Safety and wellness in the work place: A critical connection

Workplace wellness is a goal that many organizations have set, yet some achieve. Having a safe working environment, not only concerning physical hazards, but also psychological hazards is important so that you support the employees. The psychological hazards category is the new kid on the block. Up to now, organizations were aware of the physical hazards. How easy is it to adapt to this new category of wellness and not stick to the traditional one?

Mental Health

To take it from the top, it is best we remember what mental health is. According to the World Health Organization mental health is defined as “as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.”

Being mentally healthy enables people to have a balance in their life and support themselves. However, it is not only about each person. The workplace must be a safe place for everyone.

To better explain the pros of working at an organization that aims at the psychological hazards, Dr. Timothy R Clark, Founder & CEO of LeaderFactor, discusses the connection between physical and psychological hazards in a working environment during a webinar that took place in January 2021.

Dr Clark stressed that

If safety is about prevention, wellness is about promotion, programming and resources.

Physical – Psychological hazards

Dr Clark defines psychological safety as

it’s not expensive to interact socially, politically, financially and emotionally in a team or organization.

Over the years the physical safety of people and employers has been “a religion”. The traditional approach to safety was environmental. The four traditional categories of hazard are:

• Biological hazards
• Chemical hazards
• Ergonomic hazards
• Physical hazards

On the other hand, as years go by, there have been many researches on the psychological aspect and the importance of having mentally healthy employees.

Now we have a new category called “organization and psychosocial hazard”. This hazard may lead to mental or emotional harm.

The dangers included are:

• Job demand
• Job control
• Support
• Role clarity
• Organizational change management
• Recognition and reward

Dr Clark highlights that psychological hazard is a newly adapted category of hazard that traditionally has not been acknowledged.

He notes that

Workplace wellness and safety are connected and represent two notions that have evolved over time.

Workplace Wellness barriers

Building a psychologically safe environment for the employees is a major challenge that companies face.

Asking business leaders during the webinar “What is the hardest thing about pursuing wellness and what is the biggest barrier?”, the attendees set out several challenges, such as

• remote working
• old-school leadership
• cost
• work-life balance
• not believing in vulnerability
• competitiveness.

Setting aside the challenges, it is important to address toxic environments. When you are aware of toxic behaviors within the workplace it is best that you speak up and not hide.

For example, if you are working in a toxic environment and you have made a mistake, you may not acknowledge it, you hide it.

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The Cons when hiding your mistake:

Mistakes are the clinical material to be used for the team to learn. The mistakes are to be analyzed and discussed. Hiding is not an option. The option is a safe environment that looks for hazards and mitigate risk by removing the hazards. The only way to achieve it, is as a team, Dr Clark concludes.