Learn how ensuring psychological safety in small businesses can benefit your business. Read our advice on supporting employee mental health.
A psychologically safe workplace is a crucial part of ensuring workers’ health and business success. Psychological safety is a non-negotiable when building an atmosphere of trust, openness, and mutual respect at work.
This is especially true for small businesses in Australia. Employee engagement remains high if employees don’t feel embarrassed for speaking out, sharing concerns, or admitting mistakes. They will also be more creative and cooperative. Your team addresses issues head on so everything runs smoothly across different departments. In short, supporting employee mental health is key to growing your business with lightning speed.
Psychological safety in small businesses is a moral and legal obligation, especially in high-risk environments. The laws in NSW stress how important it is to look out for your employee’s physical and mental health. So, businesses aiming for ISO 45001 should see psychological safety as an addition to the safety methods they already have. The ISO 45001 standard encourages a complete approach to safety. Including psychological safety in this framework can improve compliance and boost business success at the same time.
Small businesses in NSW often have trouble preventing psychological harm. This is all the more true when they use old tools like spreadsheets and disjointed cloud-based forms. So, how can small businesses make psychological safety a part of their OHS management? In this article, we’ll discuss how ISO 45001 can help create such a culture and suggest initial steps for making your workplace safer and healthier.
1. Include Your Workers in the Conversation
On February 1, 2003, when NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia hit the ground, it broke apart, killing all seven astronauts. Even though this disaster was caused by the inherent risks of space flight, it could have been avoided. Rodney Rocha, a NASA engineer, saw something strange on video footage from the launch day two weeks before. He thought that insulating foam had hit the left wing of the shuttle, but he couldn’t get his worries up the chain of command.
Rocha didn’t speak up even though he was sure there could be real harm. He later said that the strict order and mental pressure at NASA made him feel like he couldn’t speak. His words, “I just couldn’t do it,” bring up a common problem in the workplace: workers who feel like they can’t voice their worries, even when they know there is danger ahead.
This kind of thing can happen in small businesses too. Employees may see a safety problem, feel stressed, or be bullied but not speak up because they do not have the stomach for the consequences. They might also feel like their voice won’t matter or are intimidated. Here’s how to get your employees involved in conversations and ensure psychological safety:
Start the Dialogue
Encouraging open communication is the cornerstone of worker safety. A culture where employees feel safe to voice their concerns starts with leadership actively inviting feedback.
By asking the right questions, you can find possible stress points and hazards. Casual check-ins show employees that you value what they have to say. When leaders show interest in what their employees are going through, it makes it easier for people to speak up.
You might ask, “Are there any tasks you feel could be performed more safely?” Or, “What could we change to reduce stress or discomfort during your workday?” These simple, direct questions help create a safe environment while pushing people to be forthcoming.
Gather Insightful Feedback
To get useful information, you need to be able to listen well. It’s important to not only hear what workers are saying when they talk about their worries but also to understand what they mean and how they feel. People on the ground might have useful ideas about how to do tasks better than the management. For instance, an employee might say heavy lifting makes them tired, which could be a telltale sign of a bigger safety problem.
Get feedback using digital feedback platforms, surveys, or suggestion boxes where people can leave anonymous comments. Better yet, use a unified software like FocusIMS to gather data and track safety concerns.
Overcoming Barriers to Communication
Management often make it hard for people to speak up, even when they want to. Fear of retaliation, a hierarchical culture, or just the belief that bringing up problems will lead to conflict are some of these barriers. Rodney Rocha’s experience at NASA is a stark reminder of how these problems can make it hard for important information to get to the right people.
Small business leaders should work to flatten hierarchies and lower levels of bullying to make sure that everyone feels safe in their workplace. Leaders need to show others how to behave by being honest and responsible. All workers should be taught to give and receive constructive feedback as part of open communication. Psychological safety in small businesses means teaching people how to talk to each other in ways that help growth, not ones that stop it.
Peer-led discussions or focus groups are a good way to break down barriers to conversation. Talking to each other may help employees feel more comfortable telling the truth about safety issues, which can be brought to the management’s attention. Leaders can also work to make sure that constructive feedback is seen as a way to make things better and not as an attack.
2. Evaluate Worker Experiences
Ensuring psychological safety in small businesses entails dealing with problems early on. So, how can you evaluate worker experiences in a way that respects their privacy?
Identify Strengths and Struggles
Know where your employees excel and what they might struggle with. To begin, go over job roles and responsibilities. What tasks do your employees have that match their skills? Hold regular one-on-one meetings with them and ask them open-ended questions about their work, skills, and the areas where they feel challenged.
A skills audit is a useful way to find out. It lets you match workers’ strengths with what the business needs. You could also use staff surveys, like the Gallup Q12 survey, that asks about performance and well-being. This tool tells you your employee’s strengths and weaknesses, and how engaged they are.
Businesses that follow ISO 45001 are encouraged to identify these factors to stop stress and burnout at work. This will boost morale and productivity in the long run.
Use Feedback to Understand Stressors
You can find key areas of stress by using a mix of anonymous surveys, casual check-ins, and structured feedback meetings. ISO 45001 encourages companies to talk to their workers about improving health and safety. Part of this is getting to the bottom of what causes psychological stress, such as too much work, lacking control, or unclear expectations.
One good way is to set up a feedback loop where employees can share their worries without fear of being judged. By going over comments, you can find themes that keep coming up, like feeling overwhelmed by work, having problems with other people, or the mental stress of having to meet tight deadlines.
Use what you’ve learned from these conversations to plan how to deal with stressors. For instance, if stress is caused by outdated systems, find out what innovative tools are available to make processes more efficient.
Balance Privacy and Feedback Collection
It’s important to find a balance between getting feedback and protecting people’s privacy. When employees think their privacy is in danger, they might not want to share private information. Using polls with anonymous answers can be a great way to get honest feedback while keeping things private.
Privacy laws, such as the Australian Privacy Act 1988, state that data collection must follow certain rules. Let workers know how you will use their feedback, and promise their answers won’t be linked back to them. This openness builds trust and gives rise to more useful feedback, which can reveal psychological risks without violating privacy.
Lastly, as you get feedback, look for underlying trends. Look for patterns, like which departments are more stressed than others or concerns that keep coming up about the work environment. These insights will help you deal with psychological safety risks on a structural level while protecting employee privacy.
3. Make Meaningful Changes
To promote psychological safety in small businesses, make workers feel they can share their thoughts, ask questions, and admit when they’re wrong. Making small, thoughtful changes to how work is organised and how roles are managed is the best way to lower stress and make workplaces more helpful.
Consider these practical ways to make changes:
Rethink Rosters and Workloads
Changing schedules and distributing work can ease unnecessary stress, especially during busy times. A practical solution could be to hire more part-time workers for times when demand is high. You prevent burnout by spreading out the work more evenly. The Australian Institute of Health and Safety says that managing peak workloads is important for keeping workers’ mental health in good shape over the long term.
Task Rotation and Job Sharing
When employees do the same boring or hard jobs on repeat, they may be more likely to get mentally tired and burned out. This can be avoided by job sharing and rotating tasks. Task rotation changes an employee’s duties regularly to keep them interested and reduce stress. Job sharing, on the other hand, lets two or more employees share a role, which makes the job more flexible and satisfying.
By giving workers a sense of variety and control over their work, these changes can improve psychological safety. Having a variety of roles boosts drive and lowers tiredness.
Use HSEQ software to keep track of who is doing what, get a full picture of everyone’s job, and make sure the rotation process stays organised and clear.
Adjust Deadlines and Responsibility Structures
Stress happen when responsibility structures are unclear and schedules are too tight. Ensure delivery schedules are reasonable. Allow employees to give feedback on deadlines. It helps managers set more accurate goals, lowering the need for employees to work extra hours.
Use compliance software to help you track due dates and assign tasks. This way, you avoid missing deadlines and make responsibilities clear.
4. Replace Outdated Tools
Outdated tools like spreadsheets can often get in the way of your efforts to create a healthy and secure workplace. Psychological safety is important for encouraging open communication and trust among workers. However, using separate tools or manual work can lead to errors and inefficiencies. In Australia’s small businesses, the fast-paced work environment requires more advanced options that better support mental health.
Getting Past Spreadsheets
Spreadsheets make it hard to keep a single, up-to-date record of employee well-being. They are prone to human error and don’t allow real-time data integration. A lack of cohesion can make it hard to keep track of and analyse health risks, especially when it comes to sensitive psychological safety statistics.
Disjointed systems can also cause missed signals, data loss, and lack of consistency. This lack of planning can make it hard for small businesses to create a safe space where workers feel like they can talk about their mental health needs.
Using Cloud-Based Compliance Software
To get around these problems, consider using cloud-based compliance software that simplifies well-being initiatives. FocusIMS, for instance, can make data integration and automatic feedback collection possible. The software can ensure the safety and accuracy of your health and safety data.
FocusIMS can serve as a repository of anonymous feedback, keep track of events, and organise action plans. A centralised digital health and safety system speeds up responses and ensures data accuracy. It leads to more uniform psychological safety practices. Automation also eliminates error-ridden manual data entry. This saves time and resources and gives a more accurate picture of psychological safety in small businesses.
Tracking Psychological Risks
As a part of a complete safety system, ISO 45001, an international standard for occupational health and safety, provides a way to track and deal with psychological risks. Technology that supports ISO 45001 helps businesses find, track, and deal with psychological hazards.
FocusIMS and other compliance software let companies monitor psychological risks in real time. They inform you about trends and keep detailed records to prove compliance. These features help with audits and meeting ISO 45001 standards. They provide evidence of your championing the health and happiness of your employees.
5. Practical Steps for Ongoing Psychological Safety Management
Psychological safety in small businesses is an ongoing process that needs dedication and clear plans. You can improve workplace health and safety by following a set of steps. Make psychological safety a core value by setting up regular check-ins, building a supportive culture, and meeting legal obligations.
Regular Check-ins and Continuous Feedback
Setting up a regular check-in method is important for monitoring and supporting employees’ health. Based on principles of workplace psychology, this process lets managers and business owners track employees’ mental health over time and address any issues they find. Ongoing feedback builds trust and openness, which are necessary for a psychologically safe workplace.
You might want to improve ways of getting feedback using health and safety software or dedicated platforms that can track responses and prompt follow-ups. This guarantees the implementation of psychological safety practices throughout the workplace.
Building a Supportive Culture
A supportive culture means training employees in resilience, encouraging open conversations, and recognising the work and successes of the whole team.
A good way to build this environment is for leaders and managers to ensure everyone feels safe and supported. They should also recognise how important it is to take care of their mental health at work every day. Supportive workplaces encourage new ideas, builds trust, and reduces employee turnover.
Compliance and Legal Obligations
The Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act 2011 requires companies to manage physical and psychological risks. To meet these responsibilities, you must treat psychological risks as crucial as physical ones.
Small businesses that already have ISO certification may find it easier to track and manage both physical and mental risks when they switch from spreadsheets to an integrated compliance software. A strong system will help businesses follow the law by making it easy to keep track of risk estimates and preventative actions.
Conclusion
Cultivating psychological safety in small businesses starts with listening to workers, responding to concerns, and ensuring open lines of communication. These steps build a supportive mindset that meets ISO 45001 standards for small businesses that want to improve health and safety at work.
However, long-term psychological safety means that psychological risks are always identified, evaluated, and dealt with as part of normal business operations. A dedication to continuous improvement helps create a workplace that can handle emerging issues.
A safe and responsive workplace that empowers workers is good for the business and the team members. Psychological safety makes workers feel valued, motivated, and involved, which improves their output. This process can be made easier by switching from manual processes to centralised compliance software like FocusIMS. Book a discovery meeting with our team today to find out how FocusIMS can help you reach your goals for psychological safety.
