Preventing Workplace Psychological Injury
What is a Psychologically Safe Workplace?
A psychologically healthy and safe workplace is defined in the National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace as “a workplace that promotes workers’ psychological well-being and actively works to prevent harm to worker psychological health, including in negligent, reckless or intentional ways.”
The Standard covers best practices and approaches that workplaces can use to assess things within their workplace that may impact the psychological health and safety of their workers.
They have organized these best practices and approaches into a series of 13 factors that contribute to workplace psychological health and safety.
“I care about the psychological safety of my team, but I’m not sure what to do to protect them.”
If you feel this way, you are not alone. But once you start to explore, you’ll find that much like preventing physical injuries, a lot of it comes down to common sense.
Preventing gradual onset psychological injuries starts by understanding:
Preventing Workplace Bullying and Harassment
Preventing these harmful activities can be as simple as watching for them and taking action to stop them when they happen. Or taking action when a worker reports bullying or harassment.
But it’s better to take a proactive approach to prevention. The Workplace Harassment and Bullying Employer Checklist (PDF) is a valuable tool to help you do that. It provides practical steps to prevent harassment and bullying in your workplace, identify it if it’s happening, and stop it from recurring.
Learn more about bullying and harassment.
Psychological Health and Safety Resource
Visit WCB’s Psychological Health and Safety Resource Centre for information on creating a psychologically healthy and safe workplace.