We learn the most when we fail
Colleagues and managers are very interested in hearing about the value of psychological safety. Work environment representative Hanney Stoklund and union representative Sarah Haris have given several presentations on the subject, and it has both strengthened the colleagues, developed themselves and clarified their role as trusted employee representatives
"'Can I help you adjusting your chair correctly?' This is what work environment representatives are often associated with, but we handle much more than the physical working environment – also in terms of legislation," says Hanney Stoklund, who is work environment representative in the Group Financial Crime Prevention (GFCP). There are a total of two work environment representatives in the Danish part of GFCP, which covers the approximately 500 employees who are based in Hermes Hus and Aarhus.
At the seminar for union representatives in the autumn, the focus was on psychological safety, and Hanney Stoklund has used this to define his role more specifically.
Exercises for colleagues
"I would very much like to work more with the psychological working environment and preventive work. Psychological safety has been a good approach to starting something up – initially in my own team, where we started by doing movement exercises and then had a team-building exercise and then a video," says Hanney Stoklund. At the upcoming team meetings, Hanney will also be in charge of some exercises.
In addition, he will participate in the management meeting in Transaction Monitoring (TMSI) and both talk about his role as a work environment representative and do some exercises, and later the goal is to get around to other teams in GFCP.
Impressed by the courage of his colleagues
Psychological safety can be divided into the four pillars include, learn, contribute and challenge.
"Initially, I focus especially on the pillars of inclusion and contribution, but I am impressed by how brave my colleagues are to challenge what they want to change – and how receptive the leaders are to take in the criticism and suggestions."
Before the summer of 2024, there was an election of work environment representatives, and Hanney Stoklund was among the newly elected.
"We are many newly elected, and I think it's good to have new strength and fresh energy. I spar a lot with the other work environment representatives in the Copenhagen area."
Colleagues were up and running
Sarah Haris was also inspired by the presentation at the seminar on psychological safety. She is currently the union representative for Daily Banking Services, which is part of Group Business Support.
"My team wanted to hear what I had learned at the seminar. My intention was to talk for a few minutes, but I ended up making a presentation and sharing pictures and material. The colleagues were completely excited – they found it super relevant," says Sarah Haris.
Her manager thought that some more people should hear it, so she has subsequently also given presentations to other teams for which she is not a union representative.
"I want to tell as many people as possible about psychological safety, because I can really feel how much interest there is."
Learning new things requires that we are confident
Sarah Haris emphasizes how important psychological safety is:
"When we feel psychologically safe, job satisfaction increases and we perform better. It also means that we dare to have the difficult conversations with colleagues and the manager and learn new things. And that is absolutely essential: Because if we only dare to talk about the good things or do what we have always done and feel comfortable in, we will never learn anything new. It is when we fail that we learn the most. But it requires that we feel safe," she emphasizes.
Sarah Haris finds that conversations about stress are often very abstract and unconcrete.
"But when we see it in the light of psychological safety, it suddenly becomes more tangible. Stress is a very complicated process. I have talked to several managers about this, where the presentation on psychological safety was a good framework."
Very transgressive
Sarah Haris is not usually the type to stand up and give presentations.
"This has really pushed me out of my comfort zone, where I haven't been completely safe. But I have experienced that colleagues and managers have very much found the presentations on psychological safety exciting, so now I am not afraid to do it again. It has been very transgressive – especially when I had to present it to teams I don't know – but it has led to fantastic experiences where I have developed. And my first actual post on LinkedIn also got a really good response. So I've actually also had my own journey towards greater psychological safety in this."
From February, Sarah Haris has a new job in Nordea's Fraud department.
"At my job interview, my new manager asked about my presentations on psychological safety, which he found very interesting. So it's for sure that I'll be telling my new colleagues about the subject as well!"