Psychological Health & Safety

At McMaster, we recognize the importance of establishing and fostering a psychologically safe, inclusive, and accessible university which promotes and supports the mental health and well-being of every student, staff and faculty member in all of its activities and creates the conditions for all to flourish. McMaster University is committed to being a psychologically healthy and safe workplace. A psychologically safe workplace has been defined by Amy Edmondson as “a belief that no one will be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking”.

The material provided on this website will help employees and managers understand how to foster a psychologically safe environment, where employees can ask questions, voice concerns, acknowledge mistakes, and present ideas without fear of embarrassment, rejection or punishment. Numerous studies have shown that the presence of psychological safety amongst a team creates a stronger sense of belonging, boosts employee engagement, and drives creativity, innovation and team efficiency. This leads to improvements in communication and collaboration, the ability to recruit and retain talent, better processes, and a reduction in health & safety issues and absenteeism.

CULTURE OF TRUST SPECTRUM

To help leaders understand how much performance is fueled by trust, Great Place to Work has developed a Spectrum to assess primary types of culture for your team.

Culture of Trust More

In this work environment, trust fuels performance and leads to sustainable benefits for the team.

Culture of Comfort More

Employees and leaders consider one another friends and family and many employees have been with the company for a long time.

Culture at Risk More

In this environment, both trust and performance are at all-time lows.

Culture of Burnout More

In this environment, performance is greatly valued, but trust is not seen as essential to success.

9 TIPS TO CREATE PSYCHOLOGICALLY SAFE AND TRUSTING WORK ENVIRONMENTS

1. Think of conflict as an opportunity, not a burden Learn More

2. Avoid blame at all costs Learn More

3. Focus on results, not the clock Learn More

4. Genuinely listen to ideas Learn More

5. Encourage coaching before there are problems Learn More

6. Discourage micromanagement Learn More

7. Protect your employees Learn More

8. Plan work carefully and agree on achievable deadlines or work pace Learn More

9. Break down barriers of remote work Learn More

More Strategies to Create Psychologically Safe Teams

The book “The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human”, written by Karolin Helbig and Minette Norman, breaks down 5 key concepts for establishing a psychologically safe environment within your teams, and provides tangible tips within each concept for you to take action. If you’re interested in learning more about doing this, it’s strongly recommended that you read the book, but we’ve provided the summaries of each of their concepts here to help you get started:

Play 1 – Communicate Courageously Learn More

Play 2 – Master the Art of Listening Learn More

Play 3 – Manage Your Reactions Learn More

Play 4 – Embrace Risk and Failure Learn More

Play 5 – Design Inclusive Rituals Learn More

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Resources for Psychological Health & Safety Learn More

Read, watch and learn more about psychological health and safety by reviewing these curated resources.

Questions? Contact:

Employee and Labour Relations Connect with Us

Faculty of Health Sciences Connect with Us

HR Partners Connect with Us

University Health and Safety Connect with Us

Workplace Health and Well-being Connect with Us

Workload Management

The Mental Health Commission of Canada identifies Workload Management as one of the thirteen factors that have shown to impact mental health of individuals in the workplace.

It is not only the amount of work that makes a difference, but also the extent to which staff and leaders have the resources (time, equipment, support) to do the work well, they feel safe speaking up and taking risks, and they have control over how their tasks and responsibilities are prioritized. Effectively managing workload can reduce stress, burnout, job-related errors, incidents, and injuries.

Importance of workload management Learn More

An important reason to address workload management is it is related to burnout. At its core, burnout is caused by work that demands continuous, long-term physical, cognitive or emotional effort. Addressing workload management issues may significantly reduce feelings of burnout and provide space for restoration and recovery.

Evidence-based actions for workload management Learn More

These actions and responses can be put in place with a minimal investment of resources or cost.

Everyone has a role to play in creating a supportive, healthy, and safe workplace. Both supervisors and employees are accountable for effective workload management.

Staff, leaders, and supervisors should understand and accept that in each workplace there can be natural peak in terms of workload and it’s best to plan for these peak periods, when possible.
Staff and leaders should assist supervisors by reviewing, planning for, implementing, and addressing issues and reporting on workload management within their work team, unit or business function; while supervisors should support this in an open, consultative, fair and reasonable manner.
Supervisors should know and understand the unique needs and work styles for their employees so these can be considered and addressed with each individual.
Staff and leaders need to be aware of the importance of work-life balance, particularly for those employees who are managing unpaid care responsibilities such as caring for elderly family members and/or those with disabilities.
Staff and leaders have an obligation to apply safe work practices and maintain safe work environments; while supervisors have an obligation to ensure safe work practices are undertaken and adhered to, and that safe work environments are maintained. This includes both physical and psychological aspects of the work environment.
Supervisors should ensure that employees are not required to undertake work that significantly and regularly exceeds ordinary working hours, unless exceptional circumstances exist (such as an urgent or unexpected high-volume of work of a short-term nature, and/or for a specified time period).
Human Resources practitioners are responsible for providing advice and support to managers and employees relating to implications of workload issues and processes.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Resources for Workload Management Learn More

Read, watch, and learn more about workload management by reviewing these curated resources.

Role Clarity

Workload issues can arise when employees aren’t clear on what their roles and responsibilities are. This can occur within their team or department, on a project or when collaborating with other areas. When those involved aren’t clear on what their role is, it can create duplication of work, result in unnecessary tasks being completed, or other related miscommunications. An important factor in ensuring that all employees are using their time efficiently, and avoiding duplication of efforts, is to ensure that everyone is clear on what their roles and responsibilities are.

Often, the responsibility for role clarity rests with the leadership team of the work unit to ensure the employees within it are clear about their roles. However, employees can gain clarity on how they can meet, or even exceed, their manager’s expectations by following these simple steps:

Clarify tasks: Understand the task at hand
Clarify success: Ask how success will be measured
Who’s involved: Map relationships that will help get the job done
Who can help?: Know how your manager will support you
Follow up: Put it in writing

The reality is, we can’t achieve success or recognition if what we’re being asked to do or what success looks like seems unclear or ever-changing.

Example of Role Clarity in Action

Consider the example of a unit of firefighters at a fire hall. When the bell rings for the firefighters to respond to an emergency, they don’t stop to figure out who is driving the truck. Rather, they have discussed who is responsible for each task in advance, so when they are called upon, there are no delays or confusion in responding. Each member of the unit knows exactly what they are supposed to do, saving precious time in the process.

While it is a simplistic example, the theory applies in the case of knowledge workers as well. When roles have been discussed and established in advance, efficiencies are gained, as there is less confusion as the work progresses. This also helps to enable discussions between colleagues through a work project.

An important consideration to ensuring role clarity is present throughout a project or work task is establishing an environment where employees feel safe in asking for clarification.

Resources and Tips

what employees need to know

their role in their department
how their work on specific tasks contributes to the bigger picture
clear roles and responsibilities for each employee in the work unit

clarity on decision making Learn More

Collaborative interactions fall into three categories. Click to learn more.

job descriptions Learn More

Job descriptions should reflect work assigned. Click for more resources.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Resources for Role Clarity Learn More

Read, watch, and learn more about role clarity by reviewing these curated resources

Delegation

Effective delegation of work can be a significant tool to help avoid workload management issues for departments, and the managers and employees within them. With that said, effective and efficient delegation of work can be challenging, and every department / manager has different circumstances that create distinct challenges they need to navigate when delegating work.

In some cases, a manager may be reluctant to delegate a task to one of their employees and instead take it on themselves because it would be faster if they just did it, but this adds to an already burdensome to do list. In other cases, a manager may consistently delegate tasks to their top performer, with the confidence that the work will be completed, but that employee may already have too much on their plate while other employees have capacity and a desire to contribute. Striking the right balance can be difficult.

Evolve Your Delegation Skills

For managers to be effective delegators, they need to think more strategically and less tactically. This means applying your time and resources in a manner that will pay off now and into the future. Managers need to enable others to grow, develop and take things on themselves. When it comes to delegation, the tactical approach would be to focus on getting the task done now. This might mean doing it yourself because it’s faster than trying to explain it to someone, or assigning it to a top performer, because you know they have the skills to complete the task.

The strategic approach involves investing some resources in building the skills and confidence of an employee who has shown the ability to learn and grow, but may not possess all the requisite skills to complete the task today. This approach may end up taking slightly longer than completing the task yourself, but the investment in time will pay off as you build the capacity of your team to support future work priorities. For tips on how to build the capacity and setting your team up for success when delegating, please review the other information within the Delegation section.

Resources and Tips

Delegation Checklist for Managers See Checklist

Tips for Effective Delegation See Tips

Communication is Critical Learn More

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Resources for Delegation Learn More

Read, watch, and learn more about delegation by reviewing these curated resources.

Capacity Building

Building capacity for employees to lead work and make decisions is another method to addressing workload issues, but this needs to be done in an intentional and methodical manner to be truly effective. Capacity building fosters a sense of ownership and is all about encouraging and promoting people by enriching them with the skills and techniques that are needed for developing. Capacity-building should occur at all levels of the organization – senior leaders to leaders to supervisors to individual contributors. However, as discussed in the Delegation section of this guide, building capacity for employees does not mean downloading responsibilities on them. Effective strategies are discussed below.

Identifying Decision-Making Authority

For leaders and supervisors to effectively build capacity with those who report to them, there needs to be clear communication on what boundaries exist as it relates to the decision at hand. Employees should not be left on their own to figure out where their decision-making authority begins and ends, as this will create additional job stress, and will end up being counter-productive.

Growth & Development Learn More About Development Conversations

Trust between managers and employees provides a critical foundation for successful capacity building. When that trust exists, employees see this as an opportunity for growth, development, and exposure, not a tactic for managers to eliminate tasks or responsibilities for themselves. Capacity building should align with the interests of the receiving employee, which should be established through regular growth and development conversations. If it doesn’t align with their career goals, an employee may perceive receiving too much autonomy negatively. This is reinforced through ongoing support, coaching, mentoring, guidance, and availability from those who are providing this support. As with many employee growth and development activities, capacity building requires an investment in time to ensure there’s an understanding between managers and employees, and that those employees are set up to succeed.

Resources and Tips

1. Provide clear boundaries Learn More About Setting Healthy Boundaries

Define “in scope” vs. “out of scope” decisions
Provide guardrails for what success looks like, criteria to consider, when to just decide vs. seek more input vs. escalate
Clearly communicate who makes which decisions
Establish specific criteria for when decisions must be escalated for approval

2. Establish clear roles Learn More about Delegation

For delegated decisions, assign one person the authority to decide
Make it clear to others what their roles are (e.g., a “consult” may allow them to provide their perspective, but may not have the right to veto/escalate if they disagree)

3. Encourage levels of trust Learn More About Building Trust

More senior leaders should say no if asked to step in to make a decision
Avoid escalation in the guise of advice-seeking; instead give options, ask questions, discuss how to make a good decision, highlight important facts or considerations in an unbiased way
If a decision has been delegated to a team, and the team disagrees, allow the assigned decision maker(s) to determine if and how to escalate
Only escalate if you are truly stuck (not simply concerned that not everyone with input is in unanimous agreement)

4. Address culture and skills

Build capabilities (e.g. how to say no and have difficult conversations)
Understand and address root causes, (e.g. avoiding or spreading accountability)
Let go of old mistakes and be open to new ones to support a culture of learning
Build psychological safety to ensure your team is not afraid to disagree
Help your team make evidence-based decisions

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Resources for Capacity Building Learn More

Read, watch, and learn more about capacity building by reviewing these curated resources.

Rethinking Meetings

Meetings – or too many of them – can be a significant contributor to workload issues. At times, people simply spend too much time in meetings, restricting their ability to actually perform the work tasks they are also responsible for. Those functions end up trickling into evening and weekend work, which can contribute to feelings of frustration, and eventually, burnout.

As we continue to adjust to our hybrid working environment, it is important to rethink how we conduct our meetings to ensure they are useful and productive, and if not, that we refine our approach, which may free up more time for us to focus on other work tasks.

Resources and Tips

These resources provide some guidance on how to approach your meetings, with the hope of streamlining meetings and making them more effective, with the right people in attendance.

Questions to Ask

Before setting a meeting and inviting others, consider these important questions to ensure you have the right folks in the room and are using everyone’s time wisely:

Should we be meeting at all?
Can the meeting be replaced by an email?
- If the meeting is for information sharing purposes, it may be better to outline that info in an email.
Do we have to meet as frequently?
Do we have an agenda?
Is the intent of the meeting clear?
- Is it to share information, discuss it or decide something?
- Has a recurring meeting had its intent blurred over time? Does that need to be rethought?
Have materials for the meeting been shared in advance for the attendees to review?
- Try to shift from presenting information, to allowing participants to review in advance, then the focus of the meeting can be on addressing questions, discussing options and making a decision
Does everyone invited need to be there?
- What is everyone’s role?
- If someone is not involved in the decision-making process or immediate follow-up, they may not need to be brought in the loop until later
  - People will want to know what’s going on, so it’s important when communicating with them to be clear on how their role fits in the decision-making process and what the outcome of the decision will mean for them
How do we move from discussion to decision?
Are the next steps clear?
- What the decision is
- Who is responsible for each task
- Timelines for delivery / follow up
Communicate with those who may not be invited to a meeting so they know you are being respectful of their time and/or check in with them in advance about their participation.

Future Forward

Consider these useful tactics for future meetings:

Try to restrict virtual meetings when you on-site.
- This helps ensure there are opportunities for in-person connections while employees are on-site.
- Being on-campus, but on virtual meetings all day reduces the value of being in-person and limits opportunities for personal connections and collaboration.
Department leaders should consider introducing meeting free periods (half a day per week, for example, at a time that makes sense for the department).
All meetings should have a shared agenda.
Materials for meetings should be shared at least 1 day in advance for review by the attendees.
- This allows meetings to be more efficient, as attendees can come prepared to discuss the material.
Decision making rights need to be clear when meeting for a decision.
- Refine the content of a meeting so that it’s not all about discussion, but also about decisions.
- This doesn’t mean the decision maker can’t consult with others on the decision, but may not need consensus.
- Think about the implications of the decision. If it can be easily undone, then the risk is lower for a faster, bolder decision. If the decision is widespread and not easily changed, then this may require more thought/input.
When recurring meetings are needed, review whether the frequency is right.
- Could a weekly meeting be shifted to bi-weekly? Monthly? Or think differently and consider cancelling meetings (check our ‘Read’ section below for some interesting articles on this topic.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Resources for Rethinking Meetings Learn More

Read, watch, and learn more about rethinking meetings by reviewing these curated resources.

Balance

The Mental Health Commission of Canada indicates that balance is present in a work environment when there is recognition of the need for balance between the demand of work, family, and personal life. Work-life balance suggests that our lives should be separated into ‘buckets’ but we know it isn’t always easy to separate work and life. Instead of working toward work-life balance, we should aspire to achieving work-life well-being; meaning different aspects of our life work together to support our individual well-being.

An organization with good balance can state that:

The organization encourages workers to take their entitled breaks (e.g. lunch break, sick time, vacation time, earned days off, parental leave)
Workers are able to reasonably meet the demands of personal life and work
The organization promotes work-life harmony
Workers can talk to their supervisors when they are having difficulty maintaining harmony between work and life
Workers have enough energy left at the end of most work days for their personal life

Resources and Tips

Tips for Embedding Balance into the Workplace

Provide flexible work arrangements, where possible (e.g., compressed work schedules, work from home, virtual conferencing, part-time work, contract opportunities).
Offer opportunities to flex time earned during peak work periods (e.g., to use during lower workload demand periods).
Provide appropriate support for hourly workers (e.g. limit shift changes and provide advance notice of changes, as required).
Offer personal and family support for both child and elder care.
Monitor and encourage employees to use time off provisions available to them to provide adequate time away from work.
Regular check-ins with workers about how they are managing the balance in their life is important. This is also a great opportunity to check in with regards to how workers are feeling about their workload, as this is a significant contributor to overall levels of perceived stress.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Resources for Work-Life Well-being Learn More

Read, watch, and learn more about work-life well-being by reviewing these curated resources.

Technology to Support Workload Management

Where, when, and how we work continues to evolve. For productive collaboration to continue, McMaster employees need new ways to come together and contribute without sharing the same physical space. Thankfully, Office 365’s online collaboration tools enable people to collaborate with each other even when they are far apart.

MICROSOFT OFFICE 365 APPLICATIONS

Office 365 provides a suite of tools that can help individuals and teams manage their workloads more efficiently and effectively. By leveraging these applications that are included in all McMaster employee’s Office 365 toolkit, users can streamline their workflows, improve communication, and stay organized.

proven benefits of real-time collaboration:  

Real-time collaboration between multiple people happens simultaneously—an entire team of people can work together on the same project at the same time.  

Improved participation and knowledge sharing from working together as a team just as you would if you were in the same room.
Increased efficiency and productivity from a simplified and seamless process that eliminates back-and-forth communications and replaces the chaos of multiple versions with a single, shared document living in the cloud.  
Higher employee morale and job satisfaction and decreased feelings of isolation and loneliness associated with remote work. 
Streamlined workflow with meetings, conversations, and file sharing—all happening simultaneously.     
Expansive reach and scope from the ability to connect anyone inside and outside your business including employees, clients, and vendors.