Minimizing OSHA Liabilities Through Psychological Safety

Employers with sophisticated safety programs implement overarching Safety and Health Management Systems ("SHMS", also called Injury and Illness Prevention Plans and Accident Prevention Plans) to ensure that they properly assess hazards, select appropriate safety controls, evaluate safety performance, and engage employees. Federal OSHA recommends an SHMS and routinely demands the development of an SHMS to settle OSHA cases involving serious litigation. According to a 2012 federal OSHA white paper, 34 states require or encourage SHMSs, and some high-profile state plans have detailed requirements (e.g., CA, WA).

A critical component of a safety program is employee participation in hazard identification, training, compliance with safety rules, and enforcement. Employers increasingly recognize that the most sophisticated programs can falter when workers do not feel safe to speak. The strength of a safety program depends not only on written procedures, training, and audits—but also on an underlying culture where employees can raise concerns, report hazards, and suggest improvements without fear of embarrassment or reprisal. Psychological safety can help maximize the effectiveness of safety programs and minimize OSHA liabilities.

1. What is Psychological Safety?

This climate of openness, acceptance, and encouragement creates an environment where employees feel they will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with safety ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes—this is known as psychological safety. While the term that has gained traction in management research and organizational development but is equally relevant to occupational safety and health (OSH). OSHA standards require employee involvement in hazard identification, safety committees, and incident investigations, those mechanisms depend on employees' willingness to engage. When workers hesitate to speak, participation erodes, and even well-designed systems fail to detect risks early. Further, the safety controls further down the NIOSH pyramid—administrative controls and personal protective equipment (PPE)—require employees to follow the rules or wear the PPE.

2. The Link Between Psychological Safety and Occupational Safety

NIOSH's Total Worker Health® framework recognizes that worker well-being is an integrated concept. Mental and social conditions in the workplace can directly influence the physical environment. If employees fear that reporting an unsafe condition will lead to blame or retaliation, that silence may enable an injury that was preventable.

In psychologically unsafe cultures, hazard reporting rates drop, near-miss reporting evaporates, and minor incidents go unexamined. Supervisors may interpret this quiet as compliance, when in fact it signals disengagement. By contrast, psychologically safe teams tend to identify hazards earlier, communicate concerns clearly, and cooperate in corrective action—hallmarks of a mature SHMS.

3. Employee Involvement as a Core System Element

OSHA's Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs (2016) outline seven core elements of an effective SHMS, one of which is Worker Participation. The guidance notes that workers "often know the most about potential hazards" and that their involvement is essential in "developing, implementing, evaluating, and improving the program."

However, participation cannot be compelled—it must be invited and sustained by trust. A worker who doubts management's response, fears discipline or feels that their input will be ignored is unlikely to report unsafe conditions or volunteer solutions. In this respect, psychological safety is not a soft concept—it is the enabling condition for compliance-driven participation.

4. Leadership Behaviors That Reinforce Psychological Safety

Employers can foster this environment through deliberate management practices:

• Model openness and humility. Supervisors who acknowledge uncertainty or mistakes signal that imperfection is acceptable, reducing the fear of speaking up.
• Respond constructively to reports. When an employee raises a safety issue, the first response should be gratitude and follow-up, not defensiveness.
• Integrate participation into recognition systems. Acknowledge employees who contribute to hazard identification, root cause analysis, or process improvement.
• Protect against retaliation. Reinforce anti-retaliation policies and ensure consistent handling of reports to maintain credibility.
• Train leaders in listening. Supervisors should learn to distinguish between complaints and contributions—both often sound alike in the early stages of a problem.

These behaviors not only improve morale but also fulfill the employer's General Duty Clause obligation to provide a safe and healthful workplace by removing organizational barriers to hazard reporting.

5. Psychological Safety as a Leading Indicator

Traditional safety metrics focus on lagging indicators—injury rates, citations, workers' compensation costs. But modern safety management emphasizes leading indicators that reveal whether systems are functioning proactively. Levels of employee voice, survey measures of trust, and frequency of near-miss reporting are all valuable leading indicators that correlate with psychological safety.

Employers who measure and manage these cultural factors gain early visibility into risk trends that might otherwise appear only after an incident. In this sense, psychological safety is not a "wellness" issue—it is a measurable risk management variable.

6. Building the Business Case

From an employer's perspective, investing in psychological safety is not merely about compliance or compassion. It yields operational and legal benefits:

• Reduced incident rates and lower workers' compensation costs through earlier hazard identification.
• Improved regulatory posture, as OSHA increasingly examines organizational factors during incident investigations.
• Enhanced retention and recruitment, particularly among younger workers who value open, participatory cultures.
• Better crisis response, since teams accustomed to honest dialogue can adapt faster during emergencies.

In short, psychological safety enhances every element of a safety and health management system—policy development, hazard analysis, corrective action, and performance evaluation—by ensuring that employee involvement is genuine rather than procedural.

7. Overcoming Employee Skepticism

As is the case in many workplaces, employees are skeptical of employer policies that announce that there is an "open door" policy for employees to voice concerns regarding workplace issues, including reporting workplace hazards which could be:

1. physical hazards (e.g., the equipment itself or presence of toxic materials)
2. workplace policies (e.g., employer workplace practices, such as productivity goals, exposure to repetitive tasks that might cause muscular injuries), or
3. management practices (e.g., means of employee training, supervision of necessary work that exposes employees to hazards or silence by management regarding employee complaints).

When the employer's workplace environment exhibits any of factors (1) – (3) employees may feel that they have no recourse at work to address them so they file anonymous complaints that can result in OSHA inspections. While employees have the right to file these complaints, resorting to OSHA and inspections can often be a cumbersome and inefficient manner to address factors (1) – (3), it is much less likely if employees genuinely feel that they are protected against retaliation and could timely address them with management.

In addition, if employees are encouraged to report hazards to the employer without fear of real or perceived retaliation, the employer can avoid having to respond to OSHA whistleblower retaliation liability under Section 11(c) of the Act. Such complaints can have a negative impact on the employer/employee relationship and can also create disruption and, in some cases, significant monetary expense to the employer to defend.

8. The Path Forward

Employers committed to continuous improvement should assess their current culture with the same rigor applied to other safety audits. Anonymous employee surveys, focus groups, and structured interviews can reveal whether workers feel comfortable raising safety concerns. Corrective actions may include leadership coaching, revising reporting procedures, or integrating safety feedback into performance evaluations.

The employer should consider tangible objective means and methods to encourage employee participation including:

• financial incentives such as nominal monetary payments or gift cards to employees who report workplace hazards, submit recommendations to reduce or eliminate hazards or to improve safety and health policies
• physical awards, such as articles of clothing, perhaps with company logos, that employees can use offsite
• award ceremonies where employees are recognized for participating on a safety committee, conducting workplace inspections, submitting recommendations

The ultimate goal is a workplace where every employee, from the newest hire to the most seasoned manager, believes that raising a concern is not only safe but expected. When that belief takes hold, the organization's safety and health management system becomes fully functional—because it is fully human.

9. Minimizing OSHA Liabilities

The most effective strategy to reduce workplace liabilities from occupational safety and health is to focus on key hazards and minimize the occurrence of accidents. Psychological safety, integrated into a mature safety culture and effective safety and health management system, can help eliminate mistake and injuries. OSHA agencies look favorably at a sophisticated employer who is focused on these issues. This program could help aid the employer in typical OSHA defenses, including lack of employer knowledge and employee misconduct. Further, addressing safety issues through programs can be a defense to allegations of willful violations.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.