What is psychological safety in the workplace?

Psychological safety in the workplace is a shared belief by staff members that they can share their ideas, questions and concerns without repercussions. This can mean, for example, that people feel safe to share their opinions knowing that their colleagues will not laugh or ridicule them for having suggested an unconventional idea.

Related: How to identify and prevent workplace bullying

Creating a psychologically safe workplace means that people feel comfortable being themselves and helps to foster a relaxed atmosphere. Having a relaxed atmosphere means that workers are able to come up with innovative ideas as there is interpersonal trust and a climate of respect among team members.

Why psychological safety at work is important

Having psychological safety in the workplace is important for open communication between team members which can lead to creative solutions and innovative ideas. In order to get the best innovation within your team, workers need to feel comfortable voicing half-finished thoughts, asking questions out of the left field and brainstorming out loud.

Being able to do this means you can get the best ideas for your projects, which can mean having a leg-up on the competition. Also, a lack of psychological safety in the workplace can mean that you might not see possible failures of a plan, as your team would not feel comfortable speaking up if they see a flaw in a project. This could mean that the entire organization is negatively affected as you need good innovation and successful projects in order to have a successful organization.

A good example of this can be seen in the technology industry where some large search engine and technology organizations lead the way in innovation and success. These organizations are known for having workplaces where employees are encouraged to think outside the box and speak up if they have new ideas or if they see issues with the current direction of a project.

By creating a relaxed atmosphere where people are encouraged to speak their minds, they have been able to leverage the strength of all their talent, meaning they have stayed on the cutting edge and grown into international success stories. Without creating psychological safety in the workplace, these companies might have missed out on some of the best ideas as their employees would have been scared to speak up when they had ideas.

4 stages of creating a psychologically safe workplace

When working towards creating psychological safety in the workplace, there are four stages that teams will go through.

Stage 1: Inclusion Safety

• This stage satisfies the basic human need to connect and feel as though you belong
• Employees feel as though they can be themselves
• Each team member feels accepted for who they are, including their unique and defining characteristics

Stage 2: Learner Safety

• Satisfies our need to learn and grow
• People feel comfortable asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, experimenting and making mistakes

Stage 3: Contributor Safety

• Satisfies our need to make a difference
• Team members feel safe using their skills and abilities to make a meaningful contribution

Stage 4: Challenger Safety

• Satisfies our need to make things better
• People feel safe speaking up and challenging the status quo, they think there is an opportunity to change or improve things

These stages are important to understand when creating a psychologically safe workplace as they will help indicate how safe your employees feel. As your team works through the stages you will be able to see the potential for innovation increase and you will know creating this psychologically safe environment has been successful.

The four stages of psychological safety can be a handy tool to assess your team, or can also help you see how well a team is working together or how a new employee is fitting into the group. This type of assessment tool is a great way to evaluate how well your organization is doing when it comes to interpersonal dynamics and your ability to innovate.

Once you’ve figured out which stage your team might be in, you will be able to make the necessary improvements to the overall psychological safety in the workplace. Keep reading to find out how you can foster a psychologically safe workplace which can lead to greater innovation.

How to promote psychological safety in the workplace

Promoting psychological safety in the workplace can allow your organization to become more innovative through open communication. The following are some ways in which you can foster a psychologically safe workplace.

Make psychological safety an explicit policy

Creating a policy around open communication can help foster a psychologically safe workplace. Make sure that the policy addresses any issues around staff approaching management by including things such as an open door policy, where all employees are able to approach management whenever needed.

Being able to bring up concerns or ideas to management will mean that employees feel more comfortable speaking their opinions and will allow you to handle any interpersonal issues between staff before they become a larger problem.

Facilitate open communication

One way to encourage open communication is to have team-building exercises. Team building exercises can help team members bond with each other which will make them feel more comfortable being themselves while at work.

Open communication can also be facilitated through developing a coaching culture, where people are teamed up to teach each other different skills. This allows team members to bond and they become more comfortable communicating with one another.

Related: How to build an effective coaching culture

This can also be done by having brainstorming sessions for projects. Before coming up with a solution, bring the team together to brainstorm different ideas, with explicit instructions that all ideas are good ideas. Make sure to listen to each idea in order to further the psychologically safe workplace.

Establish norms for how to handle failure

One of the difficulties opposing psychological safety in the workplace is being worried about failure. By being open about failure, employees will be less afraid of making a mistake which can allow for new ideas to flow more smoothly.

Try talking about mistakes or failures in your team meetings. An example of this could be talking about a proposal that did not get approved and what the team could have done better. This way teams are encouraged to talk about their failures as learning opportunities and continue to feel comfortable voicing their opinion without fear.

Create space for new ideas

Creating space for new ideas can help foster a psychologically safe workplace as it will encourage people to bring up their ideas. One way to do this would be to reward creative thinking. When an employee comes up with a creative solution to a problem, make sure to recognize their creativity. This will encourage others to think creatively as we all crave recognition for a job well done.

This could even be done in a fun team bonding exercise. For example, around Halloween, challenge employees to a pumpkin carving competition where the winners receive a small reward. Though the task has nothing to do with work, it is a fun way for employees to work together and use their creativity. Not only does this encourage teams to be creative, but they will also have to openly communicate their opinions.

By creating space for new ideas, you are able to build relationships among your team and a psychologically safe workplace will be the result.

Embrace productive conflict

If there is a disagreement among coworkers on how to handle a project, try promoting a healthy dialogue instead of shutting it down. Get the team to come up with the pros and cons of each idea and then have a vote on which idea seems the best. That way, both sides can state their points and the conflict can be resolved without further issues coming up.

Having a team that feels comfortable having debates is a great way of fostering psychological safety in the workplace. You want employees to feel comfortable bringing up their ideas, even if they are not popular as perhaps the unpopular idea is actually more innovative.

When team members are able to debate issues, they become comfortable with stating their opinions and allow for feedback without getting hurt feelings. This is the cornerstone of a psychologically safe workplace and should be strived for.

Psychological safety in the workplace is something that can bring wonderful innovation and a relaxed atmosphere to your team. It is important to have workers that can work well together if you want a successful business, so by fostering psychological safety, you are creating a space where innovation is at the forefront.