The fluorescent lights buzz with the muted but persistent hum of their bulbs, but the conference room is quiet, just as everyone is almost silent. A young marketing associate is sitting at the end of the table with a blank page in her Notebook. Her pulse is pounding against her ribs, and a frantic beat to which she has trained herself to pretend she doesn't feel.
Her manager, however, didn't take her advice on board 10 minutes ago when he responded rudely and publicly, "Let's stick to ideas that actually make sense, shall we?
The meeting continues. No one speaks up. The associate nods, tightly smiles, and later on contributes a safe beige rambling. However, there's something that's gone kaput inside. She is not thinking about her next campaign anymore, she's thinking about how she is going to get out of it. She's determining how many months of savings she has and who she has to message by Friday!
It is not a sensitivity / lack of grit issue. It's the tale of a psychologically safe environment, or the one that proves to be extremely unsafe.
A generation change is occurring all over the world. The younger generation, also known as the Gen Z and the young Millennials, are leaving the "good jobs" which are those that are documented on paper. They are abandoning competitive salaries and elaborate job titles, as well as the popular office perks. From the outside, it's considered to be unfaithfulness or weakness. To the employee, it's a matter of life and death, both physically and emotionally.
After all, an income will never calm an always stressed nervous system.
What Is Emotional Safety at Work?
Workplace safety is discussed a lot, but typically not in terms of physical hazards, like hard hats, yellow tape and ergonomic chairs. Emotional safety is an intangible part of a thriving work environment. So, without it, the whole structure will eventually fail due to the tension.
Psychological safety is a collective sense that you will not be stigmatised or embarrassed for raising concepts, questions, concerns, or mistakes, coined and popularised by the Harvard professor, Amy Edmondson. In an emotionally safe workplace, you can't have to expend half your energy on “competence” or “calmness.” It's okay to just get some work done.
An environment that is unsafe to express emotions, is operating on a fear-based culture. Where: It is a setting in which:
Errors are met with demeaning judgment and not considered as information to be learned.
Feedback is given as a tool to keep hierarchy, rather than to develop.
A negative attitude toward vulnerability is seen as a burden.
The “always on” attitude and mindset leads to chronic hypervigilance.
The workplace for the younger generations is no longer simply a time for exchange for monetary reward, because they have been born into a global mental health emergency, a climate crisis and an unprecedented time of economic volatility. It is an atmosphere which fosters or denies their humanity. They need a place to focus on their work, not a place to further traumatize them.
What Makes a Workplace Emotionally Unsafe?
Individuals don't simply quit jobs; they quit after an extended time period of emotional survival. The last move is typically the play's "wrap up. If a resignation letter reaches an HR before the resignation, it's likely that the employee has been 'gone' for months.
Emotional Masking: The “Always Okay” Problem
An unsafe workplace is often the most challenging part of it - emotional masking. To control real emotions, such as anxiety, fatigue or confusion, and to appear professionally "cool" is a difficult process. We see it when an employee sobs quietly in a restroom stall or at lunch in his or her car and then returns 5 minutes later to the office with a "perfect" PowerPoint presentation.
This masking is very exhausting, both physically and mentally. It takes the PFC to do a lot of work to keep the Limbic system in check. This causes emotional exhaustion over a period of time, which is an integral factor of burnout.
The “Toxic Productivity” phenomenon and the “Hustle” Trap.
In many organisations, productivity is based on what they see. Stress is the key to performance; so, if you aren't stressed, you aren't working hard enough. Such a poisonous productivity environment fosters a culture where workers feel guilty if they are allowed to take the leave they are given or even if they are allowed an evening away from the office.
The nervous system is in a ‘fight or flight' mode for 40-60 hours of the week and remains in that state with the body continually producing cortisol. The younger generation of workers are not only less willing to sacrifice for a corporate “Attaboy”, but they have the most to lose.
The public humiliation and micro stressors.
Not all bosses are loud! It's sometimes the little expression on your face when you're on a Zoom call. The email that is sent to you at 9:00 PM, on a Saturday. The email that you receive at 9:00 PM on Saturday. It is the manager who has to rely on personal "confessions" during the performances review. The little stress that's piling up is like a bunch of little tears in a cloth, until it unravels.
This is part of the Psychology of the Shift series, which explores why the shift now.
Safety by emotional is a demand that many critics describe as being “entitled” or “snowflaking” as a younger generation of workers' demands it. But in this way of thinking you are overlooking the psychological dimension: expectations have changed, due to the changes in the world.
Why Younger Employees Are Rethinking Workplace Loyalty
Many younger workers have witnessed what their parents have experienced as a consequence of busy companies getting rid of their workers during recessions. Younger workers have seen their parents work themselves to death and are fired by the employers in economic downturns. Their "gold watch" retirement dream has been dashed. The old contract has been discredited, therefore, that is the contract that we must break: suffer for a reward later. They desire what they are getting a healthy life now.
The emergence of Mental Health Literacy.
A generation of young people (Gen Z) that has never known a time without a vocabulary for mental health. They can be able to recognize the NS stress response. They have an understanding of the signs of gaslighting in the workplace. They do not have less muscles, or less strength, they just have more of an awareness of the value of their labor. They are the first generation to have mental health as an essential part and not an option.
Belonging vs. Fitting in at Work
Studies have found that belongingness within the workplace is one of the greatest motivators to keeping Gen Z. To them a toxic culture is a broken contract. Psychologically, it's a big difference between being a part of and fitting in.
Fitting in is evaluating a situation, becoming someone different and being accepted.
Being one's true self and accepted for that self is being a part of.
A constant 'fitting in' at a workplace will make youngsters realise the price they pay for self-betrayal is too high.
Spending money is an essential part of Modern Life.
The emotional argument will not work on the bottom-line thinkers get the bottom-line thinkers on the case. The workplace is an emotionally unsafe place; it's a poorly functioning business.
The Amygdala Hijack
The amygdala is triggered by an employee's brain when he or she feels unsafe, whether it is due to an approaching deadline or a bully boss. This is the “primitive” brain that is geared for survival. In an active amygdala, the executive function, logic, creativity and complex problem-solving regions of the prefrontal cortex in the brain slow down.
A culture that is emotionally unsafe has impacts such as:
Loss of creativity:
When one is afraid of being ridiculed, he or she cannot come up with ideas. The fear puts a cap on the "divergent thinking" that is needed for breakthroughs.
Mental health days may be a last resort to an ailing ship increased absenteeism.
Silent Burnout:
This stage is the direst and occurs when a person feels a deep sense of isolation, disillusionment, and depression. Employees stop complaining. They stop suggesting. They are very productive, but uninvolved and until they tender their resignation.
Recruitment, onboarding and lost productivity of a specialized employee replacing them can be up to 1.5X to 2X their annual salary. In fact, a "tax" on toxic leadership is high turnover.
This training addresses this issue and helps participants identify the "Quiet" Signs of Unsafety in situations when they might not have noticed them.
It is important to examine the times when they don't come back in order to understand why.
The "Drafts" Folder:
An employee that has five different versions of a simple email because he or she is afraid that the mistake will somehow be used against him/her.
Not a Sunday afternoon nerves-to-night hangover, but just an actual feeling of sick stomach, ‘Sunday Scaries' is a physical response to the battlefield-like environment.
Always Available Guilt:
You feel obliged to respond to a Slack message within 30 seconds or you feel like you're not working, regardless of whether you are engaged in a deep focus task.
“Meeting after the meeting”:
Younger workers having confidential conversations to check in with one another after an hour of meeting was like a gaslighting session.
Those scenarios put people in a frame of mind which is not conducive to a successful workplace. Those younger workers are resigning from their jobs because they know that they're not going to get a promotion by enduring it: They are going to go see a therapist.
What Do Emotionally Healthy Workplaces Do Differently?
If you really don't want to lose your best employees, you don't have to purchase the latest and greatest espresso machine, you just have to get a lot more expensive on empathy.
1. Lead with Vulnerability
When a leader admits that he/she doesn't have the answer yet or that he/she made a mistake on that projection, he/she gives permission for his/her team to be human. This will reduce the overall "threat level" in the room. Changes the team from a defensive to a team orientation.
2. Validating is not the same as evaluating. Don't evaluate - Validate.
Staff who are younger want to be acknowledged and recognized. This is not a thing of Participation trophies; it's a thing of recognizing the efforts and the emotional labor. I know that was a challenging client call, I saw how much effort you put in, I know that was draining," is much more likely to help retain the client than 3% bonus.
3. Further strengthen the nervous system.
Encourage true disconnection. Respect boundaries. It's important to communicate that an employee is not worth her worthwhile she is close to a workload which is likely to cause her burnout. It's something that must be done with role modelling. A "freedom to disconnect" policy is false if it means that the CEO can e-mail at night.
4. Normalize "The Struggle"
Healthy workplaces are mental health Aware. The discussion is about it as if it was a given fact of being a human being. If an organisation takes a "burnout" break in the same manner as they would take a "broken leg" break they create a level of loyalty that cannot be bought.
The Future of Workplace Culture
The "Great Resignation" and "Quiet Quitting" were not about giving up on work and laziness, but about making changes. The "Great Resignation" and the emergence of "Quiet Quitting" was not about laziness, but it was about change. They were a protest of all workers against the dehumanization of the workplace. Today, a time of 'soft skills' or 'emotional intelligence' (EQ), is here and it's the toughest and most crucial skill a leader can acquire.
The future of work is theirs that see that their greatest corporate treasure is not their technology or their IP, not their ideas rather it is the health of their people.
To HR professionals, or Founders reading this: Best talent in the market is not looking for a "family. They search for a Human Environment in the workplace. They want someplace they can go and don't have to apologize for it.
To the young professional: Safety is important to you and it is. You surely don't have to be like that to work in an environment that won't demand that you leave your soul at the door, but it's a prerequisite in order to have a sustainable life. It's not quitting when it's time to make the change to a more comfortable environment.
A Final Reflection
A third of our lives is spent working! It's taking too long to live in fear.
The trend towards creating emotionally safe workplaces is no fad and it's not just a Gen Z thing. It's a great evolution of the human experience that's needed. Every organisation with “bright stars” that keep burning out or walking away will remain puzzled as to the reason for their “bright stars” leaving.
The ones that get it and focus on belonging, psychological safety and emotional intelligence, however, will have a workforce that is not just loyal, but extremely creative, resilient and engaged.
Fear-Based leadership is coming to a close. No longer is it about jacking up the volume of emotion in the workplace. It is the time of the emotionally aware workplace. Now the question is, what side will your organization be on?
The silent walkouts are not only a walkout, but it's also a signal. It's past time everyone began to listen.
A healthier workplace starts with being willing to listen. If your team is struggling with burnout, stress, or emotional safety, professional support can help.
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