Immersion Blog

The Great Resignation is Here! What does Psychological Safety have to do with it?

Written by Alison Romer | Jul 21, 2021 2:52:16 PM

According to Forbes, 40% of employees are thinking about quitting their jobs. The time is now for companies to get serious about employee engagement to protect their workforce. And in this post-pandemic time of burnout - work happy-hours and foosball aren’t going to cut it. 

To make truly innovative changes - companies need data to understand how their employees feel at work. 

Too often, companies focus on operational data because it’s easy to get. How many people were in that meeting? Were they remote or at home? How many people came to happy hour? Who is coming into the office and how long are they staying?

Though that data might be easy to measure - it doesn’t make it meaningful. To truly understand what employees need - we need emotional data. 

Like Psychological Safety. 

Psychological Safety is the brain state that is the opposite of stress. It indicates that a person feels relaxed, comfortable and is an indicator that they are ready and willing to take on new challenges. 

It has been shown by a large Google study to be one of the best predictors of productivity. McKinsey & Co. recently completed a huge study suggesting high

Psychological Safety is correlated with innovation and the ability to adapt to change. And it’s quite possibly the key to understanding an employee's connection to their work. And to foster more of that connection.

But how can we know if our employees are Psychologically Safe?

Immersion makes it possible to measure Psychological Safety through anonymized employee data captured from only a smartwatch. The platform measures signals in the body that indicate a quantitative neurological state of Psychological Safety. 

What does that mean? 

Immersion can get companies the emotional data they need to make effective, positive change. 

By understanding when employees are psychologically safe - leaders can make decisions about when to launch difficult projects or wait a week. They can understand when the company needs an extra day off or is ready to put in the extra hours to take on a big project. 

This time of great uncertainty requires great data. 

With Immersion - companies can glean hard-to-get emotional data that will compliment readily-apparent operational data and create actionable insights that are essential to innovation. 

We know this change is here. Let’s understand how to make it work for us and our employees to make everyone’s work life a little bit better.