Dr. Curtis Odom is an Associate Professor of Management at Northeastern University and the Managing Partner of Prescient Strategists.
In my recent executive coaching conversations, several clients who are senior leaders talked about their efforts in the building of a space and a place for psychological safety for today’s workforce. The expectations of today’s workforce around mental health support and the concept of psychological safety have expanded to include creating a climate where employees feel physically safe. These clients shared that they feel their company does care about their well-being while they all reported personally hearing loud and clear that employees are feeling burned out at work. This has an impact on a person’s well-being, which can create a psychologically unsafe environment.
The overarching theme at this moment with mental health concerns seems to be centered around anxiety and depression. Many of us can think about a time when work was so stressful that maybe we lost sleep, were skipping meals or had our health affected in some way. Or perhaps we even lost a job and that impacted our financial well-being. There are many ways in which the aspects of our work can impact our well-being. Things that happen at work can bleed into our homes—and vice versa, our home lives affect our work. With this connection between different parts of our lives, it makes sense when people say that their work is impacting their mental health.
With an origin in working from home during the height of the pandemic continuing with many of us still working remotely, we’ve seen a blurring of the lines and a clear bi-directional relationship where work can really impact mental health. While some people’s mental health improves when working from home, others would argue that employees working away from company headquarters can negatively impact mental health. A physical office can be a place of refuge for some who struggle with mental health, whether it’s a mental illness or persistent feelings of anxiety that are getting worse over time. This isn’t always the case, however, which means rather than focusing on remote, hybrid or in-person work, leaders should focus on psychological safety overall.
When teams or organizations have high psychological safety, there’s a better opinion and feeling about the culture. Being able to talk about your feelings, what you’re going through or just the desire to be in a place where you can be your authentic self can help teams flourish and do their best.
In a psychologically safe space, there’s more information sharing, better decision-making, creativity, innovation and increased performance. With a better sense of emotional well-being at work, returning employees can appreciate feeling included. An online article by SHRM highlights areas of focus when trying to shore up psychological safety for remote workers. New hires, for example, may feel isolated from the team and need additional support to feel psychologically safe in their role.
In any work environment, stress can flourish. Research from Deloitte released in September 2022 “found the workplace to be a top stressor, with 47 percent affected respondents experiencing workplace-related stress. While deadlines, heavy workloads, poor team cultures and lack of recognition and job satisfaction have always existed and contributed to workplace-related stress, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic accentuated and introduced new avenues.”
To better equip managers, there are a few recommendations for organizations to support their managers in being allies and advocates for employee well-being and psychological safety:
• Coach managers to get to know their team members. For those in a large company, understand that this can be easier said than done. It may be easier for a small team than a large team.
• Mentor managers to model the behaviors that they want to see. So if a manager is willing, they should be mindful of their own boundaries as a manager, talk about how they are doing and share some of their own experiences. This can set the tone. The team can be put at ease knowing they will not be judged if they talk about how they are doing personally. Avoid conflicting messaging, making sure that leadership is approachable and available.
• Develop training and a set of best practices for managers. They’re most often not trained or licensed as mental health professionals. While some companies are starting to increase psychological and mental health literacy, they all need to begin teaching staff how to spot signs of anxiety and depression.
• Create standard operating procedures for managers. Take the guesswork out of what to do in the case of an accommodation. What are the accommodation options? How does a manager know how to offer the right thing? Should managers work together with their HR group to do that? Having standard operating procedures for your organization allows every manager to know exactly what steps to take when assisting in real time.
• Equip managers to have that conversation in an empathetic way. Many times, it’s very personal and there’s a lot of vulnerability involved. Active listening is key so that they can best help their team members.
Leaders are the first line of care for their team members, and many are making the extra effort to create a safe place for employees to talk about their concerns. Leaders are the shifters of culture and are called on to model the cultural values of their company. If an organization encourages its leaders to take a climate of psychological safety and embed it into the culture, those leaders should be supported in modeling the appropriate behavior. We all should think about our own personal boundaries, and in order to do that, it means leaders will need to do a little bit of self-reflection and think about what they are going through.
In organizations where leaders are transparent and encouraging of people who want to talk about their mental health and emotional well-being, they will see their team show up as their best at work, which is beneficial for the employee both at work and at home.
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