What is psychological safety?
Psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up, generating ideas, asking questions, voicing concerns, admitting mistakes, and showing vulnerability. The culture and leadership in your organization either supports or oppresses psychological safety through established norms, values, policies, and practices. Psychological safety is engineered to support a more inclusive and engaged workforce without fear of retaliation or exclusion. When employees fear, or perceive it is not safe to speak up or ask questions, they often become withdrawn or disengaged, they may feel isolated or not valued for their contributions at work. This lack of belonging or acceptance can leave one vulnerable to depression and stress that impacts both the personal and professional experiences we have at home and at work.
One popular model to support psychological safety follows a four-phase maturity process that begins with creating inclusion safety, learner safety, contributor safety and then challenger safety within your organization and or team. [1]
One way to measure psychological safety within an organization uses a blended approach to examine trends between workplace violence events and employee retention rates. This two-pronged approach helps correlate the employee’s experience in the work setting with their degree of satisfaction measured against exposure to workplace violence events like bullying, intimidation, and even physical violence. When not addressed, these trends expose the organization to direct and indirect expenses related to workforce shortages, recruitment, and retention as well as higher claims costs due to physical and psychological workplace injuries and claims.
The World Health Organization defines mental health as a state of well-being in which the individual realizes their own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to contribute to their community.[5]
Mental health and wellness can be positively associated with psychosocial factors and lifestyles that include having a caring social network, contributing to society, and having a sense of belonging. Psychosocial factors and lifestyles can also have a negative influence on the individual such as when financial and medical concerns leave them vulnerable to stress and anxiety that sometimes leads to substance abuse and suicide. During a global benefits survey WTW saw that 59% of individuals feel lonely, 58% report having addictive behaviors, 59% report overspending, and 53%, just over half, are satisfied with their social life.[6] When effective, health and benefits teams within organizations do a tremendous job of helping employers find the right vendors to provide mental health care and treatment options for employees. It is equally important to understand what we can do to prevent the additional burden of stress in the workplace by addressing psychological safety before harm occurs.
Today’s mental health and wellbeing agenda is being pushed into the forefront of organizational requirements through a series of frameworks and in response to employee engagement surveys that highlight the need to expand mental health services. This is coming in the form of frameworks, standards, innovative applications, and data analytics.
The U.S. Surgeon General published a Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being in 2022.[7] The framework outlines essential elements including the need to protect workers from harm including both physical and psychological harm. Recommendations from the U.S. Surgeon General include a focus on continued efforts to minimize occupational hazards, workplace violence and psychological harm that can result from discrimination, emotional hostility, bullying, and harassment.
Data innovations are further impacting mental health claims to help facilitate early detection, personalized monitoring, and data-driven interventions for improved outcomes. Organizations are continually auditing and improving Employee Assistance Program (EAP) programs and adding mental health apps, and reward programs to improve utilization. Many employers are elevating their data analytics today to track and trend mental health aspects in claims data. Mental health claims are typically managed through the employee’s health plan but can also be reported as part of a workers’ compensation claim in instances where there has been an injury to an individual involving threats or aggressive assaults at work or stress directly related to the workplace role.
It is important to remember that nearly everyone will experience stress at some point in their career or personal life. While we cannot remove stress from life, we can be thoughtful about how the organization contributes to workplace stress and responds to the rising need to address access to mental health care and services for this next generation of our workforce.
With psychological safety we can be the employer of choice, caring for our employee’s total health and wellness, and recruiting and retaining a healthy workforce. Without psychological safety we see employees disengaged at work and sometimes suffer needlessly with mental health concerns brought on by stress and anxiety from both the work environment and personal crisis at home.
Building psychological safety and supporting the mental health and wellness of your employees requires insight from employees, managers, leaders, and industry experts. Here are some practical steps you can take:
Willis Towers Watson hopes you found the general information provided in this publication informative and helpful. The information contained herein is not intended to constitute legal or other professional advice and should not be relied upon in lieu of consultation with your own legal advisors. In the event you would like more information regarding your insurance coverage, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. In North America, Willis Towers Watson offers insurance products through licensed subsidiaries of Willis North America Inc., including Willis Towers Watson Northeast Inc. (in the United States) and Willis Canada, Inc.
