Psychological safety is one of the most important concerns for every employee in the workplace. Similarly, at the workplace, a team will feel psychologically safe to its employees, when they are ready to share the belief that their team will not be exposed to social threats or interpersonal to their self or identity, their status, and to their career.
Things like being ignored by others, rejection, blame, incompetent, being responded to with ridicule, disrespect, anger, unfavorable work assignments, and reduced promotion prospects can be included in Interpersonal or social threats.
Why is psychological safety important in the workplace?
Having psychological safety at the workplace will affect employee wellbeing, welfare, and job satisfaction, and even a moral case on the basis of the values of employee freedom and empowerment.
Feeling secure and safe at the workplace without any fear of getting negative consequences is what you can call psychologically safe and this is the need of every employee where they can feel comfortable being themselves. Diversity is respected and personal risk-taking is encouraged, in psychologically safe workplaces. Everyone should respect each other and feel accepted.
If the environment of the workplace will be safe and stress-free then the outcomes will be positive. The strongest effect of psychological safety can be seen on the team performances because its beneficial effects on team learning with psychological safety will enable the faster adoption of new innovations. If the company will adapt all-new innovation then it will have a lead in the market and will be able to fulfill customer requirements.
Here are some of the ways to create a psychologically safe environment for employees in the workplace.
- Be engaged with your team
If your employees feel that you don’t value their thoughts and opinions or you don’t listen to them then they will stop giving you positive responses which will affect the company. So make sure that your employees don’t have any issues at the workplace.
- Understand your employees
When your employees will know that everyone or the managers care and understands everyone and consider the point of view of every employee then they will feel safe and secure and experience psychological safety.
- Avoid blaming to build trust
Maintaining a trust relationship with every employee. Having A trustworthy bond with every employee can make them feel safe. If some issues occur at your workplace then without blaming anyone unnecessary. First, try to know the reason behind conflict and then resolve them. Focus on solutions building and maintaining psychological safety in the workplace.
- Self-Awareness
Every workplace has a diverse environment because everyone has their unique personalities, work styles, and preferences. Build self-awareness with all employees by sharing how you like to communicate, how you work best, and how you like to be recognized. Encourage your employees to have the same environment in the workplace.
- Include employees in decision making
When making decisions, reading any project involves your team members and lets them share their views and opinions. Ask them to share their thoughts and give feedback. This will not only help them to get involved in the decision-making process, but it will also build psychological safety and lead to better positive results.
- Be open to feedback
As a leader or senior at the workplace, it’s your responsibility to make the final call at the decisions. Ask your employees to give feedback and through which they will be able to express what they like and what changes they want at the workplace.
At the end of the day, if there will be psychological safety at the workplace then it will bring positive results. And if employees are safe, secure, and engaged at work then they are less likely to quit.
