Tools and resources

Use SAFE Work Manitoba’s tools to get started and discover additional resources from other reputable organizations below.

Creating a psychologically SAFE workplace

Creating a psychologically safe and healthy workplace requires employers, health and safety committees and workers to collaborate and contribute.

Follow these steps and use our tools to get started. Discover additional resources from other reputable organizations below.

Step 1 – Perform a risk assessment

A psychosocial risk assessment identifies the workplace factors that may pose a risk to employees’ psychological safety and mental and social well-being. It’s not a diagnostic tool, but a collaborative process to evaluate work conditions and inform improvements.

Employers are required to complete the psychosocial risk assessment collaboratively, with meaningful input from the workplace safety and health committee/representative and the workers who perform the work. Their direct knowledge and lived experience are essential to accurately identifying psychosocial hazards and understanding how work conditions impact well-being.

While external consultants or service providers can support the interpretation of findings or help guide next steps, psychosocial hazards differ from physical hazards in that they cannot be effectively assessed by a third party alone. The assessment itself must be completed with the active involvement of workers and workplace safety and health committee/representative to ensure it reflects the realities of the work environment.

Download the psychosocial hazards workplace risk assessment below to identify your workplace hazards or use one of the online alternatives listed on this page.

Step 2 – Create a hazard priority list

After identifying the psychosocial hazards in your workplace, you can prioritize which pose the greatest risk and address them first.

Using the scores from the psychosocial hazards workplace risk assessment completed in step 1, fill out the Psychosocial hazard priority list for control implementation.

Step 3 – Implement controls

It is an employer’s duty to identify psychosocial hazards and implement controls to decrease the risk of psychosocial harm and injury. The goal of controls is to eliminate or reduce factors that may harm a worker’s psychological safety. When choosing controls, use the hierarchy of controls to address workplace hazards. This means prioritizing controls that impact the entire workplace, rather than focusing on measures individual workers can take to reduce psychosocial hazards.

View the sample controls for the 13 psychosocial factors and decide on what sample controls you can implement. Please note that the provided resource is not all inclusive. Additional controls can be implemented that are not listed within in the resource.

Step 4 – Build a workplace psychological safety program policy

Once you’ve identified the hazards in your workplace, you can develop a psychological safety and health program policy as part of your workplace safety and health program. Download the guide for developing a workplace safety and health program below. (coming soon)

Step 5 – Monitor the psychological safety program and implemented controls for effectiveness

Once controls are implemented to mitigate the identified psychosocial hazards, the employer must monitor the effectiveness. Control measures should be reviewed regularly and tailored to the unique characteristics of the employer and the workers. Monitoring should involve both qualitative and quantitative data.