When faced with challenges and struggles at work, workers may feel overwhelmed or insecure in their role.
This can affect their functioning and can sometimes be enough to elicit a ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response.
People’s brains are wired to feel less safe when they’re uncomfortable or out of their depth. This might be due to conflict with another person or one more task being asked of them when they’re already feeling overwhelmed. Their brain tries to alert them that something is not right, and that attention and action is needed, or that there is a need to reach out for further support.
Dr Sandra Bloom suggests workers prepare a ‘Safety plan’: a list of simple, soothing activities that a person can choose when feeling overwhelmed. Such plans can help reduce workplace stress and create a culture where values and attitudes support a safe enough environment for staff. They can also help workers avoid engaging in unhelpful, or maladaptive behaviour, which they might be accustomed to using when stressed.
Emotions are vital to human survival and connect people with one another. They are also contagious, with the emotions of anger, fear and disgust having the most impact since these convey danger. Deciding which emotions to express and which to suppress can be exhausting. The items in a ‘Safety plan’ can help with this. They set out simple things people can do anytime, anywhere.
It is important that this plan is created in advance when workers are regulated and operating with their frontal cortex or ‘thinking’ brain. Creative and innovative planning is only possible when there is a degree of calm and comfort.
Creating a ‘Safety plan’ ahead of time can help prevent workers from experiencing a full stress response. Recognising the physical signals (for example, quickening breath, pounding heart, sleeplessness) and being aware of situations that are tricky can enable workers to respond in a less reactive way and encourages them to seek support.
This ‘go-to’ list will be different for each worker. The scenarios that elicit the body’s alarm signals will vary from person to person, and the support mechanisms will be different too. Being willing to share their ‘Safety plans’ in conversation, while feeling safe and calm, means the team will know how to best support each other in those stressful moments.
Sandra says ‘Safety plans’ need to be updated regularly as our skills improve and the demands change. She also recommends everyone have a ‘Safety plan’, so that having one and using it becomes a social norm.
It can be good for workers to let their trusted colleagues know the whereabouts of their ‘Safety plan’ and that it is accessible to the worker so that it is easy to refer to when needed.
Exercise
This exercise can be done as individuals and as a team. It could be used as part of a team meeting, formal supervision or at a specific gathering.
- The exercise will take a minimum of 30 minutes.
- Provide the blank ‘Safety plan’ for each person.
- Explain the purpose of the exercise using the above text.
Consider how best to facilitate the discussion – you may wish to allocate groups or let the team choose who they work with, being careful to ensure no one is left out or feels uncomfortable working with someone else.
As a note of caution, please ensure your approach is invitational so that people can share to the extent to which they feel comfortable and safe. The last thing we want is to mandate that people be vulnerable and tell us what they need to feel safe – as that defeats the purpose.
Instructions
Meet with the team (preferably in person) and explain you are going to be exploring the question:
- How do we support each other to feel comfortable at work?
Invite people to discuss the idea of ‘Safety plans’.
Some questions you might ask to encourage duiscussion might be:
- What might be the benefits of using a ‘Safety plan’?
- How might we incorporate them into our existing ways of working?
As a team, give people time to look at the ‘Safety plan’ and then ask for examples of what might be appropriate in each box. This is to ensure everyone understands the exercise. Explain that what works for one worker might not work for another. Everyone has different needs.
Invite people to work through their ‘Safety plans’ individually to identify their own signals, scenarios, and supports, and with whom they would feel comfortable sharing their plan.
Optional: Once they’ve completed their ‘Safety plan’, depending on the levels of comfort, facilitate a group discussion with questions about the process:
- How was that experience?
- What was helpful?
- Where did you struggle?
Invite them to share their plans with one another. Ensure that this is invitational and voluntary and that no one is left out.
Gather the team together and ask:
- What similarities did they encounter?
- What was different about the experience for them?
Discuss how they would like to share or display their Safety Plans going forward. Suggestions could include having them on their desks, a link in their email or in a shared folder.
Finally, as a team, agree on when and how you’d like to revisit and review the Safety Plans.
Some suggestions are:
- a monthly meeting
- Weekly check-ins
- discuss them in supervision.
Remember, this is a relational exercise designed to increase the team’s awareness about one another’s responses to stress and how to care for one another in work and life. Wellbeing plans need to be discussed and reviewed regularly.
My ‘Safety ‘plan’
| Signals | What signals does your body give you? What is your body telling you about your level of regulation or dysregulation? What are the signals that you that you becoming reactive? Steady or quickened breathing, relaxed or tightened jaw, sleepiness, knot in stomach, feelings of panic or fear Longer-term signs of stress such as noticing sleeplessness, rumination or preoccupation with situations, headaches |
|---|---|
| Scenarios | What scenarios prompt these feelings and sensations? What are your danger zones? People, places, topics, times of day, scents, settings |
| Supports | What can you do or who can you go to help you regulate and create safety? List 5–6 things you can do such as:
|
| Sharing | Where and with whom are you comfortable sharing your plan? On your desk? Your supervisor or with your team? Put the plan somewhere you can access when you become reactive and dysregulated |
Resources
Download the safety plan template along with the full catalogue of health, safety and wellbeing resources:
Source
McQuaid M Williams P 2023, Your leadership blueprint: how to foster psychosocial safety at work. Michelle McQuaid Pty Ltd, <https://youtu.be/OdkE9hudUso>, accessed October 2023.
Bloom S nd, ‘Step-by step guide to safety planning with Dr Sandra Bloom’ <https://youtu.be/PEhhnwKK0CU>, accessed October 2023.
Updated