Rethinking Workplace Safety: Why Psychological Safety Might Be the Missing Piece

While digging into ways to improve workplace safety without piling on more rules, procedures, or enforcement, we stumbled onto an interesting trend: psychological safety and mental health. A recent Employee Safety Report by AlertMedia highlighted something eye‑opening — 48% of employees rated their employers’ focus on mental health a “C” or worse. Granted, the report isn’t based on an Asian context, but it still raises a relevant point.

Now, let’s be realistic. In a hyper‑competitive environment like Singapore, where margins are razor-thin and survival is the daily priority, it’s understandable that mental health isn’t always at the top of the agenda. But let’s entertain the idea for a moment: What if employers actually had the bandwidth — or the progressive mindset — to take psychological safety seriously?

So… what exactly is psychological safety?

An organizational psychologist describes it as the ability for people to show up as themselves without fear of damaging their image, status, or career. In simple terms, it’s the shared belief that:

• It’s safe to ask questions

• It’s safe to disagree

• It’s safe to speak up

• It’s safe to be human

In teams with strong psychological safety, people feel accepted, respected, and trusted.

Now here’s the uncomfortable question for business owners:
Do our employees feel safe enough to ask questions during meetings?
Do they feel they can disagree with their managers without consequences?

If the honest answer is “not really,” then no amount of posters, workshops, or “culture-building initiatives” will fix that. Culture isn’t a checklist. In Singapore, we often try to engineer culture through programmes, campaigns, and activities. But culture isn’t something you build in a quarter, it’s something that evolves over generations. It’s a living system of shared beliefs, values, and behaviours. You can’t tick a few boxes and declare victory.

So where do we start?

Be genuinely open to questions.
Listen to workers’ concerns about PPE, safety processes, and day‑to‑day challenges. When people feel heard, conversations become real. And when conversations become real, safer and more effective work practices naturally follow. Improving workplace safety might not start with more rules, it might start with creating a space where people feel safe enough to speak up.