Duck Score

Tag: workplace

  • Building Psychological Safety: A Data-Driven Approach to Workplace Mental Health

    Our recent workplace survey revealed a crucial insight: the gap between providing mental health support and creating an environment where people feel safe using it. While 84% of organisations have increased mental health resources, our data shows that creating genuine psychological safety requires a more nuanced approach.

    The concept of psychological safety, first introduced by Harvard’s Amy Edmondson, describes an environment where people feel safe taking interpersonal risks. Our research suggests this is precisely what’s missing in many workplace mental health initiatives.

    When we analysed responses across different organisational levels, three key elements emerged as essential for building genuine psychological safety:

    1. Trust Architecture – Our data shows that 73% of employees prefer sharing mental health challenges within small, trusted groups rather than through traditional organisational channels. This mirrors findings from Google’s Project Aristotle, which identified psychological safety as the primary factor in high-performing teams.
    2. Privacy By Design – The most striking finding was that 92% of respondents cited privacy control as crucial for engagement. This wasn’t just about confidentiality – it was about agency. As one senior manager noted: “The ability to control who sees what is non-negotiable.”
    3. Data-Driven Support – Perhaps most intriguingly, 72% of respondents expressed interest in anonymous aggregate insights. This suggests a desire to understand personal experiences within a broader context while maintaining individual privacy.

    These findings point toward a new framework for workplace mental health support:

    Structured Trust Networks

    Rather than broad, organisation-wide programmes, our data suggests creating infrastructure for small, trusted support circles. These should be employee-driven but organisationally supported.

    Granular Privacy Controls

    The future of workplace mental health tools must offer sophisticated privacy settings that give employees complete control over their information sharing.

    Anonymous Intelligence

    Organisations should leverage aggregate data to understand trends and patterns while maintaining individual privacy. This enables proactive support without compromising personal boundaries.

    The implications are significant. When McKinsey studied psychological safety in 2024, they found organisations with high psychological safety scores were 76% more likely to see increased innovation and 67% more likely to retain top talent.

    Our research suggests that building psychological safety isn’t just about having the right policies – it’s about creating the right infrastructure. This means developing frameworks that support intimate, trusted connections while maintaining professional boundaries.

    As we look to the future, it’s clear that workplace mental health support must evolve beyond traditional wellness programmes. The organisations that succeed will be those that create environments where employees feel genuinely safe discussing mental health – not because they’re told to, but because they choose to.

    What has your experience been with psychological safety at work? Have you seen examples of organisations successfully building trust through structure?

    Our full findings and detailed recommendations will be available in our upcoming whitepaper: ‘The 2025 Workplace Mental Health Trust Report’.

  • The Privacy-Support Balance: What Employees Really Want from Workplace Mental Health Support

    Our recent workplace survey revealed something fascinating about mental health support: it’s not just about having resources available – it’s about having control over how they’re used.

    When we analysed responses across different organisational levels, from individual contributors to executives, a clear pattern emerged. 92% of respondents cited ‘control over who sees the information’ as a crucial factor in their willingness to engage with mental health support. This wasn’t just a preference – it was a prerequisite.

    What’s particularly interesting is how this desire for control manifests differently across organisational hierarchies. Senior leaders, while generally more open to discussing mental health, still emphasised the need for bounded sharing. As one executive put it: “Clear privacy guarantees and control over information flow are non-negotiable.”

    The data reveals three key elements employees want from workplace mental health support:

    1. Granular Privacy Control Our survey showed that even in organisations rated as having ‘excellent’ mental health support, employees want fine-grained control over their information. 76% expressed interest in tools that allow them to selectively share with trusted colleagues while maintaining privacy from broader management.
    2. Trust-Based Networks The concept of ‘trusted circles’ emerged strongly in our data. While only 15% of respondents were comfortable discussing mental health broadly at work, 68% were open to sharing within small, trusted groups. This suggests a move away from organisation-wide programmes toward more intimate support structures.
    3. Anonymous Insights A surprising finding was the strong interest in anonymous aggregate insights. 72% of respondents indicated they would engage more with mental health support if they could see anonymised patterns and trends across their organisation – suggesting a desire to understand their experiences in context without compromising privacy.

    This presents a clear challenge for organisations: how to provide comprehensive mental health support while maintaining the level of privacy and control employees demand? Traditional top-down wellness programmes may need to evolve into more nuanced frameworks that enable trusted connections while preserving professional boundaries.

    The implications are significant. When MIT Sloan Management Review studied successful mental health initiatives in 2024, they found that programmes emphasizing user control and privacy saw engagement rates three times higher than traditional approaches.

    As we continue to analyse our data, one thing becomes clear: the future of workplace mental health support lies not in broader rollouts of existing programmes, but in reimagining how these programmes can work within employees’ trust and privacy requirements.

    What control features would make you more likely to engage with workplace mental health support? Have you seen examples of organisations successfully balancing support with privacy?

    Watch for the final part of this series tomorrow, where we’ll explore how organisations can build genuine psychological safety using a data-driven approach.