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How to Build Psychological Safety

More than a year into a global pandemic, how are employees feeling and what impact do those sentiments have on psychological safety at work? This report summarizes findings from a Workhuman survey.

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Have you ever witnessed something at work that just didn’t sit right with you? Did you voice your concern or keep it to yourself? How easy is it sharing feedback with your colleagues?

Your answers to these questions are largely dependent on the amount of psychological safety present in your team. Harvard professor Amy Edmondson defines psychological safety as “a shared belief that I can bring my full self to work, that I will not be humiliated or made to feel less good about myself if I speak up with ideas, with questions, with concerns, and yes, even with mistakes.”

Now is the time to bring this to the current work landscape. How are employees feeling? What impact does this have on psychological safety in our organizations? Are there opportunities to improve? The Workhuman research team set out to answer these questions and more in a survey administered to more than 3,000 U.S. workers in March 2021. This report summarizes those findings.

Want to learn more about building a psychologically safe workplace? Dr. Meisha-ann Martin, Workhuman's director of people analytics, breaks it down in this video.