By Sarah Michaels, RN, director of Kinetiq Health, Apex Benefits
Businesses have spent months perfecting safe work environments.
It’s rare to walk through a business’ door and not find signs demonstrating well thought-out COVID-19 procedures. Hand sanitizer, masks and sought-after disinfectant wipes greet us long before humans.
For all intents and purposes, these safety measures are in place to do just that: keep safety top of mind and reduce our risk of harm or hurt.
Why then are individuals still afraid to venture out into the world?
Felt safety: Being safe versus knowing you’re safe
Being safe and knowing you are safe are two entirely different concepts. It’s a concept that trauma-informed individuals have best understood through Texas Christian University’s Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) model.
Dr. Karyn Purvis, leading expert in child development, coined the term “felt safety.” The term encompasses the subjective feelings behind safety and the way in which our brains respond to perceived threats.
When the human brain allows fear to be in control, it goes instinctively to survival mode. As a result, the body creates a fight-or-flight response. This can be damaging to one’s mentality in present time. Helping an individual not only be safe, but also feel safe calms and disarms the primitive part of the brain responsible for the survival reaction. By feeling safe, the human brain can connect the experience of safety to trust and attachment.
Felt safety in the workplace
How does this apply to your workplace? Consider that it’s not enough to say, “You are safe.”
Employees are looking at their leaders to tell a full story that honors their emotions during months of heightened fear.
Here are four ways to create an intentional environment of felt safety that reaps return on overall employee morale and long-term loyalty:
- Lead Firmly
Think about a time that you didn’t have all the facts. How often did your brain try to assist by filling in the gaps? Too often this results in misinformation circulating throughout the workplace, significantly decreasing employee morale.
Leading firmly during a crisis involves putting a respected leader in the spotlight. It’s up to this individual to empathize and acknowledge how others are feeling. Effective leaders should do the following:
- Communicate with facts, being as proactive as possible
- Demonstrate what they speak, modeling their words for others to see
- Speak and Repeat
If there was a fire in your office, the last thing you would do is make a long-winded announcement telling employees, “A fire just started in the kitchen due to overheating microwave popcorn that has since spread into the main lobby impacting the conference room attendees.” Instead, you would just yell, “FIRE!”
When the brain is in fight-or-flight mode, fine-tuning your message is key. Here are some ways to physically disarm fear with effective communication:
- Use simple words, keeping the message clear and concise
- Speak slowly to allow employees time to process your words
- Use a warm voice to ensure your message is being received authentically
- Repeat your message using multiple mediums
- Allow Choices When Possible
In this unprecedented year, life has become a dictation of others’ voices. Direction and information from the media to local government may create a sense that so much is out of our control. Humans crave choice and, as a business, it’s important to allow employees to have a choice whenever possible.
Regardless of virtual or physical work environments, it’s easier than you might realize to allow choice. Here are several good starting points:
- Opening the physical work environment but allowing employees to choose whether to work in-person or virtually
- Being flexible with work hours, yet ensuring time expectations are still being met
- Offering the option to wear a mask at an open desk or temporarily move to a closed-door office
- Create Predictability
There is no clear end in sight for the COVID-19 pandemic. The threat of the unknowns could make anyone feel unsafe. That’s why it’s important now, more than ever before, to speak to the future of your business. People are looking for a glimmer of hope and a sense of stability.
Don’t be afraid to speak to the vision you have as a company and for each employee. After all, nothing calms a person down faster than hearing they are appreciated and that the future looks bright. When you create a feeling of safety, you create the future.
Sarah Michaels helps Indiana employers find cost-effective solutions to drive down health care costs through the use of clinical and financial analytics and predictive modeling as well as targeted population health strategies. Also working as a registered nurse at Riley Hospital for Children, Sarah brings forth a unique perspective in chronic condition management to help employers improve overall quality of life for their employees and health plan members.
