Create psycological safety: Avoid psychological and ethical pitfalls

Well-being or engagement  surveys are personal. Employees are asked to share something of themselves, and managers are exposed to a form of evaluation. Handling this responsibly is a significant task. This guide provides advice on how to avoid psychological and ethical pitfalls and instead create a sense of psycological safety.

The guide includes:

• Key points and practical advice for HR and management

Insecurity and resistance among managers and employees

Participating in a well-being process involving surveys can create insecurity, resistance, and even fear among middle managers and employees.

Managers’ insecurity or resistance may be caused by:

• Fear of public exposure: When a survey is initiated from above and also evaluates daily managerial work, it may be perceived as a “gallows” or showcase, or as monitoring. Managers may resist to protect themselves.
• Uncertainty about purpose: Managers may worry about a hidden agenda, for example identifying underperforming managers.

Employees’ insecurity or resistance may be caused by:

• Uncertainty about purpose: Employees may fear hidden agendas, such as upcoming layoffs.
• Lack of trust: There may be mistrust towards top management or direct managers, including concerns about anonymity.
• Fear of a pseudo-process: Employees may wonder if the survey will lead to any real change or just become a document collecting opinions, often based on past experiences.

Creating safety for managers

Pay attention to the following to support managers:

Be honest about the purpose
Communicate clearly and honestly the objectives of the survey. If it includes evaluation of the management team, this should be stated from the outset.

Engage early in the process
Involve managers early to gain their acceptance and ownership of the upcoming work.

Invite vulnerability—show your own
Communicate that managers should not feel ashamed of poor results. Surveys are meant to highlight areas for action, and it is HR’s and leadership’s role to support each manager throughout this process.

Creating safety for employees

Pay attention to the following to support employees:

Communicate the purpose
Clearly explain why the survey is being conducted to avoid speculation. It is often effective for leadership to be the sender, signaling transparency from the top.

Be clear about the process
Explain the survey process and subsequent actions. This reassures employees and prevents fears of pseudo-processes. When employees see surveys leading to real action, they perceive future surveys as tools for change. Conversely, lack of follow-up may cause disengagement or incomplete responses.

Ensure anonymity
Respect anonymity in GAIS surveys and do not attempt to bypass it.

Provide employees with clear guidance on how free-text comments will be used. Agree with managers that comments should not be read aloud in groups, as authors may be easily identified.

If the GAIS dialogue function is used, agree with managers on how to handle it. It can be used for feedback on ideas, but critical comments should ideally lead to face-to-face discussions with the manager or a union representative. Employees also have a responsibility to allow action on critical feedback.

If there is concern that managers might attempt to circumvent anonymity by filtering results too narrowly, consider:

• Disabling the filtering function on shared subsets so managers cannot identify individual responses
• Having an external consultant analyze and review results with team-specific data

GAIS strongly recommends that each workplace establishes ethical guidelines regarding anonymity and well-being surveys.