Psychological safety is one of those terms that seems to be quite popular at the moment, but the underlying premise has always remained in the workplace. Fostering psychological safety in the workplace contributes to a more positive and productive organisational culture, leading to higher performance, collaboration, and employee well-being.
What elements or skills can foster a psychologically safe environment in my business?
- Open communication: conduct a thorough review of communication channels within the business. Organise regular opportunities for teams to come together (meetings, huddles or team building activities). Encouraging team members to share ideas and concerns during one-to-one’s or team meetings/huddles/stand-ups.
- Active listening: acknowledge and validate every team members contributions and practice active listening in every interaction. Ensure regular and consistent one-to-ones happen with every team member, and seek feedback on your own leadership style to ensure you are meeting the needs of the individuals in your team. Implement changes based on any feedback received.
- Inclusivity: ensure all voices are heard and embrace cultural events and diversity. Rotate meeting leadership among team members. Highlighting achievements from all team members. Review team diversity and inclusion goals. Facilitate diversity and inclusion training.
- Empowerment: delegate meaningful tasks effectively while providing autonomy over execution. Celebrate progress as well as wins (big and small) and actively encourage team embers to get involved and even lead projects or initiatives. Create and review development plans with the team regularly.
- Feedback and growth: always offer feedback in real-time. Ask for feedback on your own performance. Encourage peer-to-peer feedback. Carry out regular performance and development reviews. Plan and set goals at both the team and the individual levels to promote development, trust and accountability.
When your business fosters a culture of psychological safety, it leads to increased innovation and creativity, higher employee engagement and morale, improved teamwork and collaboration, reduced employee turnover, more effective problem-solving and decision-making, better mental health and wellbeing within the employee population and so much more.
Can you afford to ignore these 5 factors in order to achieve all these benefits?
If you’d like to find out more about how you can boost your employee engagement, reach out to our team.
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