by Paul Buller
- Physical safety is vital for the psychological safety of employees.
‘Safety first’ is more than just a slogan. As referenced in research and models such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, basic human requirements – shelter, food, water, physical safety – are essential if we want to feel psychologically safe.
This is no different at work, where we spend so much of our existence. If we know we’re safe, we’re mentally more at ease and able to function at a level that means we can reason better, make more informed decisions and be happier and more productive. Without that, our brains will revert to fight-or-flight mode and that’s never going to end well.
Even organizations such as the military or emergency services have very definite measures in place to ensure their people are as physically safe as can be at times of extreme danger and are highly trained to make decisions that are the difference between life and death.
That might not seem relevant to an office worker but physical safety and wellbeing is relative whatever environment we work in. Is your office cramped and noisy? Are your factory’s toilets dirty and run down? Is your warehouse cold and draughty? Do your employees feel safe with each other? Even these are factors that contribute to a sense of safety. Take it for granted or cut corners, and your people will feel you are taking them for granted, too.
- The cost of getting it wrong is huge and it’s about more than money.
There’s no doubt that getting health and safety wrong can be catastrophic, even leading to prosecution and prison for those found culpable. Thankfully, most of us live in a world where the least we can expect at work is to not be seriously harmed. But under the surface lies an everyday problem that is getting larger. Incidents, absenteeism, disengagement, and reduced productivity are all results of a health and safety culture that ignores the reality of what’s really going on.
For instance, A WHO Workplace Health and Productivity study showed that poor wellbeing drains productive work time even when people are physically present. It found that employees lost an average of 4 days a year to absenteeism but 57.5 days a year to presenteeism, showing that reduced on-the-job performance can far exceed missed days; poor wellbeing drains productive work time even when people are physically present.
A 2019 review on employee wellbeing and productivity synthesized 339 studies covering 1,882,131 employees and found a strong positive link between employee wellbeing and productivity, along with a strong negative link to staff turnover. And a 2024 study found organisations with a poor psychosocial safety climate (PSC) reported 160% more days off due to workplace injury or illness, compared to high PSC organisations (177 days vs 68 days). Likewise, costs for the injury or illness were 104% greater in very low PSC organisations versus high PSC organisations ($67,260 vs $32,939 per employee).
- The upside? The benefits of health and safety are enormous (and again, it’s not just about the money).
The figures make sense: commit to the health, safety and wellbeing of your people. It’s obvious. But it’s more than about the figures: employers who integrate wellbeing into their corporate practice are at an advantage. They don’t see it as just health and safety – it’s about creating a culture of health alongside a culture of safety. This has far-reaching effects beyond the workplace: a 2015 study showed that investing in this helped ‘achieve measurable benefits to enhance the overall health and well-being of workers, their families, and the community’.
Take this small but important example: many large companies now provide GP services and pharmacies at the workplace. That may seem cost prohibitive but think of it like this: if the doctor in your hometown is only open while you’re at work, there’s every chance you’ll not find time to get checked out.
Before you know it, weeks or months have passed and that thing you were slightly worried about turns out to be something much more serious. Ill health and a lengthy absence from work beckons. But having a GP on site that you can see one lunchtime, or even a clear and open policy of time off to visit your local GP, could prevent that.
Employees feel safe because they know their employer wants to protect them. Employers reap the benefit of not just a physically better-off workforce but one that is more loyal and productive because their employees have a psychological contract with their employer that reassures them that their basic needs are being attended to. And is that too much to ask?
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References
Herzberg, F., Mausner, B. and Snyderman, B.B. (1959) The motivation to work. 2nd edn. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Karanika-Murray, M. and Biron, C. (2020) ‘Combining physical and psychosocial safety: A comprehensive workplace safety model’, Safety Science, 123, 104532.
Krekel, C., Ward, G. and De Neve, J.-E. (2019) Employee wellbeing, productivity, and firm performance. SSRN working paper. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3356581.
Maslow, A.H. (1943) ‘A theory of human motivation’, Psychological Review, 50(4), pp. 370–396.
Maslow, A.H. (1954) Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row.
Miller, P. et al. (2024) ‘Healthy workplaces a vital factor in clawing back billions of dollars lost to work-related ill health’. ScienceDaily. Available at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/07/240702135534.htm (Accessed: [insert date]).
Vogt, K.S., Baker, J. and Morys-Edge, M. (2025) ‘“I think the first priority is physically safe first, before you can actually get psychologically safe”: staff perspectives on psychological safety in inpatient mental health settings’, Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. Advance online publication.
Zawadzki, M.J. et al. (2019) ‘The price of productivity loss: absenteeism versus presenteeism’, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 24(2), pp. 153–165.
