At National Highways 2024 conference on commercial vehicle safety, Psychsafety founder Tom Geraghty explained the importance of psychological safety. Afterwards NH Head of Commercial Vehicle Incident Prevention Mark Cartwright asked him for his top techniques to foster real-world psych-safe cultures.
Tom’s top five methods for growing psychological safety:
- Graded assertiveness. If psychological safety is about creating an environment in which people can speak up about safety concerns, then graded assertiveness is the how to speak up. It is a technique for challenging a colleague if an employee suspects they (or their proposed activity) may be unsafe. It gives four levels of ‘challenge’ which can be used if there is time for discussion (as opposed to an emergency). PACE stands for Probe, Alert, Challenge, Emergency.
For example, if a driver appears too tired to go out in a vehicle, a colleague could go through the following stages to challenge them:
Probe: Are you OK?
Alert: You seem really tired. Are you sure you are safe to drive?
Challenge: I really don’t think you should be driving when you are this fatigued.
Emergency: OK, I need you to stop while we find another solution.
This gives the tired driver many opportunities to acknowledge their fatigue and suggest they do not drive, without losing face, before being ordered or a manager alerted.
The more PACE is used in the workplace the more everyone starts to recognise the steps and respond constructively to that first probe, because they realise that their colleague is concerned.
- Blame-free investigation and a just culture. When investigating incidents, near misses or collisions, the enquiries should be motivated by the idea of ‘what could we have done differently?’ or ‘what have you/we learned?’ The emphasis should always be on preventing future incidents. There is a place for accountability, of course – but a just culture doesn’t look only at the driver, but the environment, training, management, scheduling and every other aspect which contributed to the incident occurring.
- 2. Lean coffee. Drivers are often dictated too, and not so often involved in decisions about their work. Effective communication, training and safety culture all require participation and engagement. Lean coffee is a technique which maximises these and which could work well for engaged ‘toolbox talks’ or driver/team meetings. Ask for post-it notes (real or virtual) to be stuck on the board as potential discussion topics either before or at the start of the meeting – these can be anonymised. Take a vote on which topics are most pressing – with each person voting for their top three topics. The topics are then discussed from most-voted to least-voted. Set a timer to limit the discussions, and invite the creator of the topic to lead the discussion if they want.
- Think Pair Share. This is a great technique to ensure inclusivity in meetings or briefings. Rather than asking a question and listening to those who think fast and talk readily, ask for a minute’s silence to consider the question. Then ask people to discuss it in pairs, and then report back to the room in their pairs. This helps to capture all thoughts and contributions, not just the those of the most vocal.
- Avoid the empty gratitude phrases and offer something meaningful. We’ve all heard managers say “thank you for your contribution, X” with the sub-text of “please shut up now because I am no longer listening”. Just because something sounds polite doesn’t mean it is honest, constructive or psychologically safe. If a safety contribution is unwelcome, ask yourself why. If it requires thought, say so. If the company cannot act on it, for a legitimate reason, say so. If the company cannot act on it for a different reason, such as the allocated budget or profit margin, then perhaps the safety risk needs re-examining or the contract tasks reengineering. Not all concerns are valid but they all deserve an honest reply.
National Highways will be returning for a third year at the National Space Centre in Leicester in 2025, with speakers covering the latest topics affecting health and safety on the road. Please check back on our website for updates on how to book your spot.
National Highways has an ambition for no one to be harmed while using UK roads. This is an ambition we must realise together, which is why engage with businesses across the UK through our Driving for Better Business fleet safety programme. It has a wide array of high-quality, free-to-use tools, including the Van Driver Toolkit, CALMDriver and our driving for work policy builder, to make fleets and our roads safer.
