The statements
The Guarding Minds Employee Survey consists of 61 statements. Employees choose the option – Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often or Always – which best supports their common work experiences for each statement.
Each of the 61 statements relates to the psychosocial factors and hazards known to impact employee psychological health and safety. Researchers have also identified the statements which may also indicate levels of workplace inclusion, stress or trauma.
Below is a list of the different sections that could be in your Guarding Minds at Work employee survey report, and below this list is a description of what you would find in each section.
- A summary of all psychosocial factors
- A breakdown of each statement by factor
- Workplace indicators for inclusion
- Workplace indicators for stress or trauma
- Psychosocial hazards
- Organizational review information, if you input this before printing.
- Segmented reports, if this was an option you chose. You can generate and print the overall report and segmented reports separately using the Generate Reports button on your Dashboard.
- Demographic results
Sample reports are also available in the Resources section of the Guarding Minds website.
Psychosocial factor summary
These graphs include the percentages for each of the responses for the statements related to each factor.
- Responses marked as a Serious Concern will show up as red in the bar graph and could require immediate attention. Review individual statements to understand more about the specific issues identified and share this information with senior leadership.
- Responses marked Significant Concern will show up as orange in the bar graph and could require immediate attention. Review individual statements to understand more about the specific issues identified and share this information with senior leadership.
- Responses marked Some Concern will show up as yellow in the bar graph and could indicate that employees do not identify this as an area that is currently problematic.
- Responses marked Relative Strength will show up as green in the bar graph and are described as Relative Strengths. These could indicate areas where the organization is currently doing well. Employees may have replied that something positive Always happens or something negative Never happens.
- Note that some of the statements are weighted differently than others. For instance, if only one employee feels they are sometimes discriminated against, that can be a Serious Concern, but if only one employee feels their deadlines are sometimes not reasonable, that can be of Some Concern.
While these summary graphs can be used as a general point of reference, it is highly recommended that you review the results of each individual statement. This will help you identify issues requiring action to improve psychological health and safety.
Statements by psychosocial factor
These graphs display the breakdown of responses by each individual survey statement to help you understand and respond to specific challenges and strengths.
The bar graphs colours represent the following employee responses:
Most statements are written in the positive – identifying psychological safety – so Always would be shown as a Relative Strength (green). In statements where Always would be a negative response, Never would be shown as a Relative Strength (green).
This information is critical in analyzing your results as the individual statements provide you with information about which action(s) may be most effective in addressing the issue.
As defined in the National Standard of Canada on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace, a critical element is to engage employees at all levels in developing and implementing the actions. This cannot be a paper exercise or rely solely on policy changes. The On the agenda workshop series can help you facilitate productive conversations. The relevant factor bar graphs described above are also repeated on the pages with the individual statements to make it easier for you to compare.
View each of the survey statements by Psychosocial factor.
Workplace indicators for inclusion
Some of the statements used in the psychosocial factors are especially relevant for indicating the extent to which employees feel that they belong and are respected in your organization. The summary graph combines the responses from all of these statements for an overall view, and the individual statement graphs are provided to help you consider approaches to improving inclusion.
See Discrimination prevention and inclusivity and Inclusion strategies for leaders for resources that can help make a difference in your organization.
View the select statements from the survey which were identified by the researchers as potential indicators of the level of inclusion at work.
Workplace indicators for stress or trauma
Some of the statements used in the psychosocial factors are especially relevant for indicating the extent to which employees feel stressed or traumatized in your organization. The summary graph combines the responses from all of these statements for an overall view, and the individual statement graphs are provided to help you consider approaches to protecting psychological safety.
See Trauma in organizations and Employee stress prevention process for resources that can help make a difference in your organization.
View the select statements from the survey which were identified by the researchers as potential indicators of the level of stress and trauma at work.
Psychosocial hazards
In International Standards Organization (ISO) 45003:20211 – Occupational Health and Safety Management – Psychological Health and Safety at Work – Guidelines for Managing Psychosocial Risks, clause 6.1.2.1 covers psychosocial hazard identification. In this standard it states that “the organization should understand the underlying sources of harm before control measures are considered to improve the effectiveness of activities to manage psychosocial risk.”
What follows is an independent interpretation of how you might use hazard identification to inform your approach to psychological health and safety. The results in your Guarding Minds at Work survey will point to employee concerns related to these psychosocial hazards, but will not identify the specific individuals or circumstances involved.
There are many ways to understand the underlying sources of harm, but the most critical is a discussion with employees about the issues identified. Employees are also a great source of practical and relevant solutions. Many resources are available to help guide and support a facilitated employee discussion, such as the On the agenda workshop series.
The psychosocial factors were intentionally written in the positive for the most part, to contribute to solution-based thinking and avoid increasing dissatisfaction. The same validated Guarding Minds survey statements included in psychosocial factors are used below to indicate potential psychosocial hazards.
View each of the survey statements by Psychosocial hazard.
Review actions and responses to help with Psychosocial hazard mitigation.
Organizational review comparison
Once you have set up an active survey, you can enter the organizational review results using the Organizational Review Input button on your Dashboard. This would happen if your leadership team completed the organizational review in full and provided their results. By entering the results, your final employee survey report will include this data as compared to employee perspectives.
A comparison between employee results and leadership input helps illustrate similarities and differences in perspectives. This can be foundational in opening a dialogue toward a shared understanding of psychological safety in your workplace.
Segmented reports
If you chose to segment your survey you will be able to also create segmented reports, only if there was a minimum of ten responses in each segment. This safeguard exists to protect employee confidentiality. If there are fewer than 10 responses, the segment report option will be greyed out and cannot be selected. This prevents the chance that responses can be tracked to specific individuals. The responses from that segment will still be included in the overall report.
The data in a segmented report is calculated and reported in the same manner as the full report.
Learn more about the pros and cons of segmentation.
Percentage of respondents
The results for these questions are provided as a percentage of employees who responded. It does not indicate how that particular percentage scored on any of the survey statements.
Learn more about the pros and cons of these types of demographic questions.
Next steps
Once you have reviewed your results, the next step is to begin to develop an action plan to respond. There are many resources available to help you address psychological health and safety concerns. The resources below provide you with some tools.
Psychological health and safety change process. This process provides you with strategies and tools to create effective and sustainable changes that support psychological health and safety at work. This information is intended for those responsible for policy and process change.
On the agenda workshop series. On the agenda is a workshop series based on each psychosocial factor and includes free materials and facilitator tools. It can help you find out the root causes and potential responses for your survey results by engaging your employees in discussions. There are two parts to the series:
- Creating awareness supports a psychologically safe team discussion about what team members can do to improve psychological health and safety without necessarily having budget or authority to change policy.
- Creating change gathers employee feedback and supports decision makers to focus on organizational policies and processes that support psychological health and safety.
Psychosocial hazard mitigation. Suggested actions are based on research or practice that can help mitigate the risk of psychosocial hazards. In most cases, free resources are provided to help you move forward, with or without additional funding.
Evidence-based actions for psychological health and safety. Suggested actions are based on research or practice that can improve each psychosocial factor as well as inclusion, stress and trauma. In most cases, free resources are provided to help you move forward with or without additional funding.
Employees' role in psychological health and safety. These free online learning modules help employees learn how to contribute to a mentally healthy workplace. This orientation to psychological health and safety at work is for individuals.
Psychologically Safe Leader Assessment. This free resource helps leaders become aware of the impact they can have on the psychological health and safety of employees at work. It helps leaders improve communication, social intelligence, fairness and problem-solving.
Implementing the Standard. If you are using Guarding Minds as part of implementation of the National Standard of Canada on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (Canadian Standards Association CSA z1003), there are many resources to help support your success.
Explore more information or begin using the survey tools.
1. International Organization for Standardization. (2021). Occupational health and safety management — Psychological health and safety at work — Guidelines for managing psychosocial risks (ISO Standard No. 45003). Retrieved from https://www.iso.org/standard/64283.html