The Social Experience of Safety... A Transformative Catalyst for Workplace Culture.

Workplace safety often brings to mind protective gear, procedures, and physical safeguards. Yet, one crucial element is frequently overlooked - the social experience. How people interact, support, and communicate at work plays a pivotal role in shaping safety outcomes.

The social experience of safety is more than a feel-good factor. It influences behaviours, fosters accountability, and builds trust. When strong, it drives teamwork and engagement. When weak, it fosters disconnect and risks. Recognizing its power transforms safety from a set of rules into a shared culture where every person thrives.

Understanding the Social Experience of Safety

The social experience of safety is about how people connect at work. It includes daily interactions, team dynamics, and relationships that build trust, mutual respect, and collaboration. It shapes whether employees feel included, valued, and empowered to contribute to safety.

A strong social experience is marked by open communication, shared responsibility, and genuine support among colleagues. It fosters an environment where everyone feels confident speaking up about safety without fear of blame or exclusion.

Why the Social Experience Matters

Research reveals that the social experience is a critical factor in workplace safety. The latest Sentis report "Unpacking Safety Experiences: Employee Perceptions of Safety Climate.", which analysed responses from nearly 30,000 employees, found that social safety has the widest range of outcomes. When positive, it becomes a superpower for teams, boosting engagement, trust, and proactive safety behaviours. Conversely, when poor, it leads to disconnection, stress, and safety risks.

Key findings include:

• Strengths at the Team Level: Employees often feel supported by peers and supervisors, driving a culture of safety ownership.
• Weaknesses at the Organizational Level: Areas like fair handling of mistakes, recognition of safe behaviours, and communication across departments remain significant challenges.

The social experience not only shapes individual actions but also influences overall safety culture. Organizations that prioritize it move beyond compliance, fostering a culture where safety is a shared and valued commitment.

The Social Brain and Its Role in Safety

Our brains are hardwired for connection. Positive social interactions release hormones like oxytocin and dopamine, fostering trust, happiness, and collaboration. These chemical signals strengthen bonds and encourage teamwork. On the flip side, negative interactions trigger cortisol and adrenaline, activating the brain’s stress response. This can lead to anxiety, poor decision-making, and fractured relationships.

When workplace environments lean toward stress-inducing dynamics - unfair treatment, exclusion, or lack of support - the resulting biological stress responses can undermine mental health and teamwork. Conversely, environments that encourage positive connections bolster resilience, clarity, and engagement.

Understanding the social brain offers actionable strategies to improve safety outcomes:

1. Foster Trust: Build open communication channels where employees feel safe to voice concerns without fear of blame.
2. Encourage Collaboration: Promote team problem-solving to strengthen bonds and share accountability for safety outcomes.
3. Recognize Positive Behaviours: Reinforce safe actions with acknowledgment and appreciation, triggering dopamine responses and encouraging repetition.
4. Reduce Stressors: Address workplace stressors like excessive workload or poor leadership to minimize cortisol-driven negative cycles.

By leveraging these principles, you can create a safety culture rooted in psychological safety and mutual support, enhancing both individual wellbeing and collective performance.

Key Findings on the Social Experience

The social experience of safety thrives at the team level, where relationships and mutual accountability shine. Key strengths include:

• Team-Level Support: Employees feel supported by their peers and supervisors, fostering a sense of trust and shared responsibility for safety.
• Mutual Accountability: Teams actively monitor and reinforce each other’s safety practices, creating a collaborative safety culture.
• Safety Citizenship Behaviours: Strong team bonds correlate with discretionary safety actions, such as helping colleagues work safely and identifying risks proactively.

These strengths demonstrate the powerful role of interpersonal connections in creating a positive and engaged safety climate.

While the team-level social experience is a strength, challenges often arise at the organizational level. Notable gaps include:

• Recognition and Reward: Organizations frequently lack consistent systems to recognize and reward positive safety behaviours, leaving employees feeling undervalued.
• Fair Handling of Mistakes: A culture of blame persists in many workplaces, discouraging employees from reporting errors or near-misses that could provide valuable learning opportunities.
• Employee Input: Limited opportunities for workers to participate in safety-related decision-making erode engagement and trust.
• Communication Gaps: Collaboration across teams and departments is often weak, leading to siloed efforts and an “us vs. them” mentality.

Addressing these areas can unlock the full potential of the social experience, transforming safety from an obligation into a collective commitment.

The Social Paradox

At the team level, employees often report feeling supported and valued. Teams naturally build trust and foster collaboration through close, daily interactions. Supervisors play a key role in reinforcing this dynamic, creating environments where safety is a shared responsibility.

However, this sense of support often diminishes at the organizational level. Research shows employees frequently perceive a gap between team-level collaboration and broader organizational practices. Policies like reward systems, mistake management, and decision-making processes can feel disconnected from the realities of frontline work, eroding trust and engagement.

Risks of Disconnect: The “Us vs. Them” Mentality

When employees feel their immediate teams are supportive but the larger organization is not, an "us vs. them" mentality can emerge. This disconnect creates several risks:

• Breakdowns in Cross-Team Collaboration: Teams may operate in silos, hindering communication and coordination on broader safety goals.
• Erosion of Trust: A lack of alignment between team-level experiences and organizational practices undermines employees' faith in leadership.
• Reduced Safety Performance: Without cohesive organizational support, safety efforts may stagnate or even regress, despite strong team-level performance.

Addressing this paradox requires organizations to align their culture and practices with the strong social bonds found within teams, fostering a unified and collaborative safety experience across all levels.

Strategies to Enhance the Social Experience of Safety

Enhancing the social experience of safety requires targeted strategies that address the human dynamics of the workplace. By focusing on practical, actionable steps, organizations can create an environment where trust, collaboration, and engagement thrive. Below are key approaches to fostering a positive social safety culture.

1. Reward and Recognition: Motivating the Right Behaviours - Recognition programs are most effective when they are personalized and meaningful. By linking recognition to specific safety behaviours, organizations can encourage positive actions while avoiding unintended consequences like underreporting.
2. Fair Management of Mistakes: Learning, Not Blaming - To foster a culture of continuous improvement, organizations must address mistakes constructively. This means shifting from a blame-driven approach to one that views errors as opportunities for learning.
3. Employee Inclusion in Decision-Making: Engaging the Frontline - Involving employees in safety-related decisions strengthens their commitment and ensures practical solutions. Transparent processes and genuine consultation build trust and engagement.
4. Cross-Team Collaboration: Building Bridges Across Departments - Strong connections between teams enhance communication and accountability, reducing silos and fostering a shared commitment to safety.

Enhancing the social experience of safety requires targeted actions that address recognition, accountability, inclusion, and collaboration. The following practices can help foster trust, engagement, and a stronger safety culture.

Key Practices:

• Make Recognition Personal - Tailor rewards to individuals’ preferences and contributions. Acknowledge proactive safety behaviours, such as identifying hazards or helping colleagues, through meaningful methods like professional development opportunities or public praise.
• Shift to Non-Punitive Mistake Management - Implement systems that encourage open reporting of mistakes and near-misses without fear of blame. Leaders should focus on uncovering systemic causes and use incidents as learning opportunities to drive improvement.
• Close the Feedback Loop - Actively involve employees in decision-making through surveys, forums, or workshops. Communicate clearly how their input is used - or explain why it isn’t - building transparency and trust.
• Encourage Peer Mentoring Across Teams - Facilitate mentoring programs or inter-departmental projects that address shared safety challenges. These initiatives strengthen relationships and break down silos between teams.
• Model Collaborative Leadership - Leaders should visibly engage with teams across departments, demonstrating a commitment to shared safety goals. This sets a tone of trust and collaboration throughout the organization.

By embedding these practices into daily operations, you can create a cohesive and inclusive safety culture where everyone plays a vital role and has 'skin in the game'.

The Role of Leaders in Shaping the Social Experience

Leaders play a pivotal role in defining and nurturing the social experience of safety. Their behaviours directly influence how employees perceive safety and their sense of belonging within the organization.

Key Leadership Actions

• Model Open Communication: Leaders who encourage dialogue and actively listen foster trust and transparency. This makes employees feel safe sharing concerns and ideas.
• Build Trust Through Consistency: Consistent actions and responses from leaders create a sense of reliability and fairness, essential for a supportive safety culture.
• Be Visible and Engaged: Leaders who are present and actively involved in safety initiatives show employees that safety is a shared priority.

Top-performing organizations from the report demonstrate how leadership can enhance the social experience of safety:

• Encouraging Transparency: In one organization, leaders implemented non-punitive mistake reporting systems, transforming errors into learning opportunities and reinforcing trust.
• Promoting Team Collaboration: Another company focused on cross-team safety projects, where leaders actively participated, breaking down silos and fostering unity.
• Recognizing Positive Behaviours: Leaders in a high-performing workplace developed personalized recognition programs, celebrating employees who went above compliance to improve safety.

These examples highlight how leadership behaviours can shape a culture where safety is not just a policy but a shared responsibility and value. Leaders who engage meaningfully with their teams set the foundation for a thriving safety culture.

Navigating Organizational Resistance: Overcoming Scepticism and Inertia

Shifting toward a holistic approach to safety often encounters resistance from within. Scepticism may stem from a lack of understanding about the importance of social safety, while inertia is fuelled by entrenched practices and priorities focused solely on physical safety.

Strategies to Address Resistance:

• Educate and Advocate: Use data and case studies to demonstrate the tangible benefits of enhancing the social experience of safety, such as improved engagement and reduced incidents.
• Engage Stakeholders: Involve leaders and employees in conversations about why change is necessary and how it aligns with organizational goals.
• Start Small: Pilot programs or initiatives that showcase quick wins can help build credibility and momentum.

Even when initial improvements are made, the challenge lies in embedding these changes into the fabric of the organization. Without sustained focus, progress can stagnate.

Strategies to Maintain Momentum:

• Embed Social Safety in Systems: Incorporate practices like team collaboration and mistake management into formal policies and training programs.
• Regularly Measure and Reflect: Use tools such as employee surveys and learning teams to track progress and identify areas for refinement.
• Celebrate Success: Highlight milestones and success stories to keep employees and leaders motivated and invested in the journey.

By addressing resistance head-on and creating systems to sustain progress, you can ensure that the social experience of safety becomes a lasting and integral part of their culture.

The social experience of safety is not a secondary consideration - it is a foundational element of workplace culture that directly influences safety performance, mental health, and employee engagement. Ignoring it risks fostering disconnection, distrust, and missed opportunities for improvement.

Prioritizing the social experience means creating environments where trust thrives, communication flows freely, and collaboration becomes second nature. It’s about moving beyond compliance to cultivate a culture of care and safety citizenship.

Leaders are the catalysts for this transformation. By embedding social safety into organizational strategies, they can ensure that physical, social, and psychological safety work in harmony.

Next Steps for Leaders:

• Align social safety initiatives with organizational goals for wellbeing and performance.
• Lead by example, fostering open communication and trust within teams and across departments.
• Invest in training and tools that enable employees to contribute meaningfully to safety outcomes.

The path to a thriving safety culture begins with a commitment to valuing the social experience. When employees feel supported and included, safety becomes not just a priority but a shared purpose. The result is a workplace where everyone can do their best work - and go home safely.