One of the most important trends in marketing today is using employees to build trust and establish your brand as a thought leader within the industry.
This is what I call employee activation. It goes beyond boosting your marketing ROI. You can have a dynamic, creative, and collaborative culture with activated employees. Employees are motivated not only to achieve their personal goals but also because they share a common goal.
The results? High productivity company. Positive, supportive working environment. The free flow of ideas provides the insight and feedback needed to improve internal processes continuously.
However, many companies need help with employee activation over the long term. A company can offer an incentive program or upgrade the coffee station with a new espresso maker and kombucha machine. These short-term fixes or incremental changes don’t allow for employee activation.
The key to motivating, engaging, and activating employees is something more profound.
While researching for my book Mean People Get Suck, I discovered a fascinating concept called psychological safety in a Business Insider article by Shana Lebowitz. This idea was developed by Dr. Amy Edmondson at Harvard and has been used by companies like Google for many years.
What is Psychological Safety?
In my book, I highlight that only three percent of people believe their opinions are essential at work. This is a severe problem. Individuals must be able to express their views freely without fear of backlash if they want to achieve their full potential.
Psychologically, working in an environment that doesn’t allow you to express your thoughts can be stressful. Psychological safety is the ability to express your thoughts and give input freely.
Why is Psychological Safety Important?
You can create a culture that encourages psychological safety and transform stagnant work cultures. This will foster engagement and high levels of collaboration. It motivates employees to think differently and be creative.
We all have our inner critics. Isn’t that enough? People won’t speak up if they fear negative consequences. This could range from being treated condescendingly by a coworker to being promoted for controversial statements. They won’t even think of new ideas to benefit the group.
According to Business Insider, Google considers this the most critical trait of successful teams. Lebowitz shared the results from Google’s 2015 study, Project Aristotle. This looked at the impact of psychological safety and other factors like an individual skills on success.
Google discovered that psychological safety is the most critical factor in the success of high-performance teams.
Project Aristotle also found that employees were less likely than others to leave Google. They also brought in more revenue and were more often rated highly by executives if they were part of a psychologically secure team.
This is a powerful argument for implementing psychological safety. It works, and it is the first step toward employee activation.
How To Foster a Psychologically Safe Workplace
Two main ingredients are required to create a psychologically safe workplace for employees. These are the foundation.
Listening – pay attention to employees’ opinions and create space for idea-sharing. This could mean allowing everyone to contribute during meetings, creating a platform where people can post ideas and feedback, or any other listening space that suits your teams.
Empathy – Put yourself in your employee’s shoes and encourage them to see the world from their perspective. Compassion for others is what drives psychological safety. It’s one thing to listen and nod your head. It’s quite another to listen and acknowledge what someone has to say.
Diversity is another component of psychological safety. It’s a fact that if someone feels excluded from the workplace, they will experience more workplace anxiety. Research shows that women feel less psychologically secure than men. It is essential to promote a pro-diversity attitude to foster psychologically safe workplaces. Management must be a part of this. Leaders of companies must make it clear that diversity is valued because it gives them a competitive advantage in driving innovation and growth.
Next is empowerment. It is crucial to put ideas into practice to make employees feel secure and activated. Managers must let employees express their ideas and build their brand. This is what I wrote in Mean People Suck. Creating a safe platform for pictures to be said, it reflects positively on the company’s brand.
You’ll notice a shift in organizational culture when you have an engaged and high-performing team that understands the importance of sharing their industry knowledge and unique views. Employee activation will be more effective if motivated employees can inspire and engage customers.
Accessibility is the last factor. All levels of leadership must be accessible to their employees. Trish Mueller, a former advertising vice president and CMO at Home Depot offers some tips for managers looking to be approachable. Her top tips for managers are to keep an open door, spend time with lower-level employees and be on the lookout for new ideas.