“Safe Spaces” and the Workplace
College students’ recent calls for campuses to be ‘‘safe spaces’’ where they can thrive intellectually have been greeted with derision and even ridicule. How interesting, then, to read about new research that suggests that for workplace teams to thrive, their members must feel ‘‘psychologically safe.’’ While Google’s remarkable research into the value of safe working environments is presented as innovative new knowledge for organizations looking to increase productivity, students are told that their feelings matter less than the ‘‘free marketplace’’ of ideas.
Has anyone crunched the numbers on student calls for psychological safety? Perhaps we would find that learning is indeed facilitated and enhanced, for the good of all, when ‘‘empathy and sensitivity’’ become core values of our educational institutions as well as our workplaces. Gayle Wald, Washington