Gilbert Ekugbe
Winbox Consulting has emphasised on the need for employers of labour to prioritise employee’s psychological safety for higher productivity and profitability.
The Principal, Winbox Consulting, Mr. Deji Osasona, at the 2022 Cultural Champions Breakfast Buffet, themed, “Creating and sustaining psychological safety in today’s workplace,” said there are so many activities in the workplace that are toxic to human wellbeing and human performance, maintaining that many employees are currently under immense pressure from their employers which he said is hindering their performance to achieve the set goals of their respective organisations.
“There are some things that have been happening over the years in various workplaces in Nigeria, that people have turned or carved out to be a resemblance of what I can call a “Nigerian thing”. More than half of workplaces in Nigeria are toxic. We cannot just sit down and see this happening over the years. We have to seek ways to have an impact or create a new narrative or direction to address this challenge,” he said.
“This is why we are having the breakfast buffet to inspire and celebrate people that will serve as vanguard of healthy, engaging, performance enhancing culture in various workplaces. They can be managers, talent managers, they can be team leads, it can be Human Resource professionals, they can be supervisors, they can be chief operational officer and the likes. These are people that represents promoting a workplace culture that is not toxic. Let us inspire them, let us gather some of them together, rub minds together inspire others and switch from what I call the vulture champions to become culture champions too promote the integrity of humanity,” he added.
Also speaking, the Lead, HR Function, MANTRAC Nigeria, Kaosarat Abdulkareem, said psychological safety is a concept that is is unpopular because of the way people view it, pointing out the need to change organisational culture to mean psychological safety to become the new normal for organisations.
“We can make it the DNA of every organisation. When we talk about psychological safety people think we are talking about the therapy or you are talking about one coaching session, but it is actually the culture of every organisation. A lot of talents come into an organisation with high ability and high interest, but they go back with the lowest of ability and the lowest of interest, and is as a result of the operations process systems, communication style, leadership style, and that’s organisation and as well as the culture of the structure of that organisation,” she added.
