective solutions to their work. Psychological safety leads to agile and adaptable workplaces.

Contributes to an inclusive and diverse workplace

A psychologically environment means thar everyone, despite their characteristics, feels safe to express their opinions and views. Fostering a culture of inclusion and psychological safety go hand in hand. They drive openness and boost diversity by promoting different perspective.

Reduces turnover and attracts talents

When employees feel safe in the environment they evolve in, they get to work on their development and become more loyal to the organisation. Psychologically safe work environments have a positive impact on turnover. The company’s reputation and its culture also attracts talents.

Boosts business performance

With a safe environment where everyone can be heard, businesses thrive at collaboration. In turn, team work results in better business performance. Psychological safety also has direct consequences on employees’ engagement and motivation, thus impacting productivity.

Supports agile and dynamic teams

In today’s fast pace environment, being agile is essential. Adapting to rapid changes and uncertainty can be achieved by dynamic teams. Trust, collaboration and communication lead to better team adaptation.

Related: Tackling the UK’s employee engagement dilemma

The importance of psychological safety in today’s work environment

In today’s highly hybrid or remote workplace, psychological safety takes another dimension. Managers have their role challenged by changing communication means. They need to adopt different tactics to encourage open communication and a collaborative work environment. Below are some of the challenges that hybrid and remote work present and why psychological safety should be made a priority:

• Building an environment of trust is more challenging with remote teams. Asynchronous communication is increased and scheduled conversations are necessary. Virtual conversations are less spontaneous as well.
• Virtual meetings change the way we communicate. Body language gives a lot of communication cues. With remote work, meaningful and honest communication needs to be proactive.
• Leaders need to proactively create opportunities for employees to create relationship. Leaders need to find ways to create a sense of belonging and collaboration to ensure everyone feels safe and supported.

Related: Remote employees

9 initiatives to build a culture of psychological safety at work

There are several initiatives that businesses can implement to promote psychological safety in the workplace. By doing so, organisation invest on their long-term success as they foster employee engagement, teamwork, and innovation. Here are 9 steps towards best-in-class work environments:

Meeting employees needs

To support a culture of psychological safety, it is paramount that businesses address their employees needs. Individuals have different communication styles and preferences in their ways of working. Considering that we are all different helps employees feel valued.

Ensuring open communication

Open communication is at the centre of a healthy work culture. Leaders and HR teams should encourage employee feedback. This can be promoted through tools such as employee satisfaction survey or simply through open conversations.

Related: Ideas to improve workplace communication in company culture

Building trust

Building trust is a long-term commitment from employers. By trusting their employees, organisations encourage their employees to trust them as well. This can be achieved through a culture of respect and autonomy.

Training leaders

Leaders and their styles are essential in shaping the company culture. Coaching leaders to know how to engage employees and to support their development will lead to enhanced team work and increased loyalty.

Related: Women in leadership: beyond quotas to true culture change

Promoting a growth mindset

People development should be placed at the centre of the company culture. By focussing on its employees, businesses reduce turnover and increase stability.

Encouraging creativity and innovation

Creative thinking leads to innovation. Supporting psychological safety at work means making sure employees feel safe to propose ideas and new ways of working. Problem-solving and innovation thrive in that environment.  

Related: Ways to promote creativity and innovation in the workplace

Creating and communicating clear expectations

Setting clear and measurable expectations is critical for employees to know what the business needs from them. In terms of behaviour, the expectations should be made clear and there should be no misunderstanding when it comes to what is and what is not acceptable. Boundaries help employees feel comfortable to speak-up and to be proactive.

Reflecting on mistakes

Mistakes happen. They are part of growth. Companies should see mistakes as opportunities by shifting the focus on learning. This shift encourages employees to take creative risks and innovate without fear of repercussions.

Providing a mental health support programme

Have a mental health support system in place helps employees feel safe. It creates an inclusive environment where they can have open discussions.

Related: How to provide employees with mental health time off work

Psychological safety in the workplace is the cornerstone of a successful, inclusive, and healthy work environment. It contributes to creating a culture of understanding, empathy, and safety. Organisations should integrate psychological safety in their people strategies and start from the recruitment process itself. Their efforts will contribute to a resilient, agile, and inclusive workplace.

Related: Got low morale at work? Here are five ways to improve it