Why is there a need for Psychological Safety at the Workplace?

Psychological safety is a climate of interpersonal trust and mutual respect. Employees feel emotionally secure at work in voicing opinions, sharing ideas, taking risks, and communicating feedback. Psychological safety at the workplace makes people feel comfortable being themselves. Psychologically safe employees feel acknowledged, appreciated, and respected. They are motivated to take better risks, speak their minds, and exercise creativity. Positive emotions associated with psychological safety, like trust and confidence, help employees be more resilient, open-minded, and creative at problem-solving. Organizations with psychologically safe work environments enjoyed improved talent retention and higher revenue per employee.

Stages of Psychological Safety

A psychologically safe workplace begins with a feeling of belonging. We know that all humans require their basic needs to be met before they can reach their full potential, so employees must feel accepted before they’re able to improve their organizations or companies.

Inclusion Safety

It is the first stage that satisfies the basic human need to connect and belong. In this stage, you feel safe to be yourself, are accepted for who you are, and accept your unique personality traits and attributes.

Learner Safety

In this stage, you feel safe to exchange in the learning process, by asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, experimenting, and making mistakes. It helps to fulfill the needs of growth and development.

Contributor Safety

This stage helps to exhibit your unique skills and competencies to make excellent performances.

Challenger Safety

It helps to make you feel safe to speak up and challenge the status quo when you think there’s an opportunity to change or improve.

Fostering Psychological Safety at Work

Enhancement of psychological safety by leaders

By actively soliciting upward feedback, establishing communication rules for conflict management, and building a culture of curiosity.

Creating psychological safety among the members

Team members can promote productive dialogue and debate. Positive interactions and conversations between individuals should be built on trust and empathy.

Psychological safety at virtual work

On a virtual call, you should have the ability not only to look intently at people, and not just listen to their words, but also to see and feel their emotions.  All the members should be given an equal opportunity to participate and exchange ideas, and express emotions.

Conclusion

Psychological safety makes people confident, trustworthy, and competent and encourages them to use their skills and unique attributes that ultimately lead to the success of the organizations and the well-being of employees as well.