Mental Health Awareness Month: How to Build Psychological Safety at Work

As organizations observe Mental Health Awareness Month, leaders have a great opportunity to move beyond awareness campaigns and build an environment in which employees genuinely thrive.

Psychological safety – the shared belief that one can speak up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes without fear of punishment or humiliation – is the bedrock of a mentally healthy workplace. It’s not a perk, but a core business driver that is directly linked to innovation, retention, and performance (1).

By committing to psychological safety, you unlock your team’s full potential and create a resilient organization prepared for future challenges.

Here’s what you need to know.

What Does It Take to Build Psychological Safety at Work?

Building psychological safety is a deliberate, top-down effort that requires a foundational shift from managing performance to cultivating people. It’s about creating a climate of rewarded vulnerability, where the risk of speaking up is lower than the risk of staying silent (2).

The concept was defined and advanced by Amy Edmondson, a Harvard Business School professor (3), whose seminal research shows that psychological safety enables the learning behaviors – such as admitting errors and seeking feedback – that drive high performance. Her work reveals it’s a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking (4).

This idea is reinforced by the U.S. Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health & Well-Being. As the nation’s leading public health office, the Surgeon General identifies “Protection from Harm” as the first essential for a healthy workplace, explicitly naming psychological safety as a core component. This means protecting employees from psychological harm, including bias, harassment, and retaliation, just as you would protect them from physical hazards (5).

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Building this environment requires a multi-faceted approach (4).

• Make it a Strategic Priority: Frame psychological safety as a non-negotiable business objective, not just an HR initiative.
• Model Vulnerability: Leaders must openly admit their own mistakes, ask for help, and demonstrate that it’s safe to be imperfect.
• Establish Clear Norms: Explicitly define what safe interpersonal conduct looks like, such as respectful debate, active listening, and constructive feedback.
• Decouple Mistakes from Punishment: Implement “lessons learned” debriefs after projects or failures, focusing on systemic improvements rather than individual blame.
• Foster a Culture of Trust: Promote transparency in decision-making and ensure team members’ intentions are assumed to be positive.
• Empower Worker Voice: Create formal and informal channels for employees to share concerns without fear, and demonstrate that their input leads to meaningful change.

Example of psychological safety at work: During a project-planning meeting, a junior team member points out a potential flaw in the timeline proposed by a senior leader. Rather than becoming defensive, the leader thanks the employee for their candor and facilitates a group discussion to revise the plan, reinforcing that all voices are valued.

Explore related guidance here: stress awareness month.

Read more: Mental Reset After Summer: A Wellness Plan for Your Team

How Can Organizations Assess Gaps in Employee Mental Health Support?

Before you can build, you must assess. Understanding your current state is the first step toward creating a targeted strategy for psychological safety and mental health. A comprehensive assessment goes beyond annual engagement surveys to capture the subtle, often unspoken, dynamics within teams.

Amy Edmondson’s research provides a validated framework for measurement (4). Her survey items can be adapted into a confidential pulse survey to get a clear signal on team-level safety. Distribute these questions quarterly to track progress and identify hotspots.

Consider asking your teams to rate their agreement with the following statements:

1. If I make a mistake on this team, it’s not held against me.
2. Members of this team are able to bring up problems and tough issues.
3. It’s safe for me to take a risk on this team.
4. It isn’t difficult to ask other members of this team for help.
5. Working with members of this team, my unique skills and talents are valued.
6. No one on this team would deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts.

The American Psychological Association (APA), the nation’s leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology, found that workers who experience psychological safety report higher job satisfaction, better relationships with colleagues, and lower emotional exhaustion in its 2024 Work in America survey (6). 

Their research provides a roadmap for what to measure (7):

• Review Existing Data: Analyze engagement surveys, exit interviews, and retention data, filtering by department, role, and manager to spot patterns of dissatisfaction or burnout.
• Conduct Listening Tours: Senior leaders should hold informal small-group sessions with employees at all levels, asking open-ended questions about their experience.
• Use Validated Instruments: The Surgeon General’s framework points to resources such as the NIOSH Worker Well-Being Questionnaire (WellBQ) for a scientifically grounded assessment (8).
• Evaluate Manager Effectiveness: Assess manager capabilities through 360-degree feedback, focusing on behaviors that build or erode trust.
• Map Your Support Ecosystem: Inventory your current mental health benefits, EAP utilization rates, and accessibility of care. Are services confidential, easy to find, and culturally competent?

Which Leadership Actions Most Effectively Build Psychological Safety?

Psychological safety is built or destroyed in the thousands of micro-interactions that happen every day, and leaders cast the longest shadow. Their actions set the tone for what is permissible and what is rewarded. Fostering psychological safety at work is an active, not passive, leadership responsibility (9).

The Surgeon General’s Framework emphasizes that the most effective leaders express compassion, communicate openly, and practice human-centered leadership (10). This means recognizing that employees are whole people with lives and challenges outside of work.

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Similarly, the APA’s 2024 report highlights that well-trained managers are a key driver of psychological safety (7). Organizations must equip leaders with the skills to move beyond being taskmasters and become coaches and cultivators of talent. Effective leadership actions include:

• Frame Work as a Learning Problem: Set the stage by acknowledging uncertainty and emphasizing the need for everyone’s voice to navigate complex challenges.
• Practice Situational Humility: Admit you don’t have all the answers. Use phrases such as, “I might miss something – I need to hear from you.”
• Invite Input and Dissent: Actively solicit opposing views in meetings. Assign a devil’s advocate or use structured psychological safety activities such as pre-mortems to surface risks.
• Respond Productively: When someone shares a problem, a mistake, or a dissenting opinion, respond with gratitude and forward-looking curiosity. A simple “Thank you for that perspective – tell me more” can shift a culture.
• Hold Yourself Accountable: When you make a mistake, own it publicly and detail what you’ve learned. This normalizes imperfection and makes it safe for others to do the same.
• Protect Voices: When someone takes an interpersonal risk, ensure they are not shut down, ignored, or penalized. Publicly defend their right to speak up, even if you disagree with the content.

Example of psychological safety at work: A team misses a key deadline. Rather than asking “Whose fault is this?” the manager starts the debrief with “What were the systemic factors that led to this outcome, and what can we learn for next time?” This invites an honest discussion about workload, resource gaps, and unclear dependencies.

For more practical ideas, see: motivational techniques.

How Can Teams Feel Safe Sharing Challenges During Mental Health Awareness Month?

Mental Health Awareness Month is the perfect time to demonstrate, not just declare, your commitment to employee well-being. The goal is to make conversations about mental health as normal as conversations about physical health. This requires creating a safe container for teams to share their experiences without fear of stigma or career repercussions (11).

To do this, leaders must first normalize the topic. The World Health Organization (WHO), the leading global authority on public health, released guidelines in 2022 recommending that managers be trained to talk about mental health with their teams (12). This isn’t about turning managers into therapists, it’s about equipping them to have supportive, compassionate conversations and connect employees with professional resources.

Here are some practical steps for your teams:

• Launch a Leadership Pledge: Have your entire leadership team sign and share a public pledge to support mental health, destigmatize challenges, and promote psychological safety.
• Host “Leaders Share” Sessions: Organize moderated panels where senior leaders vulnerably share their own experiences with stress, burnout, or seeking support.
• Provide Manager Training: Roll out mandatory psychological safety workshop activities for all people leaders. Focus on active listening, recognizing signs of distress, and navigating sensitive conversations.
• Leverage Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): Partner with your mental health or disability ERGs to host employee-led discussions, storytelling events, and peer support circles.
• Introduce Team Rituals: Encourage teams to start meetings with a simple one-word check-in (e.g. “What’s your weather report today?”) to normalize acknowledging emotional states.
• Clarify Confidentiality: Repeatedly communicate the confidential nature of Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and other mental health resources to reduce fear of using them.

These emotional safety activities signal that the organization is serious about moving from platitudes to practice.

What Policies Help Build Trust and Reinforce Psychological Safety?

Policies are the architecture of your culture – they codify your values and make them real (13). To reinforce psychological safety in the workplace, your policies must be designed to build trust, ensure fairness, and protect employees from harm. Vague policies or inconsistent enforcement quickly erode safety.

The Surgeon General’s framework links psychological safety to five key essentials, which include work-life harmony, mattering at work, and opportunity for growth (5). Your policies should address these areas directly. 

For example, policies that provide a living wage, offer flexible schedules, and ensure equitable career advancement directly contribute to a sense of security and fairness, which are foundational to psychological safety.

While some jurisdictions are exploring a workplace psychological safety act to codify these protections into law (14), proactive organizations don’t wait for legislation. They build a robust internal policy framework.

Consider implementing or strengthening these policies:

• Anti-Retaliation and Whistleblower Protection: A strong, clearly communicated policy that guarantees employees won’t face punishment for reporting problems, harassment, or unethical behavior.
• Flexible Work and Time Off: Policies that give employees more autonomy over their schedules and encourage them to take paid time off for rest and mental health care. Predictable scheduling and respecting work-life boundaries are key.
• Transparent and Equitable Compensation: Conduct pay equity audits and ensure your compensation philosophy is clear, fair, and provides a living wage. Financial insecurity is a major source of stress that undermines psychological safety.
• DEIA Policies: Operationalize diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. This includes everything from providing reasonable accommodations to confronting microaggressions and ensuring hiring and promotion processes are free from bias.
• Performance Management Reform: Shift from a punitive, backward-looking review process to a forward-looking, development-focused coaching model with regular, reciprocal feedback.
• Clear Communication Protocols: Establish rules of engagement for digital communication, such as no-meeting blocks or guidelines against expecting email responses after hours.

Read more: What Is Corporate Wellness? A Handbook for Healthier, Happier Teams

How Can Mental Health Awareness Month Initiatives Strengthen Company Culture?

Mental Health Awareness Month provides a catalyst for initiatives that can have a lasting impact on your company culture. The key is to design activities that aren’t just one-off events, but are integrated into a long-term strategy for building a safer, healthier workplace. The goal is to embed these practices into your organization’s DNA (11).

By focusing your initiatives on the drivers of psychological safety, you can create a positive feedback loop. Safe employees are more engaged, innovative, and productive, which strengthens business outcomes and reinforces the value of your cultural investments (15). It’s about how to create psychological safety at work in a way that feels authentic and sustainable.

Here’s how to leverage this month for long-term cultural change:

• Launch Your Psychological Safety Metrics: Use this month to announce your commitment to measuring psychological safety. Administer your first pulse survey and establish a baseline.
• Roll Out a “Failure of the Week” Ritual: In company-wide communications, have a leader share a story of a mistake or failed experiment and the learning that came from it. This normalizes imperfection.
• Host Cross-Functional “Empathy Sessions”: Facilitate sessions where different teams (e.g. engineering and sales) share their biggest challenges and sources of stress. This builds understanding and connection.
• Crowdsource Solutions: Launch a company-wide challenge asking for ideas on how to reduce unnecessary friction, eliminate “stupid rules”, or improve work processes. Act publicly on the best ideas.
• Invest in Community: Sponsor team-based volunteer days or social events that are inclusive and focused on building personal connections beyond work tasks.
• Recognize and Reward Safe Behaviors: In your recognition programs, publicly celebrate employees who have bravely spoken up, challenged the status quo constructively, or supported a colleague in need.

Which Tools and Programs Support Employees’ Emotional Well-Being?

A comprehensive approach to psychological safety includes providing a robust safety net of tools and programs that support employees’ emotional well-being (16). These resources demonstrate that the organization is invested in supporting its people through life’s challenges. They should be accessible, confidential, and diverse enough to meet a wide range of needs.

The WHO’s guidelines emphasize a continuum of care, from prevention to support and recovery (17). This means offering proactive resources that build resilience, as well as reactive support for when employees are struggling.

Key tools and programs to consider include:

• A Modern Employee Assistance Program (EAP): Ensure your EAP offers a high-quality, diverse network of therapists, easy access to appointments (including virtual), and support for a wide range of issues (financial, legal, caregiving). Actively promote it to destigmatize its use.
• Mental Health Apps and Digital Platforms: Subscriptions to apps for meditation, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can provide accessible, on-demand support.
• Manager Coaching and Consultation: Provide leaders with a dedicated, confidential line to consult mental health experts on how to handle difficult team situations.
• Peer Support Programs: Train and certify employee volunteers to serve as mental health advocates or peer listeners, creating a grassroots network of support.
• Financial Wellness Tools: Offer access to financial advisors, budgeting tools, and educational resources to help reduce a primary source of employee stress.
• Resilience and Stress Management Workshops: Offer practical, skills-based training on topics like managing stress, building resilience, and practicing mindfulness.
• Mental Health Days: Formalize paid time off specifically for mental health to signal that proactive rest is a priority.

Learn simple practices here: breathing for focus.

Your 90-Day Action Plan for Psychological Safety

Building a psychologically safe workplace is a journey, not a destination. Use the momentum of Mental Health Awareness Month to kickstart a focused, 90-day action plan.

• Weeks 1-4: Assess and Align
  • Secure leadership buy-in and form a cross-functional steering committee.
  • Administer your first psychological safety pulse survey to establish a baseline.
  • Conduct leadership listening tours to gather qualitative data.
  • Communicate your commitment and the “why” behind this work to the entire organization.
• Weeks 5-8: Educate and Equip
  • Roll out mandatory psychological safety and mental health awareness training for all people managers.
  • Host a leadership panel where executives share their own stories of vulnerability and learning from failure.
  • Introduce team-level psychological safety tips and rituals, such as starting meetings with check-ins or running regular retrospectives.
• Weeks 9-12: Implement and Integrate
  • Review and update one key policy (e.g. flexible work, performance management) in order to better support psychological safety.
  • Launch a recognition program that publicly celebrates employees who exhibit safe behaviors such as speaking up or asking for help.
  • Analyze your initial survey data and share high-level findings and commitments for action with the organization.
  • Schedule your next quarterly pulse survey and set the date for a 6-month progress review with the leadership team.

The Bottom Line

In the modern fast-paced and ever-changing world, it’s essential for organizations to create a safe and supportive work environment for their employees. This is where psychological safety comes into play – the belief that a person can speak up, take risks, and share ideas without any fear of negative consequences.

To truly prioritize psychological safety, organizations should make it a part of their core values, actively promote open communication and transparency, and consistently measure it through surveys and progress reviews.