The CEOs Playbook for Psychological Safety

The CSA Z1003 Standard on Psychological Health and Safety purports that one critical success factor for facilitating psychologically safe workplaces is getting the full buy-in and support from senior executives and the CEO. The CEO and senior leadership team do not need to be subject matter experts in workplace psychological safety. What they need to be is involved, and demonstrate they care by asking questions on what is being done and what evidence is there that what is being done is working.?

The following key terms can help CEOs and senior leaders become orientated to key psychologically safe concept that influence the employees’ experience and psychological health and safety:?

1.???Mental (behavioral) health?refers to the internal and external behaviors that support employees’ emotional wellbeing. Mental health can be thought of as the percentage of time a person spends in pleasant versus unpleasant emotions. All employees have mental (behavioral) health that determines how much time they feel good about work and life and functioning emotionally well (flourishing) and how much feeling blah impacts their functioning at work and home (languishing).

2.???Psychosocial risk factors?can charge or drain employees’ experience. Employees feel charged when they can handle their workload because tasks are properly organized. Feeling overwhelmed and overloaded can be a drain that may lead to mental harm like burnout. ISO?45003:2021?provides guidance for mitigating mental harm and promoting mental health. CEOs are advised to pay close attention to the percentage of workers experiencing isolation and loneliness, negatively impacting their?resiliency. The?Lancet?reported why employers must pay attention to isolation and loneliness. Regarding “the workers assigned periods of perceived isolation,” it found that even less than 10 days can have long-term effects, with the presence — up to three years later — of psychiatric symptoms.

3.???Psychosocial hazards?are factors like a controlling leader that can increase workers’ risk of stress and burnout, leading to mental harm, injury, and illness. Employees fatigued at work are a danger to themselves and others. Chronic stress impacts problem-solving and decision-making, slowing down productivity and increasing mistakes. Like machines, workers have limits and breaking points. When not managed, the results are increased costs of sick leave, STD/LTD/WCB disability claims, turnover, and lost productivity.?

4.???Protective factors?include mental health and human resources initiatives like flexible work schedules, career development, rewards, and recognition programs. Workplace mental health’s primary purpose is protecting workers. Integrating psychological health and safety into the employee experience increases inclusion and impact. Protective factors can be created for:

Prevention?—?programs and policies designed to reduce mental harm and promote mental health. Included are respectful workplace initiatives, inclusion, and mental fitness programming to facilitate resiliency through education and measuring and tracking progress with an evidence-based mental health app.

Supports?—?EFAP, internet cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT), critical incident and suicide hotlines.

Three lead practices CEOs and senior leaders can encourage and support to help move a workplace towards becoming more psychologically safe.

Get an evidence-based psychological health and safety baseline.?A PDCA approach requires a baseline of what psychosocial factors and hazards have the most positive or negative impact. It is helpful to understand where the workforce sits on the flourishing to languishing continuum and what programs are working. Evidence-based tools like the MFI provide results and guidance for employers and employees. Ensure that any tool chosen has been validated and designed for psychological health and safety.

Train leaders to be psychologically safe.?Poorly-organized work and ineffective leadership are leading causes of stress in the workplace,?resulting?in an?estimated?$190 billion in healthcare costs and 120,000 deaths per year.?Leaders account for?70%?of the variance in employee engagement. Research shows that supporting leaders to become?psychologically safe leaders?is an important protective factor for supporting employees’ emotional wellbeing that drives their workplace experience.

Promote mental fitness.?The last line of defense in OHS is personal protective equipment. In mental health, it’s personal psychological protection (PPP).?Mental fitness?is how employers can support employees to develop habits to be resilient and cope with stress proactively.

CEOs and senior leaders can facilitate a psychologically safe workplace by creating a vision, taking a PDCA long-game approach, and regularly asking how well the organization is developing a place where employees want to come to work every day.

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This fall we’re releasing our new mental fitness Jumpstart program. It’s including 2 live (virtual) sessions, 3 books (including my newest No Regrets), 3 pre-recorded sessions which help materialize the skills and information within the books, a self-assessment tool, and a workbook! If you’re interested in learning more on this Jumpstart solution and how we can help support your organization, please reach out to [email protected]

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This newsletter has been adapted from this article: https://ceoworld.biz/2022/04/15/a-ceos-playbook-for-workplace-psychological-safety/