Is Psychological Safety a legal obligation? In short, no. But due to the newly introduced Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, it’s now as near as it gets to being one.

This act places new duties on employers relating to sexual harrassment; and psychological safety features heavily in how ACAS recommends we meet the new standard.

Should you invest more in improving your processes or engaging your people? It’s not an easy question, and the answer isn’t as obvious as I first thought when I started my career in leadership development and lean thinking.

There are three things that you need to know to understand why going against the grain is hard:

1. We are social creatures, and avoiding social pain is a survival mechanism

2. We are intelligent, creative and compassionate beings and not necessarily ruled by our instincts

3. We live closer in time to Tyrannosaurus Rex than T-Rex lived to Stegosaurus