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Keys to Creating Emotional Safety and Security
Maximizing the capabilities of your employees requires the creation of an emotionally safe and secure environment. Here are some tips to building that kind of environment.
1) Be personally warm and accepting of your staff. You need to accept them even if you don’t always like them. You care because they are there and they will make your organization successful (or not!).
2) Assure physical safety and a relative degree of comfort. They don’t need a posh environment to feel secure, but they do need bathrooms, heat, and water to work comfortably.
3) Drive out fear of rejection (my take on Deming). Personal judgments are poison to security. No one is a jerk, asshole, or idiot, and no one is stupid, insecure, or ridiculous. People may have problems and quirks, but you are not their judge. Besides, you have them too.
4) Be honest and straightforward. Your staff doesn’t need to waste brain energy figuring out if you mean something different than you say.
5) Have a commitment to your employees and their success. After all, their success is yours. So you are in it together with them.
6) Have a positive attitude. It helps people feel like there is something good ahead. Negative attitudes cause people to worry about the impending doom. It also creates a positive atmosphere which invites creativity and commitment.
7) Be oriented to outcomes. You want your employees and the company to succeed. Consequently the most important goal is to get the business work done right and done well. An outcome orientation also allows corrections to be focused on what is needed for the business, not what is wrong with the employee. And, when things do go wrong, or errors are made, you can review with a mind to the proper outcome.
8 ) Measure success and celebrate it. People need to know that they are mastering their work and that it matters. Be clear about the benefits of worker efforts and reward it. The reward may be monetary, but it must always be personal. This means you tell your employee that they did a great job, and that you/the company appreciates it.
You can do this. It’s actually a pleasure. And it matters a lot.
Tom DeMaio, PhD
Emotional Safety and Security in the Workplace
People work at their best when they feel emotionally safe and secure. They focus their energy on solving problems, and not on their worries that they could be rejected. Secure employees are also happier and more satisfied employees.
Emotional safety can only occur after physical safety is assured. Physical safety is more than just protection from job hazards; it is also about workplace intolerance for interpersonal intimidation or violence.
People report feeling secure when they know what they are doing, and when they believe their supervisor also views them as competent in their job. The emotional safety comes from the sense that they will not be in trouble because they are unlikely to screw up.
So, people who have been around and have had good reviews tend to feel safe. Additionally, when employees have been handed opportunities to lead and operate independently, there is evidence that the system appreciates and accepts them. Longer term employees tend to feel safer and more secure.
So, how do you get newer employees to that place of safety? First, you welcome them. The process indicates that they are valued. Second, you define their job role and expectations. And third, you review regularly how their performance matches with expectations. Fourth, when they do well, you reward them, perhaps monetarily, but certainly personally.
The real trick comes when there are mistakes or failures. Employees (usually) worry about mistakes and their consequences. The sooner one actually occurs, the better. An episode of an error becomes the opportunity to clarify how you will deal with the person when things go wrong. Most people hate making mistakes and anticipate a rejecting response. When you review with the employee what happened and how it happened, in a nonjudgmental manner, they are relieved.
This is the process that sets up the proper risk-taking approach by the employee. It establishes the tone for the employee’s future effort to come up with new ideas and creatively solve problems. The employee says to himself, “Okay, now I know how creative I can be and what the consequences will be if I screw up.”
Creating emotional safety and security is not difficult if the culture of the organization cares to do it. The process is not about spending money, but about a commitment to the well-being of staff. Oh yes, and it is also about improving the bottom line.
Tom DeMaio, PhD
Business Management Consultant Tips 