9 Ways Quality Check-Ins Can Help Improve Psychological Safety for Your Team
Table of contents
- Expand the scope of your discussions
- Encourage employees to share openly
- Monitor employees’ workloads
- Take action and follow up immediately
- Provide timely and frequent recognition
- Offer rewards for a job well done
- Create a feedback loop
- Build trust and honor confidentiality
- Humanize your workplace
- Conclusion
It’s often been said that employees don’t leave jobs, they leave managers. Strengthening the manager-employee relationship can make a world of difference in an employee’s day-to-day experience of work, as well as the length of their tenure. Building these relationships can often begin with something as simple as improving the value of your one-on-one meetings.
Read on to learn nine ways to foster psychological safety through quality check-ins with your employees.
Expand the scope of your discussions
It’s important for your employees to understand that you value them for who they are as people, not simply their work output or direct contributions to your organization. Asking questionsOpens in a new tab about their pets, classes they may be taking, or their recent vacations shows that you value each of them as a holistic person, not just a conduit for business outcomes.
Even simple icebreakers like “what was the best thing you ate this week?” can spark fun conversations that break up the monotony of the workday and build jumping off-points for deepening your relationship in the future. There’s no need to overshare or ask any questions that feel overly personal.
Simply shifting the conversation to lighthearted, fun topics is enough to humanize their experience, and may help assuage nerves for employees who feel awkward or intimidated during these meetings.
Encourage employees to share openly
The first priority of 1:1 meetings should be to check in on the status of current projects and discuss any pain points or roadblocks that may be hindering productivity. Employees may be tempted to hold back this information for fear of burdening managers with very real product, process, or even interpersonal issues for fear of seeming “dramatic” or “difficult.”
Creating a safe, nurturing space where employees can share these things will not only help strengthen lines of communication but also help decrease stress and increase productivity. This is especially true when multiple employees bring the same issue to your attention, whether that’s specific roadblocks in processes or personnel problems with a specific employee.
In these cases, your employees’ candor can help you solve problems you may not have otherwise been aware of.
Monitor employees’ workloads
Employees may also be hesitant to share details on a packed or unmanageable workload for fear of being perceived as unequipped for their role or unable to keep up. By showing genuine concern for how many hours they’re putting into projects or how stressed they feel in an average week, you can help safeguard against a culture of burnout and high employee turnover.
No one wants to work at a company where long nights and weekend hours are a constant expectation. It’s your job as a manager to set realistic project deadlines, delegate work fairly and effectively, and make sure that no one feels pressured to perform up to completely unrealistic standards or quotas.
Take action and follow up immediately
It’s a terrible feeling for employees when they share problems with their managers and then don’t see any action taken to address those issues. This can leave employees feeling like they were honest and vulnerable for no reason and ultimately erode trust in higher leadership.
By taking immediate action on issues, you can demonstrate to your employees that their wellbeing is your utmost priority. This will help them feel seen, heard, and cared for, building both trust and psychological safety at work. This can also encourage them to stay with the company longer, as they know management takes their concerns seriously and is well-equipped to help them.
Provide timely and frequent recognition
So much of our lives are spent at work. It’s extremely important for employees to know that their contributions are valued and appreciated. We all make so many personal sacrifices to show up at work every day, and simply acknowledging and praising successes can make that feel “worth it” for employees.
Knowing their contributions are seen, counted, and valued can bolster psychological safety in powerful and profound ways. A simple “thank you” or “great job” can make a world of difference to an employee who’s feeling overworked and unnoticed.
Offer rewards for a job well done
While simple words of gratitude and acknowledgment can go a long way for an employee who’s feeling stressed or undervalued, rewards can provide an even stronger “boost” to surprise and delight your employees.
Programs like Workhuman's Social Recognition® are extremely successful at motivating employees by allowing them to choose the rewards they find most valuable. It can feel especially exciting to earn a reward they wouldn’t have purchased for themselves or potentially even been able to afford otherwise.
Create a feedback loop
A feedback session should never just involve a manager speaking at their employee. It should always be a two-way conversation with the goal of creating meaningful, measurable change on both sides. Managers who don’t solicit feedback from employees can be perceived as hierarchical and domineering.
On the other hand, leading with grace, humility, and no ego will help build a more symbiotic relationship with your employees. Showing your openness to receiving constructive feedback may make it easier in the future when employees need to receive constructive feedback from you.
By communicating this way, you will model for employees that a feedback loop is necessary for both personal and professional growth.
Build trust and honor confidentiality
Over time, employees may feel more comfortable speaking openly with you during these one-on-one meetings. As this happens, it is imperative that you don’t share the information relay in confidence with anyone else in the organization, outside of taking necessary steps to resolve issues within the workplace.
For example, if an employee is having massive issues with another employee and wants the situation mediated or even escalated to HR, it’s your job to support them through those processes. However, speaking to other managers or employees about these issues that were shared with you in confidence is neither helpful nor appropriate. The same is true for any personal or medical information that may be shared with you.
Humanize your workplace
Today’s world of work doesn’t need to involve the stuffy, authoritarian, overly formal rituals of past generations. In fact, dedicated one-on-one time is the perfect opportunity to fit genuine, enriching experiences into the workday.
Download our exclusive report, The Evolution of Work: The Value of an Employee-First Culture, and uncover invaluable insights into what your employees need to cultivate a thriving workplace.
If you’re in the office, consider having a walking meeting outside to get some fresh air together and break up the day. If you’re stuck indoors, taking the time to grab a cup of coffee and a sweet treat together can make a normal meeting feel like a much warmer and more personable interaction.
While they may seem like very small things, these little moments of joy and connection can really add up over time to build stronger, more enduring workplace relationships. This can completely alter employee satisfaction rates, team morale, and, ultimately, turnover.
Conclusion
One-on-one meetings should never feel like a chore or another thing to be checked off on a to-do list. These meetings provide rare and valuable opportunities to deeply connect with your employees, help them with workflow issues, and get to know them better as holistic individuals.
By showing them how deeply you care for them, both as employees and as people, you can profoundly impact their sense of psychological safety.
Download our exclusive report on how to build psychological safety.
About the author
Anna Picagli
As a CYT500 yoga instructor and a certified reiki practitioner, Anna is an advocate for holistic wellness, especially within the workplace.
She’s extremely passionate about the brain-body connection and exploring how mental and physical wellness intersect.
Anna has experienced firsthand how chronic stress, overworking, poor management, and other organizational issues can lead to extreme burnout. Knowing the impact that a toxic work environment can have on a person’s body, psyche, and general sense of well-being, she now works to direct others away from facing the same fate.
As Workhuman’s Content Marketing Senior Specialist, Anna is a regular contributor to Workhuman iQ reports and aims to create resources that company leaders can reference to help improve their culture and empower their employees, creating healthier workplaces for everyone.
In her free time, she’s a voracious reader and a seasoned home chef. You can learn more about Anna’s work on LinkedIn or through the Yoga Alliance.