DEI Support for Physical and Psychological Safety at Work

In addressing workplace safety, environmental, health, and safety professionals often begin with ensuring physical safety for their employees. However, that’s only the beginning of creating a safe place to work. A safe work environment not only protects lives and livelihoods, but it also provides a place where all employees can feel emotionally and mentally safe to be the best version of themselves. Safety is typically only thought of in a physical sense and this creates an imbalance where an individual’s whole needs are not being prioritized. Creating a more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and safe work environment is about ensuring the physical and psychological safety of employees, in and out of the workplace, so they are healthy, included, alert, and engaged while at work. This will, in turn, lead to fewer injuries and higher quality products in the workplace. Workplaces need to ensure physical safety and also psychological safety for employee engagement and wellbeing.