How Shanna B. Tiayon helps workplaces foster psychological safety

Well-being in the workplace pays off, says Shanna B. Tiayon, PhD, a social psychologist based in Washington, D.C. who helps organizations cultivate healthy workplace cultures. Since founding Yes Wellbeing Works, LLC, in 2019, Tiayon, as chief executive officer, has fused her experience in human resources with her academic expertise to lead a research and consulting team that helps clients build workplace cultures that, well, work.

Tiayon’s pathway to consulting included working on sustainability and women’s empowerment in agroforestry as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon, Africa, then serving as a director of operations in international development in Chad, Uganda, and Rwanda. Following that, she earned a doctorate in sociology with a specialization in social psychology at the University of Maryland, where she was a National Science Foundation and Ford Foundation fellow. The Monitor spoke with Tiayon about the lessons she’s learned from helping small-to-midsize companies shift workplace culture in positive, measurable ways.

Workplace well-being is built on a foundation of basic needs like having a job description and a fair salary, with three essential pillars resting on that foundation: psychological safety, belonging, and esteem. Psychological safety means that you can show up at work as your authentic self, make mistakes, push back, and seek support without fear of negative consequences. Belonging means you feel connected to your coworkers and your company. And esteem means your contributions are valued and recognized.

[Related: Psychological safety in the changing workplace]

For individuals, there are validated scales for all three pillars, and they are highly correlated. We slightly tweaked the psychological safety scale [developed by Harvard leadership expert Amy Edmondson] and built three other scales in-house to measure belonging, esteem, and basic needs.

The groups at risk are the same as in society as a whole—non-White persons and women and also, surprisingly, employees of mid-tenure—people who have worked in the organization for 4 to 6 years. They actually show lower well-being than new hires of up to 1 year.

Most managers have no idea of the disparities. Unless it’s super intentional, most organizations are repeating old patterns without thinking about it. But they need to share the data and the experience of people in these core groups to communicate, “This is not the environment we want to create.”

We start by looking at the aggregate experiences of employees using statistically validated tools such as our Organizational Wellbeing Assessment; the World Health Organization’s Well-Being Index, which is called the WHO-5; and self-reported measures like perceived stress. We’ll run focus groups to better understand the issues and look at policies and procedures. Then we make recommendations, and once a company implements those, we will use short, regular pulse surveys to measure progress. So that’s quantitative work. We also look at qualitative results, such as whether employees feel comfortable disclosing mental distress or if teams engage in healthy debate. These are important outcomes that can indicate progress.

Productivity, the bottom line. Teams work better, group dynamics are improved, you get better ideas and outcomes. Our group is also doing some modeling to see if we can correlate financial results with outcomes when teams shift to greater psychological safety.

There’s also a rise in what industrial psychologists call “organizational citizenship,” behavior that’s not contractually obligated but goes above and beyond—for example, taking on key projects outside your job function or volunteering to help a colleague.

For all of the pillars of workplace well-being, the manager plays the most important role. Good leaders recognize what [investment guru] Charlie Munger called the “zone of competence.” They recognize their own vulnerabilities and bring in help when something is out of their wheelhouse. They model that it’s okay to make mistakes, which gives others permission to do the same.

Also, the organizational or team values are intentional. Leaders should model the values and reward and promote the desired behaviors in their organization. Real structural work means looking at what you live, not what you say.

Virtual or remote work is like brick-and-mortar work in that basic needs are the same. We want people to be able to ask for support and make mistakes; that’s not environment specific. But organizations might not have the tools to facilitate a mechanism for feedback or opportunities for meaningful connection online or in person in a hybrid situation.

Also, I’m surprised by how many organizations do not have formal reward and recognition programs. These are valuable, and they are not tied to physical systems and tools.

First, have some way to regularly assess your employees’ experience. Second, train your managers to have the skills to create the culture you’re trying to create in your workplace. Only 20% to 30% of managers have any kind of management training. Third, put systems and policies in place that don’t make employee well-being optional. Make it nonnegotiable.

Examples of policies include flexible work schedules, work from home, a way to handle extra time put in, such as comp time, and a procedure that lets people know claims of harassment or discrimination are going to be handled fairly and objectively. Establish professional development with a budget and a timeline to help employees know they are valued, and they will get the skills they need to sustain their employment.

Finally, make all these policies and programs accessible to everyone in the organization so workers do not have to simply hope they get lucky in their managers.