How psychosocial safety climate (PSC) gets stronger over time: A first look at leadership and climate strength.

Abstract

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) reflects the priority an organization sets for the psychological health and safety of its employees, important to predict future job design and worker health. PSC is assessed by aggregating employee perceptions to determine PSC level (mean scores) and strength (converging perceptions). Theoretically, the ideal climate is when PSC is high and strong, yet we do not know how to build these fundamentals. Since team leaders may transmit and shape PSC as set down by senior management, we explore their role (i.e., PSC and transformational leadership) in increasing and converging PSC perceptions in a team. We used three-wave longitudinal data (6-month lags) from 49 team leaders and 281 Australian health care workers nested in 49 teams. Multilevel analysis showed that team PSC levels increased over time. Using the consensus emergence model, PSC strength was moderated by PSC leadership. Considering PSC starting levels, when low, high PSC leaders were associated with increasing PSC, but if starting levels were high, low PSC leaders were associated with decreasing PSC levels and strength while high PSC leaders were associated with sustaining PSC strength. Transformational leaders had smaller effects than PSC leaders on PSC levels and no effect on strength. Mid-leaders' values and actions for employee psychological health are important to build PSC level and sustain strength. In this, they can reinforce PSC certainty and its safety signal effect which is shown to be important for reducing psychological problems.

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) at middle management level in the healthcare sector: A contribution to the Italian validation of psychosocial safety climate-4

“…In our study, we tested PSC at the middle management level by asking participants to evaluate PSC in their specific hospital ward: Although we cannot exclude that workers’ opinion on the highest levels of hospital management affected their judgments on PSC, our results suggested that also middle management can play a relevant role in determining and managing job demands and resources (e.g., providing support, promoting autonomy and skill discretion, and encouraging behaviors related to psychological health). This is coherent with the literature supporting the influence of mid-leaders over the team climate as through their communication and behavior they act as role models and are able to enact organizational policies to protect employee wellbeing ( Klebe et al, 2021 ; Loh et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Recently, a PSC-12 shorter version with four items (an item for each PSC domain) was developed and preliminary research demonstrated good validity and reliability ( Dollard, 2019 ; Berthelsen et al, 2020 ). Both PSC-12 and PSC-4 items can be addressed to evaluate workers’ perception of psychosocial safety climate at a higher organizational level (i.e., top management commitment, support, priorities) or a middle management level (i.e., commitment, support, priorities of those who lead teams within organizations); indeed, although PSC reflects organization’s and top management’s strategic imperatives on employees’ psychological health, midlevel leaders play also a role in shaping the climate within their teams ( Loh et al, 2021 ; Parent-Lamarche and Biron, 2022 ).…”

Applying risk matrices for assessing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work

“…PSC is defined as policies, practices, and procedures for the protection of worker psychological health and safety ( 84 ). The theory assumes that psychological aspects are more important than productivity demands and that the management acts in the interest of employees' mental health ( 85 ). To accomplish a PSC, measures to improve working conditions and mental health should be implemented in a coordinated approach that includes organizational communication, management involvement and commitment ( 86 ).…”

From microscopic to macroscopic perspectives and back: The study of leadership and health/well-being.

“…Vonderlin et al (2021), Stein et al (2021), and Hammer et al (2021) conducted intervention studies showing that interventions targeting supervisors also affected the well-being of the supervisors’ employees. Loh et al (2021) studied antecedents of the emergence of unit-level psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and showed that leadership affects the PSC level and consensus emergence.…”