8 out of 10 managers don’t know how to reduce psychosocial risk

81% of managers don’t know what to ask, say, or do to reduce psychosocial risk. according to an October 2024 LinkedIn poll I conducted. LinkedIn demographics revealed showed the top 3 titles that completed the poll were CEOs, GMs, and WHS managers.

There is a lot of talk about reducing psychosocial risk (harmful stress caused by work) – but not a lot of meaningful action.

It a legal imperative for boards and leadership groups to reduce this risk, but most don’t have a robust shared plan to address it.

In my article Reducing Psychosocial Risk Made Simple: 7 Practical Steps for Leaders – I provide a good overview of a systematic approach.

To understand the root causes of harmful stress takes curious conversations and data analysis but there are immediate actions that all leaders and managers can take.

3 steps managers can take immediately

Any manager can start this journey by:

1.???? Knowing what psychosocial risk is – and explaining it in plain language to their team

2.???? Lead by example with work / life integration

3.???? Have curious and psychologically safe conversations with your teammates

How to build psychologically safe leadership capability

A lot of clients have highly rated one of my favourite keynote topics - ?Growing Psychologically Safe and Resilient Teams.

If you are seeking fast and scalable ways to train managers how to have better conversations – you may be interested in a program I co-created WeCARE PSYCH SAFETY.

Our 60-minute eLearning course broken into small learning bites provides your managers and leaders:

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·?????? The skills to build more psychologically safe teams

·?????? A personal action plan to build a psychologically safe team

·?????? Practical on-the-job activities

·?????? Case studies

It is critical that all of us learn how to reduce harmful stress in our teams.

How we may be able to assist

Graeme Cowan is a team resilience author and conference speaker. He helps leaders and teams to be more caring and resilient, and enjoy growing together. He is also a Founding Board Director of R U OK?, and host of The Caring CEO podcast.

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Graeme’s presentations topics - download speaker’s kit

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WeCARE365 simple and practical eLearning programs?

·? WeCARE Manager - 50 minutes - how to have better mental health conversations -? followed by 12 x 1-2 minute nudge videos

·? WECARE for all employees - 25-30 minute elearning?

·? WeCARE Psych Safety - a scalable way to train managers how to improve their team’s psychological safety

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