The central role of relationship as the enabler of safer workplaces

At the 23rd World Congress on Safety & Health at Work a strong theme emerged—at least for me as I picked through the dialogue.

Tom Oxley gave an outstanding introduction to the afternoon’s psychological safety session… focusing the audience’s attention on the brain’s innate need to do what it is so profoundly equipped to do (my recap)—scan the faces, voices, words and communication signals from others to identify in each moment whether we are safe or vulnerable.

Our fundamental need to feel safe with each other, to experience acceptance and belonging, directs, each moment, our brain’s cognitive resources. When we experience social threat—through even subtle patterned behaviours of rejection and exclusion—our inherently social brains will redirect resources towards threat response and away from important executive functions in the pre-frontal cortex—collapsing our ability to listen, process, consider, discuss, create, problem-solve and make good decisions.

Psychological safety is the necessary condition for our effectiveness, performance and wellbeing at work.

Please take a moment to reflect on that statement. It is incredibly important. Building on some of the Congress session themes, I want to make sense of this topic described by Oxley as one of the most in-demand of the Congress.

The terms psychosocial safety and psychological safety are commonly used interchangeably. However, not only are they not interchangeable concepts (now I’m going to say something controversial), I believe that—without taking an integrated approach—they are at risk of working against each other.

Psychosocial safety represents a broad church of effort to improve the organisational, operational, physical and social conditions of the workplace. It proposes that by addressing psychosocial hazards (such as work design, role clarity, workload, role equity, job stress, bullying) we ultimately improve social, relational and psychological wellbeing at work.

Psychological safety represents the individual interpersonal wellbeing needs of the worker. It proposes that by improving social and relational safety at work we unlock our ability to do our jobs. Psychological safety is necessary to tackle problems and achieve outcomes—including, by extension, addressing and decreasing psychosocial hazards.

Taking an approach that integrates these two concepts is vital to achieving systemic organisational and cultural change, and avoid a great deal of confusion over which is the chicken and which is the egg.

Hence the National Psychosocial Safety Network recommends an integrated model as, similarly, the Global Centre for Healthy Workplaces (GCHW) recommends a holistic, comprehensive model to psychosocial safety and psychological safety.

How do we achieve this? By placing relationship at the centre of the model.

Here are three themes from the Congress the pave roads back to the central role of relationship as the enabler of safer workplaces for everyone.