In a recent virtual roundtable, Don Rheem, founder of CultureID and a recognized authority on workplace leadership, led a discussion on a critical yet often overlooked factor in manufacturing success: psychological safety. This dynamic and engaging conversation provided leaders with a valuable opportunity to connect, share insights, and uncover strategies to foster a safer, more productive work environment.
The Missing Piece in Workplace Success
Rheem defines this not as a soft, feel-good notion but as a measurable, brain-based condition that affects employee performance, well-being, and the bottom line. Employees who feel safe, free from fear and undue stress, demonstrate enhanced cognitive function, which boosts creativity, problem-solving, and decision-making capabilities. Conversely, the absence of safety has severe consequences.
Consider the data: employees without psychological safety are 80% more likely to experience workplace injuries. Rheem cited a company that implemented numerous safety training interventions without success (such as hazard identification, regular maintenance and inspection, PPE, etc.) until psychological safety was established, highlighting that fear and shame can undermine the best safety protocols.
How Psychological Safety Impacts the Bottom Line
Psychological safety is also critical for engagement, which in turn affects a company’s financial health. Disengagement, prevalent in 49% of employees at typical manufacturing firms surveyed by CultureID, can equate to losses up to $9.43 million annually in a company of 1,000. This staggering financial impact highlights the need for a strategic focus on mental well-being as a core aspect of organizational health.
How Leaders Can Foster Psychological Safety
Leaders face specific challenges in manufacturing, where the appearance of toughness and resilience are often valued over emotional well-being. And yet, the behaviors that create psychological safety such as trust, respect, validation, and recognition trigger beneficial hormonal releases like dopamine and oxytocin while also promoting motivation, collaboration, and effective problem-solving.
Strategies to Bridge the Gap
Overcoming this disconnect between not wanting but needing psychological safety requires a shift in mindset to recognize it as a biological necessity. Leaders can encourage this shift by:
Providing regular team check-ins, anonymous feedback channels, and allow concerns to be shared without fear of retaliation.
Recognizing and rewarding psychological safety behaviors. Celebrate privately and publicly when someone is able to admit a mistake or speak up about safety risks. You don’t have to name names, you can focus on the behaviors instead.
Providing training to leaders and employees on the value of psychological safety. Let them see firsthand why it’s as critical as any other policy, process, or expectation in the workplace.
Turning Awareness into Action: Strategies to Sustain Psychological Safety
Once you have a clear path to build psychological safety, you can maintain it by implementing continuous improvement strategies and regular reassessments of workplace culture. Suggestions from the roundtable facilitator and its forward-thinking participants included:
Conducting regular, interactive sessions such as quarterly town-hall meetings to foster dialogue, transparency, and trust between management and staff.
Training managers to be effective active listeners, ensuring employees feel heard.
Promoting an empathetic culture that values learning from mistakes over assigning blame, creating an environment conducive to risk-taking and open discussion.
Demonstrating appreciation and care, not only through words but through actions, ensuring employees feel genuinely valued.
Maintaining transparency at all corporate levels, making clear that mistakes are part of learning and growth.
Creating moments of relatability between senior leaders and employees to enhance feelings of safety and inclusion.
The shift toward psychological safety in manufacturing is not just about adopting new policies but transforming workplace culture to prioritize mental health and well-being alongside traditional measures of success. Embracing this shift will foster the kind of thriving workforce manufacturing needs and deserves.
Want to stay connected to this conversation? Join our Manufacturing Leadership Lab group on LinkedIn and contribute your own ideas and reactions to this critical topic.
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