Are Leaders Lost: in the workplace ‘safety’ maze?
Physical Safety
Psychosocial Safety
Cultural Safety
Psychological Safety
How do you feel when you’re asked to explain the differences between each of these different types of workplace safety?
In the conversations I’ve been having with leaders and HR professionals, it’s evident there is an understandable degree of confusion about the differences between these 4, similar sounding, foundations of workplace culture.
And, as one HR leader inquired recently, “how do I bring the new legal requirements and cultural best practices together in a singular cohesive package, to support time-poor leaders?”
Just as importantly, they said, “it needs to be practical and pragmatic for leaders to implement.”
By giving leaders the skills to embed these important foundations in their teams, there are material performance benefits and cultural competitive advantage to be gained.
The Solution is Simpler than we might Imagine
There are 5 behaviours, (a literal handful) which the evidence confirms leaders and teams use every day, and support physical, psychosocial, cultural and psychological safety.
It all starts with R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Respect is a cultural superpower. Without respect, there is an absence of human dignity.
In an analysis of 150 culture enablers, respect was 17.9 times more predictive of workplace culture than the next most significant culture factor.(1) This reinforces the rationale behind the new Respect @ Work and other recent legislation updates. Designed to create a new minimum workplace standard, which promotes productive, innovative and high performance organisations, respect is the driver of all we strive for in modern workplaces.
Respect is the basis on which all 4 types of workplace safety are founded.
“inclusion is the feeling of belonging in your organization and team, feeling treated with dignity as an individual, and feeling encouraged to fully participate and bring your uniqueness to work every day.”
Bain & Company
The 4 Laws of Workplace Safety in ‘Lay Terms’ for Leaders
3 of the 4 ‘laws’ of workplace safety are detailed in legislation.
Unlike the legislated laws where the ‘law is the floor’, below which you cannot go without ethical, financial or professional implications, Psychological Safety, is discretionary. As a result of the vital role it plays in the success of high performance, innovative teams, however, it has become the equivalent of a ‘non-negotiable team law’, a necessity for all modern teams.
According to the legislated workplace safety laws, in lay terms, managers and organisations are required to:
identify hazards in the workplace
assess the risks those hazards create
eliminate or minimise them as much as possible.
Helpfully, there is guidance around interpretations of what is considered reasonably practical, and different categories of risks and penalties associated with a failure to comply.
What are the 4 Laws of Workplace Safety?
It is worth noting, that each of the 4 types of workplace safety come with their own unique contribution to revenue and / or profit, and support wellbeing & belonging, and personal productivity & performance.
Physical Safety: physical human harm is relatively easy to understand because of the visible nature of it. However, culture plays an important role in how seriously it is taken. The traditionally male dominated, ‘heavy industries’, for example, have been particularly prone to a sometimes ‘cavalier’ attitude towards workplace safety.
In an effort to limit the impact of these historically ‘macho’ environments, organisations, such as BHP and Bunnings have experimented with, and found, gender balanced teams are safer teams. And as we know, workplaces with a greater presence of women in leadership also reap substantial financial rewards.(2)
Psychosocial Safety: covers 4 aspects of the workplace environment, including work design, social support, work conditions and work experience. Psychosocial Safety is the fastest growing type of work health and safety claim, as well as being the most costly.(3)
Introduced to mitigate the inherent risks of modern workplaces, it’s not just white collar workplaces which are prone to psychosocial hazards.
The tangible and intangible costs associated with a lack of psychosocial safety are significant, an estimated $6B per annum.(4)
Copyright I LEAD Consulting The Workplace Safety Maze
Cultural Safety: refers to the creation of a workplace where everyone can be open-minded and flexible towards people from cultures other than their own.(3) Whilst our First Nations people are particularly vulnerable, Australia, as one of the most multicultural nations in the world, needs to ensure we embrace all cultures and faiths.(5)
Cultural Safety is critical to attracting and retaining diverse teams, which are the foundations on which the highest performing teams are built and ‘diversity dividends’ are achieved.(6, 7)
Diverse teams only outperform homogeneous teams, however, when there is a mature degree of Psychological Safety and inclusion present.(8)
Psychological Safety: is the number 1 contributor to innovation and performance in teams.(9) Whilst not a legal requirement, it has become a foundational workplace ‘law’, which the tech and creative industries are particularly renowned for unlocking. This cultural ‘Inclusion Index’, is a multiplier of team intelligence, as a result of the entrepreneurial and ‘speak up’ culture it promotes.(5, 10)
This highly inclusive culture, also plays an important role in creating an environment where personal wellbeing and professional belonging thrive.(5)
The Critical Cultures enabled by the Workplace Safety Environment
The environment created by leaders and team members is vital to trust and performance.(11)
There are 2 important elements which drive team performance in the workplace. On the diagram below, the vertical axis charts the amount of respect & stretch team members are afforded as they perform their work. The horizontal axis demonstrates the impact of the amount of safety & permission team members experience as a result of their leaders’ and team members’ behaviours.
Copyright I LEAD Consulting The Safety Frame*
Where would you place a lack of Respect on the Safety Frame above?
If you said lower left, you would be correct. In the ‘Exclusion Zone’ there may be a sense of fear, or even futility because people have given up hope of consistently receiving respect.
In the Exclusion Zone, incivility and passive / aggressive behaviours are common and there’s a high degree of interpersonal risk.(5) As a result, people commonly operate in ‘F-state’ (flawed, fast, furious, frantic and frenetic) which reinforces a rules-based, risk averse environment where people keep their ‘heads down’ and play it safe.(12)
Not surprisingly, all 4 types of workplace safety are compromised in this zone.
Progressing from Respect to Inclusion
At the intersection of the 2 axes of I LEAD Consulting’s Safety Frame*, is the Inclusion Zone. It’s here that people operate in C-State (connected, calm, caring, curious, creative and candid) and all 4 types of workplace safety start to thrive.
The Inclusion Zone is characterised by team members who have established sufficient comfort and connection with each other, which enables constructive collaboration.(13)
Respect for each individual is the foundation on which trust is built, together with a belief team members will treat one another fairly.(13)
This is where the delicate foundations of team belonging are born, and wellbeing in the workplace occurs.(13, 14) It’s also where diversity flourishes or fails.(5)
As you would expect, the increase in interpersonal connection and care in this zone, provides the foundations for all 4 types of workplace safety.
As teams build greater trust and connection, they start to value their members for their unique skills and strengths.(13) They align around a common purpose and develop similar values and an identity of their own. Consequently, they work constructively and productively together, giving one another more latitude and autonomy over time.(15)
The further into C-State teams move, the more they become curious and seek to stretch the boundaries. As trust and the ability to ‘speak up’ matures, collective intelligence is enhanced, and so too, is wellbeing and belonging. (5, 13, 14, 15)
The innate human need to matter and make a difference, facilitates the innovation that creates new products and revenue growth. It also supports improvements which facilitate productivity and profitability. It’s environments with these characteristics which are exemplars of the U.S. Surgeon General’s definition of Workplace Wellbeing.
U.S Surgeon General Model of Workplace Wellbeing
The Letter of the Law meets the Spirit of the Law
The further teams travel up the respect & stretch, and safety & permission axes of The Safety Frame, the more we inoculate them against physical, psychosocial and cultural risks and hazards.(5)
Perhaps surprisingly for some, it’s clear the legal minimums of respect and safety have become the catalyst for codifying cultural competitive advantage. As culture is notoriously difficult to replicate, we should not underestimate the value of this. The foundations of the 4 types of Workplace Safety, guide leaders on how to achieve cultural advantage consciously and consistently. Helpfully it paves the way for a mature level of Psychological Safety, and its associated benefits.(5)
The consistent application of the 5 team behaviours; respect, connection, collaboration, curiosity and challenge, are responsible for enabling the highest of high performing teams. ie diverse, inclusive and safe.(5)
Copyright I LEAD Consulting
By embracing the spirit of the law, in addition to the letter of the law, we have the ability to create healthier and happier humans, thriving teams, inclusive organisations and a more cohesive and trusting society, with opportunities for everyone equally.
How will you support your leaders to navigate the maze and reap the rewards of the 4 types of workplace safety?
Learn more about our I LEAD Workplace Safety™ program.
At I LEAD Consulting we’re on a mission to simplify Diversity and Inclusion for Leaders and Teams.
PRACTICE INCLUSION | EMBRACE DIVERSITY | ACTIVATE ALLIES
*years of unpaid time and research whilst experiencing domestic violence have gone into the development of The Safety Frame. If you wish to use it in your work or writing, please reference Travers-Wolf and I LEAD Consulting.
Sources: 1. Sull & Sull; 2. Workplace Gender Equality Agency; 3. Safework Australia; 4. Becher & Dollard, University of South Australia; 5. ILEAD Consulting; 6. McKinsey; 7. BCG; 8. Page; 9. Edmondson; 10. Wiseman; 11. Zak; 12. Hallowell; 13. Deloitte; 14. McQuaid; 15. Clark
