For decades, occupational health and safety has focused largely on the things we can see: a missing machine guard, a chemical exposure, a slippery floor, poor ergonomics or a worker without the proper protective equipment. We have become very good at asking a basic question: What in this workplace could hurt someone, and what can we do about it?
Psychological health and safety should be approached in exactly the same way. The challenge is that psychological hazards are often less visible. They can be found in workloads, deadlines, communication, workplace relationships, leadership behaviour, exclusion, unclear expectations and even the physical conditions in which people work.
That does not make them any less real. And it does not mean employers are being asked to manage the mental health of individual employees. That distinction is important.
in this article
01
Psychological health and safety is about the workplace
When we talk about psychological health and safety, we need to distinguish between mental health, mental illness and the effect that work itself can have on a worker’s psychological health. Occupational health and safety has never been about diagnosing workers. It is about identifying workplace factors that could cause harm.
Psychological health and safety is no different.
the question is not
“What is wrong with this employee?”
it is
“What is happening in this workplace that could negatively affect people, and what can we do to control it?”
That shift in thinking is fundamental. But psychological health and safety also gives us an opportunity that traditional hazard management does not always provide.
A physical hazard is generally negative. An unguarded machine is not going to become good for you if it is managed slightly differently. Psychosocial factors are different. They can have both positive and negative effects.
Take reward and recognition. If an employee works hard, goes the extra mile and receives genuine recognition, that experience can contribute positively to their psychological health. But if someone continually puts in extra effort and that effort is ignored, the same factor can begin to negatively affect them.
the resilience battery
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Every worker has a kind of resilience battery. Positive workplace experiences can help charge that battery. Negative experiences can drain it.
The goal is not to make employees into bigger batteries that can tolerate more and more bad workplace conditions.
The goal is to create workplaces that stop unnecessarily draining them.
02
Think of your workplace like a fish tank
Another metaphor I like is a fish tank. Think of the water in the tank as the psychological culture of your workplace.
If you notice the water becoming cloudy or algae beginning to grow and you deal with it early, the problem can usually be managed. Ignore it, and the conditions can deteriorate quickly. Workplace culture can operate the same way.
Small issues that are left unresolved become bigger issues.
Psychologically healthy and safe workplaces do not wait until someone is in crisis before acting.
They pay attention to the water.
03
There are more than 13 factors to consider
Canada’s National Standard on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace helped move this conversation forward by identifying important psychosocial factors. That work was extremely important.
But we should not assume there are only 13 things capable of affecting psychological health at work. I like to think about psychosocial conditions in three broad categories.
1
How work is organized and managed
Workload
Deadlines
How jobs are designed
Role clarity
Employees’ control or input into their work
Whether people have the resources to do their jobs
How work processes are structured
If employees are constantly being given unrealistic deadlines, conflicting instructions or more work than they can reasonably complete, those are not simply individual stress-management problems. They are workplace design issues.
3
The work environment itself
We also need to be careful not to separate physical health and psychological health too much. Health is health.
If I hurt my ankle, I do not suddenly have a separate category of personal health devoted exclusively to ankles. The same is true at work.
Lighting, noise, temperature, ergonomics, workplace design and physical safety can all influence how someone feels psychologically. Imagine working all day in a poorly designed workstation that causes constant physical pain.
Or working beside a machine you believe could shock or injure you every time you use it. That physical condition creates psychological stress. The two are interconnected.
04
Use the hierarchy of controls
One of the most useful things health and safety practitioners can do is apply familiar occupational health and safety principles to psychological hazards. We do not need to invent an entirely new safety system.
Start with the hierarchy of controls.
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select a level
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a random act of wellness
It may help. But hoping it helps is not a safety system.
resilience should never become an excuse for failing to control preventable workplace hazards
I do not want to build better punching bags.
05
Leadership may be the most important control
Leaders have an enormous influence on psychological health and safety. That begins with communication.
Leaders need to communicate openly and clearly, and they need to know how to have difficult conversations. Nobody particularly enjoys difficult conversations. That is why they are difficult.
But supervisors and managers must be capable of handling them in a psychologically safe way. That means being able to remain calm when an employee is upset, manage their own emotions and approach situations in a worker-centred and trauma-informed way.
There will still be disagreement.
There will still be performance issues.
There will still be conflict.
There will still be difficult days.
healthy does not mean perfect
The difference is that a psychologically healthy workplace deals with those situations in a psychologically safe way.
Leaders also need to be inclusive. People notice when they are being left out. They notice when information is withheld. They notice when certain employees receive opportunities and others do not.
And managers need enough time in their schedules to actually manage people. They need time to resolve conflict, provide support and simply check in.
no relationship before the crisis
If the only time an employee hears from their manager is when something has gone wrong, receiving a message from that manager eventually creates its own stress response:
“Uh-oh. What happened?”
knowing your people
Managers need relationships with their employees before there is a crisis. When you know your people, you are much more likely to notice when something changes. Sometimes one of the most useful things a leader can say is simply:
“You seem a little off today. Is everything okay?”
06
Workers have a role too
The employer has the primary responsibility for providing a healthy and safe workplace. But workers also need to participate in the health and safety system.
my number-one message to workers
Report concerns.
If a workplace hazard is not being reported, the organization may conclude that there is no problem. Employers therefore need safe, credible ways for people to speak up without fear.
Workers also influence one another. If we think again about charging and draining batteries, we should make a commitment that we will not be each other’s drain.
There is no reason for incivility. Basic dignity and respect should not be an ambitious workplace goal.
At the very least, do not make someone else’s day worse. Ideally, make it better.
I also encourage workers to take advantage of legitimate wellness supports available to them, whether that means an employee assistance program, fitness support, rest, healthy activities or other resources. Taking care of ourselves matters.
Work battery
Life battery
People have children, families, responsibilities, hobbies, chores and lives outside work.
Maintaining our overall health helps us deal with all of it. But once again, personal wellness programs cannot substitute for controlling hazards in the workplace.
07
Psychological safety is becoming a business and compliance issue
Employers should also recognize that psychological health and safety is moving beyond the category of “nice to have.” Around the world, jurisdictions are paying increasing attention to psychosocial hazards.
Australia and New Zealand have moved significantly in this area, and Canadian jurisdictions have also been moving toward stronger expectations around psychological safety.
That means employers should view psychological health and safety as both a health and safety issue and an increasingly important compliance issue.
There is also a strong business case. Consider presenteeism.
An employee may physically be at work but spend a significant amount of mental energy worrying about a conflict, an unreasonable manager, an upcoming confrontation or whether they are about to make a mistake. They are present. But part of their attention is somewhere else.
Healthy workplaces and productive workplaces are not competing ideas. Very often, they are the same thing.
08
Don’t be overwhelmed
For health and safety professionals who are beginning to work in psychological health and safety, my message is: do not be overwhelmed.
Much of what you already know still applies.
01
Identify hazards.
02
Assess risk.
03
Implement controls.
04
Measure what happened.
05
Improve.
The subject matter may be different, but the safety thinking is familiar. Take the time to understand psychosocial factors, including both their positive and negative dimensions.
Look beyond a fixed checklist. There are more factors affecting workers than any single list can capture.
And above all, resist the temptation to fix everything at once. Identify the most significant issue. Work on it. Do it well. Then move to the next one.
Use the same Plan-Do-Check-Act continual-improvement approach that works throughout occupational health and safety.
Psychological health and safety is not a destination that an organization suddenly reaches. It is a journey.
written by
Troy Winters
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