63H - Build It and They Will Come: Using Psychological Safety to Improve Outcomes Across the Enterprise

Tuesday, March 21

3:15–4:15 p.m.

New working processes, remote teams and uncertainty, coupled with unprecedented levels of employee anxiety, have caused businesses to reassess culture and processes. Gallup’s recent report, “What We Learned in 2021,” stated 40% of U.S. employees were actively searching or watching for job opportunities. The Well-Being-Engagement Paradox, where engagement and well-being move together, was challenged by findings that remote workers were both highly engaged and highly stressed. In addition, a MIT Sloan Management Review article stated toxic corporate culture is 10.4 times more likely to contribute to attrition than compensation in predicting turnover. These and other indicators point to an inability by leadership to create an emotionally safe environment.

Leaders play a critical role in creating a safe and inclusive environment. When protected by a working culture that promotes psychological safety, people have more opportunity to step up and self-lead, working with purpose aligned to that of the company. It has never been more important to build psychological safety in the workplace and to transform the environment to improve recruitment, engagement, performance, innovation and patient care.

This session will provide a science-based approach for creating a safe, inclusive and resilient organization; illustrate one psychological safety model; show how to build a culture of psychological safety; present a process to use in their organization; and illustrate how a multifaceted and phased approach can benefit a health system to realize better outcomes. Take-home tools and strategies include S.A.F.E.T.Y. explainers to help participants build a roadmap toward a psychologically and emotionally safe environment.

Learning Objectives

• Learn a science-based approach to creating a psychologically safe environment to improve recruiting, engagement, performance, innovation and patient care.
• Apply a multifaceted, phased approach of psychological safety throughout a health system.