Silent Struggles Hurt Employees and the Organization
"There’s no way that solution is going to work, but I’d never say that to Grace. She gets testy when people challenge her ideas."
"I've spent 30 minutes triple-checking this email because the last time I made a small error in a report, my manager criticized me in front of the team."
"I take extra work home rather than admitting I'm overwhelmed. My co-worker was told he 'couldn't handle pressure' when he asked for support."
When someone hesitates to voice a critical insight because of a colleague's potential reaction, obsesses over minor details out of fear of their manager's response, or hides the fact that their workload is too much, they're experiencing the detrimental impact of psychological uncertainty. These moments of self-censorship and anxiety take a toll on employee well-being and organizational productivity.
A recent Gallup study highlights the profound impact negative emotions like worry and stress have on employee engagement:
Among engaged employees,
• 40% report feeling stress on a daily basis, and 32% experience worry daily
Among less engaged employees, these numbers jump significantly.
• Of "not engaged" employees - 59% report feeling daily stress, 40% experience worry daily
• Of "actively disengaged" employees - 69% report feeling daily stress, 58% experience worry daily
Definitions of the 3 Engagement Levels
Gallup engagement data is gathered via the Gallup Q12 – a set of 12 specific questions that capture employee perceptions of their workplace environment, focusing on their needs, experiences, and emotional connections to their work. Based on their responses to the Q12, workers are sorted into categories of engagement:
"Engaged" workers - highly involved and enthusiastic, committed to helping the organization succeed
"Not Engaged" - unattached to their work, putting in the time but without energy or passion
"Actively Disengaged" - resentful, undermining the organization with negativity and counterproductive behavior
Unleashing Engagement through Psychological Safety
Central to workplace emotions like stress and worry, and their impact on employee engagement, is the concept of psychological safety–the belief that you won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. When employees don't feel psychologically safe, negative emotions flourish and engagement drops. The organization also robs itself of vital information that should be shared…but isn’t.
Leading psychological safety topic expert, Dr. Amy Edmondson, suggests that people managers continually reflect on this question: How much of what I'm hearing from my team each week is about real concerns or challenges, versus positive updates or surface-level status reports? Edmondson's premise is that if everything is positive it is probably not an accurate portrait of reality. Instead, employees may not feel psychologically safe to bring up real concerns or challenges. Employees may be withholding important ideas and information.
When employees don't feel psychologically safe, negative emotions flourish and engagement drops.
The goal isn't to eliminate positive reports – but to make sure team members feel safe to bring up challenges, concerns, disagreements, and doubts. This, in turn, leads to improved employee retention, increased productivity, reduced risk of litigation, and greater collaboration, initiative, and innovation.
To learn more about how your organization can make it safe for employees to speak up, take our Speak-Up Spectrum Assessment.
Getting Authentic Answers About Psychological Safety
To uncover the attitudes and perceptions related to psychological safety on a team or in an organization, insights must be gained in areas like:
Bystander or Upstander Culture – do people (including leaders) see problems and do nothing, or is it clear to everyone that they should bring a concern forward or address it directly?
Fear of retaliation – are there perceived negative consequences for speaking up about things like harassment or inappropriate conduct? Are leaders inadvertently discouraging people from speaking up or sharing concerns? Are people chastised for mistakes, or are they given the room to learn from them?
Inconsistent Standards – do employees feel they are told to behave in a certain way, but that those behaviors are not modeled or upheld consistently? Are there different standards of behavior for different people in the organization?
Hesitancy to Contribute – do individuals feel safe sharing input, ideas or opinions?
Perceived Support – do employees believe their co-workers and manager would back them up should they bring concerns forward?
An organization’s strengths and weaknesses in these areas can be assessed through traditional surveys such as engagement studies. But, they can also be measured through behavioral training solutions such as those offered by Atana. Behavioral training courses capture employee attitudes and perceptions in the context of relatable workplace scenarios and the data is analyzed and presented in an Insights dashboard. Besides getting a 100% response rate (versus the average 40% participation for traditional engagement surveys), this behavioral approach produces more authentic answers and reasons behind a lack of employee engagement.
