Psychological safety is crucial for employees in today’s environment when layoffs have become so rampant.

When an organization fails to make its employees feel comfortable in its environment, they switch to better opportunities. The employees must not feel conscious when expressing themselves for fear that others will make fun of them.

What happens when there is no psychological safety?

Also, the companies must not keep a tab on employees for whatever they speak and do because otherwise, they won’t take any decisions or speak anything innovative. When companies fail to accept employees the way they are, they should not expect them to take any responsibility.

Employees who feel too scared to lose a job over a simple mistake can’t be expected to put their best in any situation. When employees are being bullied, in the company they are afraid to raise their hands to even ask questions. 

In fact, studies have proved that hiring the smartest people on your team is no point if they are not allowed to speak. You are just wasting funds on them because they feel they will be mocked when they speak. It’s the job of everyone in the company to see that the team dynamics are right because if it isn’t, it means a toxic work culture. The DEI efforts undertaken by a company also fail to yield any results when the minority employees can’t speak because they will be ridiculed.

How to create psychological safety?

Psychological safety can’t be created overnight, and it requires proper training of the employees. This training must include imparting proper soft skills to leaders and employees so that all employees feel relaxed on the company premises.

The attitude of leaders matters:

This can prove to be troublesome for the company because employees don’t understand processes and procedures and then commit mistakes later. Elearning can help create leaders who foster psychological safety because they know how to create the right atmosphere. They must know when to encourage someone to speak.

• Attitude towards minority groups:

They must also know when they have to scold someone and how to do it. You can’t scold anyone in front of all other employees because it can dampen his morale. It’s much better no employee is confronted for his mistakes in front of everyone but rather alone. The leaders should also take care of the fact that people from the minority group are always intimidated to speak, and when they are not motivated, their courage goes down.

Even though a company is making its best efforts to boost the confidence of the less privileged communities by giving them equal hiring opportunities like others, these people will feel undermined and quit without a progressive approach. It’s the job of the L&D teams to make sure leaders adopt the right approach. Hence for this purpose, they should be taught how to deal with employee issues and encourage being comfortable with each other.

• Attitude towards animosity:

The problems of leaders and employees can be mitigated by providing them with scenario-based learning. This means they can see scenarios where previous leaders have faced negative emotions from some people towards certain groups and have eliminated such feelings without causing chaos.

Such scenarios can also help employees understand if they have been facing any situations of animosity and how they should cope with them by consulting seniors for help.

Can elearning help in creating psychological safety?

Hence, eLearning is required to teach employees how to behave properly with such employees so that they don’t feel left out. That’s where e-learning assumes a lot of importance. It’s because employees can be given DEI quizzes, but what about the practical application? For that, an employee needs to go through scenario-based learning to know how their behavior is emotionally damaging someone else. Elearning can be helpful in this context because when the teams sit together and discuss the adverse behavior of someone, other employees can be influenced not to replicate the same. Such group discussions can be part of blended learning, where employees can be encouraged to participate in classes. 

Elearning can be helpful in fostering a positive attitude

Even gamification can be included in such e-learning, where employees partake with each other and solve challenges collaboratively for growth. When these games contain simulations, employees can learn how to make decisions. They can take decisions and alter them without causing any ramifications for the company through simulations included in games. It can’t be denied that through DEI training, leaders can understand how minorities can be allowed to prove their virtue in a company.

In fact, other employees can also learn how to avoid negative talks about such groups, which can perturb the latter. Blended learning can help employees understand the benefits of DEI training, where they understand the viewpoints of minorities from them in classroom-based sessions.