HR can create the strategy, commission the training and measure the impact. But psychological safety cannot be delegated to HR. It is created in thousands of everyday interactions between managers and their teams. The way a supervisor responds when someone admits they've made a mistake. A manager deciding whether to shut down a difficult conversation or stay curious. These moments are where psychological safety is either strengthened or eroded.

When psychological safety is low, your HR metrics will show:

‼️ People start looking elsewhere and handing in resignations
‼️ Performance dips
‼️ Conflict increases
‼️ Absence becomes more noticeable

Here is a quick diagnostic to assess whether you need to take action to prevent these commercial costs:

1. Do employees tell managers when they have made a mistake?

2. Do junior employees challenge more senior colleagues when they see a problem?

3. Do managers actively invite dissenting views?

4. Are your managers able to regulate their own responses when under pressure?

5. Are you measuring psychological safety alongside absence, retention and engagement?

If the answers to these questions are mainly "no", book a call with us today to discuss what psychological safety could look like for your company.

We round up the important news relating to people risk, so you don't have to. Here are our top picks from the last month:

💡 This thoughtful article weighs up whether wellbeing is more important than profit, or whether profit should come first. It takes a balanced view from a philosophical and moral standpoint, but on one thing it is clear: "In ordinary conditions a well-treated workforce is a productive, loyal and creative one, and the interests of people and profit rise together. The businesses that insist on choosing between them are frequently making an error, not a hard trade-off."

💡 We don't always have to use the language of psychological safety to implement it. This article from HR Executive summarises nicely the evidence that engagement is declining, that this is impacting business bottom lines, and that the solution is to "communicate openly, give employees a genuine voice and build cultures grounded in trust and purpose". That is the definition of psychological safety.

💡 Genius HRTech conducted a large study that showed a gap between wellbeing initiatives and their implementation. The conclusion echoes our sentiment from this newsletter: "Employee wellbeing cannot be treated as just a policy document or an annual initiative. It is experienced through everyday interactions, how managers communicate, whether employees feel trusted, how contributions are recognised and whether people feel safe speaking about challenges. The findings reinforce that organisations need to move from having wellbeing policies to creating workplace cultures where those policies are lived" - Genius HRTech chairman R P Yadav.