In June, the American Psychological Association (APA) released its 2024 Work in America Survey: Psychological Safety in the Changing Workplace. The survey was conducted in conjunction with the Harris Poll among more than 2,000 employed adults. Among the findings:
- Nearly half of the workers aged 18-25 reported feelings of loneliness and a lack of appreciation at work at significantly higher rates than older age groups.
- Around three in 10 U.S. workers reported that people in their organization who are not close to their age don’t see the value in their ideas (32%) and feel self-conscious about their age at work (29%). A quarter (25%) said they are worried about their job security because of their age.
- Most working adults reported appreciating the opportunity to work with people of different ages and said having employees from a range of age groups is an advantage for their workplace.
The APA discusses the importance of building a psychologically safe workplace and practices associated with high safety:
Workers who experience psychological safety in their workplaces tend to report much more positive experiences, including overall job satisfaction, relationships with colleagues, and fewer negative workplace outcomes, such as emotional exhaustion and workplace burnout. Employers should review the workplace practices associated with higher psychological safety, such as opportunities to give and receive feedback, employing well-trained managers, appropriately involving employees in decision making and goal setting, respect for time off, emphasizing skills over degrees, meeting-free days, and mental health days. And given the connection of psychological safety with ratings of performance and productivity, business leaders should consider that creating a work culture where team members can be themselves, speak up, and take risks, can in turn impact the bottom line.
What Is “Psychological Safety”?
Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmonson is largely credited with coining the term in 1999, describing it as “an absence of interpersonal fear. When psychological safety is present, people are able to speak up with work-relevant content.” She also says: “When people have psychological safety at work, they feel comfortable sharing concerns and mistakes without fear of embarrassment or retribution. They are confident that they can speak up and won’t be humiliated, ignored, or blamed. They know they can ask questions when they are unsure about something. They tend to trust and respect their colleagues.”
It’s easy to make the mistake of confusing this with “psychological health.” Claire Hastwell explains the distinction in her article What Is Psychological Safety in the Workplace? How Leaders Can Build Psychologically Safe Workplaces at Great Places to Work:
While psychological safety and psychological health are related, they are not interchangeable. Psychological safety refers to the context in which an individual interacts with others, while psychological health refers to the individual’s internal state of well-being. Both are important factors in creating a positive and supportive work environment that promotes overall well-being and success.
Fostering a Psychologically Safe Workplace
In her article What is psychological safety at work? Here’s how to start creating it, Beth M. Schwartz of the APA talks about what a psychologically safe workplace looks like, suggests survey questions your organization can take to measure where you stand, and offers concrete examples of what organizations, leaders, and employees themselves can do to begin building a culture of psychological safety. These include:
- Organizations can look to see if there are unnecessary hierarchies, chains-of-command, or professional boundaries that discourage communication from front-line workers to upper management.
- Managers can celebrate learning from mistakes and lead by example to show how to raise problems and tough issues for discussion in a constructive, nonjudgmental manner.
- Employees can focus on finding solutions with questions like “what can we all do to help solve this problem?” and learn to actively and respectfully listen to ideas shared by colleagues.
However, recent research shows that employers have a limited time frame to establish a feeling of safety for new employees, and if it breaks down, it can take years to repair it: New Hires Lose Psychological Safety After Year One. How to Fix It. The research team found:
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Newcomers are eager to share, then soon start holding back. On average, new employees, those with less than one year of service, had higher psychological safety than their more-tenured colleagues, but lost it over time. This implied that new employees were increasingly likely to hold back ideas, concerns, and questions to maintain a positive image, the team says.
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Once psychological safety is lost, it’s hard to get back. Newcomers’ loss of psychological safety was followed by a long period of small gains, which the data suggest could span 20 years or more.
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The dynamics of a particular team matter. While psychological safety can quickly and easily be squashed, the researchers did find that new hires who joined teams with high psychological safety experienced a less severe drop in their willingness to take interpersonal risks.
The report goes on to discuss reasons why a psychologically safe environment declines and ways prevent a decline.
Additional Reading
- Center for Leadership: How Leaders Can Build Psychological Safety at Work
- Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge: Four Steps to Building the Psychological Safety That High-Performing Teams Need
- McKinsey: The Importance of Psychological Safety in the Workplace
- McKinsey: Psychological safety, emotional intelligence, and leadership in a time of flux
Recent Related Blog Post: Making Employee Mental Health a Priority