Q. 103  5S (Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) is system of workplace standardization to create a clean and well-ordered workplace to minimize errors and reduce waste. 6S is 5S plus the added step of safety. It’s a coincidence that success and 6S & sound exactly alike! Regardless, it’s a reminder that the sixth S itself is the key to successfully implementing a lean 5S program. In contrast to the other five elements, safety is about people and the second most basic human need, according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, after physiological needs. While a lot is talked about physical safety, “Mental safety” remains undiscussed. How do you define mental safety? How does it impact quality of work/productivity/performance/engagement?

 

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Mental Safety Or Psychological  Safety , this is a state where the Employee is free to work in his environment without any pressure, doubt, fear and looking behind his back all the while. This safety above all enable a employee to be his natural self and it agurs well for the employee to show his true potential.

 

Before we get into the safety aspect lets us see what  kinds of Psychological pressures a employee could face in his environment, My experiences has made me understand few pressures that i have written: The cases i mentioned are Service company based,

 

Newly Joined :

• Training Pressure: This where the employee feels the real pressure when they are learning , because if one does not clear the training he would not be able to hit the production, He will be confused as to what level he could interact with the Trainer, to what level he could express his opinions in the training 

• Ice breaking: When the employees becomes a part of the group for the first time it takes great effort to get to the comfort level to be a part of the unit and start working, making contribution to the group keeping in mind the sensitivities of the group 

• Cultural barrier : getting used to the company culture making ti a part of your daily work life, every company has unique culture that is build over the years and sometimes understanding it and getting use of it is tough

Processing :

• Meeting Expectation: Targets and deliverables pressure to meet them, and the worry associated with not meeting these

• Teamwork: able to talk freely, express ones opinion when the work in on hand, requires a team effort and understanding. Clear understanding regards the communication to be done.

• escalate: Having to escalate things when needed that could cost the co's clients and etc, sometimes one must be ready to escalate things while in action, sometimes post mortem is fine, so havign to judge the escalation needs

Performance:

•  Constant monitoring : constantly having to know where you are with regard to your peers and what level you are, always been afraid of ranked low than your peers 

• Measured:  How i am measured , what will they seek,  understand the underlying maths that is used, the way ranking is carried will i be ranked without any bias what factors will be used to measure me

HR:

• Will someone listen to me, if i need help , if i need advice , how should i ask , where should i ask is kept confidential and anonymous 

 

The pressures as written , are few of them that we get to see in the real world, while working, many companies have addressed these various ways to able the Mental safety of the employee. Few of them are written :

 

• HR : Creating unique and innovative ways to onboard new hires, make them feel comfortable ,ex: Buddy systems where new hires are assigned a buddy who will make them understand the company culture,what he could ask in the training, what he could expect in the training

• Train the Trainers: The trainers are regularly trained to make them understand how to make the trainees comfortable etc, take feedback on the trainers to know how they are performing on the parameters that requires making the trainees feel safe and comfortable

• Team building : Conduct team building activities and build bond within the team members and make them rely on each other , enhance the communication within the team

• Written and available procedures and protocols: Ensure there are written and available protocols for most of the issue a employee might face and ask them to use them, this will ensure that they are not in a worry of what will happen if they do this that 

• Understand the learning Curve: The learning curve expectation set and communicated, will allow the employee to have the clarity what is expected from his work and how much is expected

 

The said things as adopted by companies would help in ensuring mental safety of a employee, where he would be really flourish to his full potential 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mental Health is the psychological state of mind.   Humans resource is the most crucial of resources in an organization and its mental well-being is etremely crucial to the success of any organization.  However,  this is as neglected as much as it is understood.   A positive mental health leads to creating an engaged employee providing organizations a winning edge over the others.   On the other hand, an unhealthy mind results in disengaged employee that brings down overall company's performance.   Per a study,  world wide more than 300 million people are suffering form depression and this number is on rise.  In an organization, work place harassment and bullying result in negative mental health.  This has a potential to impact all levels of organization; be it a fresher executive or the CXO level in the company.  It is imperative that the law makers and corporate take cognizance of this and bring in laws and rules to implement conducive working environment resulting in success of organizations and that of a nation.

I would define mental safety is something we feel confidence in what we do.

For an example, even in this 6S question forum, I should feel that no matter my definition will be agreed by others or not but with a confidence, I should write this answer.

Also I would say Mental safety is little more important than Physical safety because it might be the cause for a physical hazardous if we mentally not calm and focused on what we do physically.

In such a way it creates impact to the quality of work we do. So have belief and focus on what we do to feel mentally safe.

5S is a lean approach for Workplace discipline. Later the sixth aspect of Safety came into picture for making the working environment a safety place for the employees and also focus on employee safety specified, as well . However this safety addresses only the physical safety aspect of an employee, the mental aspect of safety is missing. This is probably due to the fact this lean technique is based on a disciplined approach of how systematically each of these aspects of 6s is working in an

organisation which applies this technique. Therefore, the mental aspect of safety (or mental safety) is not captured as part of the 6th 'S' of this technique.

 

Having said this , how important is the mental safety. What is mental safety ? What are the different aspects of mental safety? Why do we need that ? Well, let us take a deep dive on that.

 

Mental Safety: In my opinion, it is the ability of a person to keep his/her mind in a stable state at all times , irrespective of the situations/

environment  that he/she is in. Ideally there could be several factors which an individual has to cope such as Stress, Fear, Anxiety,Excitement. He/she has to take care that even in

adverse situations, the mind should be in a state of equilibrium(Steady state).

 

Let us see some of these influential factors, which i believe, can affect the mental safety of a person.   

 

1. Stress: It can be either physical or mental. We would look onto the mental stress. This can happen either because of undue worrying/ excitement or putting so much effort and get mentally tired, in the process.This mental stress can happen both in Personal and Professional life of a human being. In this context, we would focus on the professional stress . Let us take a quick glance as what can cause a person  to be under stress in his/her profession .[Note: I will use the term employee to highlight the fact that we are discussing about a person who is working in an organisation.]
Factors causing Professional Stress:  
a). High work load (Lot of work to be done beyond the limit of a single person- could be prevalent in quite some of the mid-sized organisations)
b). Constant Work pressure (office environment not conducive- micromanagement, peer-to-peer comparison)
c). No job satisfaction - in terms of - work being done, monetary benefits, lack of rewards and recognition .With a stressful mind, it becomes difficult for a person to focus on his/her work. He/she cannot produce a qualitative work as the mind would be cluttered with some

kind of thinking(with or without the individual's knowledge) and therefore may not be productive. His/her performance might droop and he/she might disengage themselves

with the work quite often. The employee might have been working continuously on extended hours for quite a few months.But over a period of time, he/she may loose the

interest to work with as he/she cannot cope with the demanding work for long, that too with a low/no motivation at a non-conducive environment. Therefore Errors might

creep into his/her work. For eg, in a typical IT industry, if the employee works as a developer, then he/she might make some mistakes in writing new codes which will

hamper the quality of that work and then those mistakes need to be fixed. Therefore that would also affect his/her productivity rate of completing further of the new

codes. The performance of that employee would have a downward graph from being a finisher of work(at right time) to mistakes-inducing developer - in other words to a

bad performer.    

 

2.Depression: Too much of a mental stress can lead to a state of depression . This can lead to at times, an errant or muted behaviour(not responding properly to theneeds) from the employee. This can affect the quality and productivity of an employee's work. With a depressed mind, its difficult for the employee to think of the work as there would be constant thoughts bickering over the mind and hence focusing on the work on hand is difficult for the employee. Therefore Productivity will

also be poor. The employee might also seclude himself with the rest of the team as he/she cannot think other than the problem that he/she has in his/her mind and any engagement with the team would be cut-off and performance would be a downward slope for the employee.

 

3. Anxiety: Too much anxiety can at times result in a bit of Stress , though it could be momentary(or for some time). Imagine you are buying a Benz car(a Costly car

for many people - is it not ?) and the Showroom Salesperson told that it would be delivered tomorrow.You have told your most important friends that you would give a party to them in 2 days of time, from the time of delivery.Now the salesperson calls you and says that your car would be delivered 2 days later. Now you get tensed whether you would be able to have the car before the party time. The anxiety of how the new car would like, when seen in reality would soon give way to a stress of seeing the car at or on time (before that planned party - which could be of high stake for you due to various reasons). This is just a crude example. I will give

another example relevant to an Industry . Imagine an IT employee needs to deliver the software to the customer in this week. Its going good at this point. As its the first delivery for her, in the new project,  she starts thinking more on the delivery and is unknowingly putting pressure on herself because of this commitment to

delivery . Soon this becomes a stress to her affecting her, health. The moment a person is stressed, you know what can happen to that person's work(Quality of) , productivity, performance.

 

4.Fear: Fear can be due to multiple factors.
        a). Fear of Failure - An employee is working in an IT Organisation for quite some time, in Retail domain. Now she has been asked to work in Banking domain.  She is worried too much about how she would perform in a domain which she does not have enough exposure. She needs to stop worrying before it can affect

her work , performance and productivity    
        b). Fear of backlash(read Punishment) - Assume an employee joins a R&D company for Space Research. He works hard everyday 12 hours and is mentally fatigued. One day the employee wrongly designs a panel unintentionally and a demo that was supposed to be shown to various eminent scientific scholars and to the President of the Country fails because of the malfunctioning of the panel. Now he feels that his job position is under scrutiny because of this mistake.

        c). Fear of Appraisal - An Employee joining an Organisation recently may not be fully aware of his Organisational culture, environment(or he still might be getting accustomed to that)  and how the organisational matrix is structured. Also he might not have had a chance or enough time to prove his mettle to his boss

(Supervisor). All these things would be running on his mind when the appraisal times comes into play. What would the supervisor say about his appraisal ? How it would

go ? These questions would go through the mind of the employee .
 d). Fear of Unknown - For some people (read employees), there could be always a fear factor unnecessarily creeping in their mind, probably because by nature either they are having that mindset or they would have joined newly or the working environment/culture may not be conducive to them(probably they feel that is hostile to them).   As we have seen, Fear can impact the work by producing negative thoughts in the mind and disrupting the flow of positive and good thoughts which can hamper your

professional progress. The Performance of an employee can get decreased and productivity slips as working rhythm is disturbed. The employee becomes aloof as he/she

becomes susceptible to fear and his/her engagement with the team or project work gets minimised or alienated.

 

5.Work-Life Balance - This is a very important part in a professional's life. This is all about having a balanced way of life - where an individual satisfies both

his/her professional needs (his/her Organisational needs and his/her Professional career aspirations) and his/her Personal needs(Personal needs and primarily Family

needs). Devoting enough energy, support to both these needs make a person's professional work and personal life, a balanced one. Often when the professional work

ethics are met and personal(read family) needs are not met, then there is a considerable stress and even depression on the part of the employee. This can happen when

too much work pressure of when too much expectation is there on the employee. Often Key members in a team can have this problem or employees in critical role or higher

role in an organisation can have this problem.   

These are some of the factors which can influence the Mental Safety of an Employee. How to address these influencing factors which can destabilise the Mental Safety of

an Employee? Can Organisations help their employees on this regard ? Can the Individual him(her)self be able to help ob his/her own?
The answer is yes to both of the preceding 2 questions. Let us see some of the ways of addressing the issues, created by these factors. They are not the only ways but

they are among some of the many ways of resolving the issues created by the aforementioned factors.

 

Ways of Eliminating the issues, created by some of the factors which can destabilise the Mental Safety of a Person (read Employee):

 

1. Stress:

   To avoid stress,
  a). An employee has to have a mindset change that there will be constant workload for everyone. Its not for a single person that workload is too high. He/she should

have the passion to do the job,but must ensure its not overshoot.

  b). An employee has to see if Meditation, listening to music, playing music, playing games, doing physical exercise, Yoga,etc.. can lower his/her stress and do which is best suited for him/her as an individual. Even some organisations conduct all of these for their employee welfare regularly.

  c). If an employee is the leader in his/her team, then he /she should put a career roadmap for his/her team. Reward and Recognise, each one of that team for their achievements. It need not be always a monetary reward but it can just be a pat on the back, or a 'congruatulatory' mail or a 'thanks' mail to that person but sent(read

copied)to the whole team. If there is a chance for the customer to appreciate an individual within the employee's team, make it happen and share that to the entire team and the management.  If the employee is not a leader of the team, suggest these kind of things to the team lead or the supervisor/boss.  These kind of things can transform the employee that he/she belongs to the company and his/her emotional satisfaction would be very high as he/she would have realised that his/her hard efforts

are fructified and recognised.

A stress-free employee can produce high quality work, with superior productivity and consistent high performance.

2. Depression: This can be a bit of psychological problem. If the root cause is due to too much of stress, then understanding what caused the stress, in the first place is the key , and accordingly the solution can be given. But if its due to something else (say some issue in work environment), then this would require counselling. Some Big industry players (across all industries) do have a counselling team who can help on such cases. A tension less and a depression free employee can dedicatedly

work and increase his/her productivity with increased performance.

3. Anxiety: To avoid unnecessary anxiety/excitement, an employee has to relax him(her)self - He/she should not look far ahead and take things as it comes by. He/she can

calm down his/her mind by doing some relaxation exercises or activities. This can make the employee involved in the project and focus on the work and will be more

productive.

4. Fear:
       a). An employee has to try consciously not thinking about failures. He/she would have succeded in the past on other projects or in other activities. He/she has to

think how those projects/activities were done successfully and think about that feel-good factor that came out of those projects. Same way, the employee should think

that the new project/activities can be successfully conquered. This will create a positive feeling (mindset) and that can improve the work(Quality), Performance, and

therefore productivity of the employee and he/she would be highly engaged with his/her work.
   b). Everyone makes mistakes and this fact an employee has to believe this can happen to anyone in his/her organisation. Therefore his/her intention is to ensure that he/she does the basics right in whatever activities are being done by him/her and should not unduly worry about things which are not in his/her control. Most of the time, this would ensure that an employee does not fall into the trap of fear of punishment.
   c). The employee should do his/her best and let his/her boss do the rest. That should be the mantra of the employee. He/She should not be worried about what would happen to his/her appraisal. Rather it should be as how he/she can contribute to Organisation development and his/her own development. But still in the corporate world, the onus is also on the employee to showcase (as a quantification of what was achieved) in the right manner to his/her supervisor about what has been achieved (bring the uniqueness of that achievement- just to get supervisor attention). From the Organisation point of view, the leader of the team or management has to notice

if the employee has done something unique as portrayed and accordingly provide the right ranking/rating as per Organisation policies.
   d). This is a factor where the employee and the organisation need to have a bit of handshake. For employees joining newly, they need to find reliable co-employess who are already with the organisation (for quite some time) to seek help in getting to know more about the working environment, Organisation culture and other such things. The Organisation from its side, can give Orientation course on its working style, culture and its policies and practices. This can provide the employees, the

initial comfort space they may need.

Eliminating or minimising the fear, can make an employee go at full strength.  His/her ideas, innovation, involvement can dramatically change the quality of the work

positively, increase his/her performance and also the productivity. He/she will be highly connected to his/her work.

5. Work-Life Balance : Often employees of many industries , get stuck up on this aspect.  Its one of the crucial aspect of Mental Safety. Many Organisations in today's

fast-moving world, do invite families of the employees to their Organisation celebrations such as "Founder's Day", "Family Day".  In "Founder's Days", the families of

the employees are allowed to see the work environment of the employees. This gives the family a chance to see the life from an employee point of view. The family

members get an understanding of the professional life of an employee and get a chance to understand and appreciate the nuances involved in the job involved for that

employee. Similarly, "Family Day" becomes an occasion for an employee's family to be part of an Organisation's celebrations. It becomes a get-together of employees (of

an organisation) and their families. It creates a bonding between the employees's families and the Organisation (in which the employees work).
These things can even take the pressure of the employees, hardened by the stress, created by the workload.

Conclusion:
We have seen how important is the Mental Safety of an employee in any organisation. We have seen some of the factors that can influence the mental safety. I believe, these are some key factors which can decide or shape the behaviour of the work ethics of an employee. The Onus is both on the employee who is working for an

Organisation and also that respective Organisation for whom he/she is working, to ensure that the employee is having the requisite degree of control on all these influencing and any other factors (if any). There cannot be a yardstick for measuring any of these factors. But when the work quality, productivity , performance of an employee varies considerably , considering his/her experience and expertise, then he/she needs to be notified and from an Organisation perspective, it has to see what

can be done to prevent that from happening further for him/her and whether it can be addressed by him/her and if not, can it address. It also has to find if there are similar such instances across the Organisation  ? If so , is there any root cause identified ? If yes, can a mechanism be put in place so that this can be prevented?

These are the kind of questions that an Organisation has to put in place and provide remedial measures. There are Organisations in the world, which has good Human

Resource policies which ensures presence of Counselling team, requesting employees to adhere to company sponsored fitness programs, building Gymnasium complex for regular exercise and so on.  Once if we have the bases covered, then probably the Mental Safety can be said as covered.
 
 Expert comment by Venugopal R on this best answer. 

Well explained by R Rajesh.

Many of the Company-wide programs, be it ISO systems, Six Sigma or Business Excellence, have all given great benefits to organizations and businesses. However, all of these had their share of building pressure on employees, at least a section of them, which probably has not been discussed or addressed adequately. The variations amongst human minds in terms of behaviours, sensitivity and interpretation are not easy to fathom, unlike the variations in processes and products that we normally talk about. “Mental Safety issue” may be seen as frustrations, depressions, de-motivation, reduced team engagement, high resistance, scepticism, feeling of insecurity, negative attitude and so on. It is very contagious and adversely impacts the workplace. Even as we write this, corporates are bustling with efforts for employee reductions, layoffs and identification of bottom performers. It is a fact that much needs to be discussed, thought and done in this area. However, it is a good move that it has found a place in the workplace management systems as the 6^th S. Let’s look forward to this move to bring about adequate consciousness and positive changes with respect to the way Mental Safety is handled.

Definition of Mental Health: Mental Health is physical, emotional, psychological and social well-being of a person.

How does it impact quality of work/productivity/performance/engagement at work place?

 

The overall health of a workplace includes both the physical and psychological well-being of its workers. By treating mental health and its psychological component equally with the physical environment, a workplace can support their workers’ overall well-being. Poor mental health not only hurts the individual, it also reduces corporate profits. It's important that all levels of the workplace - including the Board of Directors, management, finance, and human resources departments - get involved to incorporate mental health at your workplace. It is also necessary to engage your health and safety committee and workers - we all have a shared responsibility for health and safety, including mental health.

 

A common mistake made by employers is believing that a great employee engagement strategy will ultimately lead to good levels of employee mental health at work. The only way this would be true is if their engagement strategy had specific systems in place to address employee mental health, an issue of growing importance in the modern workplace. With stress and anxiety levels rising, employers won’t know how to improve employee engagement if they fail to recognize the key role mental health plays in the mix. 

 

While many employers have accepted that employee engagement is key to the success of their business and are taking action, most are unaware of the secret obstacle in their path: employee mental health. There is overwhelming evidence to show that factors like insufficient sleep, difficult working environments and stress/anxiety over workload are affecting employees’ ability to feel truly connected to their organisation’s goals and values - no matter how high their salary or generous their benefits package.

 

Managers directly responsible for managing the productivity and performance of a team, it’s not uncommon for them focus all their energy on organizing their team, ensuring they meet deadlines and hit targets. However, this often means the human side of things fades into the background. Stress and anxiety over unrealistic deadlines and unmanageable workloads are all too common problems in the workplace, as is lack of sleep and having a bad work/life balance.

 

How it can be improved?

 

Mentally happy employees are ultimately more productive, it’s certainly worth managers adapting their management style to reduce these mental health triggers. Managers who are supportive and approachable are more likely to inspire greater commitment and engagement from their employees as they feel valued and looked after. While employees may not come to their managers directly to discuss their struggle with stress, anxiety and depression, line managers can certainly help by:

1. Enforcing reasonable working hours to avoid burn out
2. Understanding that employees may react differently to stress, and have different stress triggers
3. Encouraging employees to take their full lunch hour and other breaks when needed
4. Making it possible for employees to take their annual leave allowance
5. Having regular, informal catch-ups with individual employees so they feel listened to and able to resolve issues before they escalate into stressful situations
6. Ensuring employees are comfortable asking for help
7. Considering flexible working hours or work-from-home days
8. Making employees understand that taking a ‘mental sick day’ is as important for their health as a physical one.

 

Having good relationships with senior management is also useful in ensuring good mental health at work. It can help foster trust, inspiring confidence in the direction the organisation is moving. In terms of combating mental health problems at work, getting senior management on board will bring a real sense of authenticity to the systems being put in place. Senior management are responsible for ensuring managers are trained in mental health and stress management and advising/guiding them on how to approach these issues in line with the company’s values.

 

 

 

The success of a 5 S implementation is dependent on how we handle the 6th S which is safety. This is directly related to people and always the most difficult and challenging.

 

Safety can be divided as physical and mental. Physical safety can be enforced by putting relevant controls and use of automation and alerts etc.

 

Mental safety involves the psychological aspects of a human  and is very complex in nature. This is dynamic in nature and constantly changing according to time.

 

To understand this,  let us broadly divide the work force in 3 groups and see how to engage them in any new initiatives

 

Group 1 : Young entry level aspiring and talented employees who are willing to lean, adapt to change and highly focused on getting their career building. High on risk taking and quickly adaptable to change.

 

Group 2 : Mid level experienced employees who are in the process of looking at stability and are in the process of building their family. Risk taking ability and adaptability to change with caution.

 

Group 3 : Senior employees who have been loyal to the organisation, have high experience and are in their last leg of employment. Have families who are settled. Low on risk taking and high resistance to change.

 

To explain the above in detail, I would like to take the example of a MNC packaging company with plants having mix of unionized as well as young staff cadre work force working on the same st of machines.

 

A management decision was taken some time back to stop recruitment on workmen cadre who would by default be part of union and employ diploma holders who would be in staff cadre and not part of union. Both these groups are deployed as operators on the machines 

 

Problem : It was decided to implement 5 S program in the shop floor represented by all the three groups of people. What are the challenges which we encountered and how did we address these groups separately and go ahead with a successful implementation.

 

Group 1 : Educated, talented , young, energetic and aspiring group of individuals. A very low level of loyalty towards the organisation. Constantly seeking opportunities outside the company and using the current experience as a stepping stone. High level of attrition. A training program was undertaken to cast a vision for these individuals and a road map was drawn for them to understand how they could become shift supervisors and floor managers over a period of time. The key was to reduce attrition and use the talent pool for Business Excellence initiatives. 

 

During the 5 S initiatives, these group was involved in creating visual displays across the shop floor, creative ideas to re organize the shop floor, work on the physical safety programs and nominate them for six sigma green belt certifications. This helped in reduction in attrition and enhanced participation in Business Excellence initiatives.

 

Group 2 : This group has talented and experienced work force with growing family and willing to run the extra mile to support the growing financial requirements of their families. This group is open to new ideas and are willing to participate in new initiatives with caution. They are part of the union  and do not want themselves to be branded as pro management as being in the union givens them a safety cover and sense of security.

 

To empower this group training programs were conducted in Fire safety, First aid using external training agencies. They we empowered to organize the safety week celebration programs, participate in safety quiz, spot the defect and spot the hazard programs in the shop floor. Team sports activities like volleyball, Cricket, Carrom and Table tennis were conducted during Republic day and Independence day . Best attendance awards were given to reduce absenteeism. Members were drawn to conduct internal shop floor audits  to build a competitive environment.

 

Group 3 : This group has semi literate skilled experienced work force actively involved in union activities with families resonabilly settles and over a period of time have a stable financial situation. High resistance to change and not open to new initiatives.

 

For this group a training program on self introspection called " Jeevan Yatra" was conducted. This program focused on the following

Know yourself.

What is your role in your family

What is your role in the society

What is your role in the organisation

 

A change management program was conducted to sensitize the changes in technology and how to be updated and use of the new tools like ERP systems, SFDC despite having limitations in literacy and computer skills. These programs helped in mitigating the resistance and made them receptive to change.

 

A monthly news bulletin was started to encourage and unleash hidden talents. This bulletin had a page dedicated to safety measures and ideas published . Each bulletin had profile of one senior work man which he could share it with his family and created a sense of pride in them.

 

Conclusion : Identification of the groups, understanding their mental build ups and designing the training programs and initiatives to enhance participation of all the 3 groups was the key for a successful implementation of 5 S program. This also enabled to fast track all Business Excellence initiatives in the shop floor.

Today this plant is a role model plant and bench marking with other group plants situated in India as well as countries like Germany, Italy, Thailand, Vietnam and Dubai.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In any organisation we have a philosophy of 5S to maintain and sustain our system to get better output. 

6S related to safety. Here mental safety relates to psychological health of any employee while at work. If any employee is not psychological active to prevent harm and work better. If any employee is present physically in the Organisation but not mentally then it can impact on work as well as productivity. 

For example if he not psychological ok an d not present mentally in the Organisation then might be possible that work is going on in front of him and he ignores all problems and just work going on and in actual work was not OK but he may pass it to next process. 

In hospitals if any one not psychological ok an d not present mentally during work then might be possible he can change the dosage or any medicine which can have worst impact on patient. So it is necessary to have mental safety. And psychological health of all employees should be for better performance and work. 

Mental safety is also equal important at work place.

Mental safety is basically measured by stress level and pressure to complete the task. So it's is also an important parameter along with 5S for better process and good decisions.

Mental  safety can be defined by creating a friendly environment at the org level, which will give employees a  feeling of freedom, and the employees or the team members, will not be hesitant to share any innovative ideas, if they have, as the fear of being judged harshly by mgmt will not be there.

The mental safety can be implemented in the following ways..

1) Ensuring the team member is not overloaded.

2) Ensure that the tasks allocated are do'able by the employee..

3) Ask the team, do they need any support in accomplishing their goals..

Assist them as and when needed, so that they will not face any difficulty.

4) Team bonding activities to be planned, to release the stress.

 

In the absence of the mental safety, the performance of the employee deteriorates, the energy levels goes down, due to the single ownership and continuous working the productivity will reduce.

Lack of interest will screw up the quality and these will have impact on the business and customer satisfaction...

Mental Safety can be defined as being in a healthy psychological state of mind which is prerequisite for normal and smooth functioning of a human being.  As the mind space is very much a prerequisite for any kind of planning activity, the safety of this space becomes sacrosanct of any success.

Since businesses need individuals to be very sharp in every level of the organisation, mental safety becomes very much the Holy Grail of success.  Stress, lack of awareness about mental health and distractions are some of the commonest elements which when addressed at a very early stage can contribute to a mentally safe working environment.  Creating avenues for awareness could be a start point.  Sometimes just talking about mental safety in a very generalised manner will create opportunities to understand existing problems and to deal with it effectively.

To end "Everything is created Twice:

Once in the Mind and then Physically.

Let us strive to be mentally safe in an increasingly chaotic phase of human existence.

Edited October 23, 20187 yr by Arvindh Pradheep Shanmugam
Refinement

R Rajesh continues his winning streak with the best answer again - very elaborately detailed and covers all aspects. Raghuram's answer brings out an important point about one solution not fitting all - it is important to identify different groups and their mental make up before deciding how to provide support mechanism for mental safety.

 

Thank you all for contributing!