How Novozymes' 6,500 employees learn about psychological safety through a tailored online course

How best to support employees in different parts of an organisation? And how do we create space for different views, opinions and sharing half-baked ideas in a workplace?

We believe these are important issues for any company to discuss. And it is particularly obvious for a global innovation company like Novozymes.

"We already have a pretty high level of psychological safety, but we wanted to work with it strategically in a way that was easy for managers around the world to do," says Camilla Dahl Jensen.

Camilla is a social worker and wellbeing specialist at Novozymes. This means that she, among other things, creates initiatives to reduce absenteeism and increase well-being globally.

"Psychological safety had been on my radar for a while. I read Amy Edmondson's book The Fearless Organization, among others, and realized that this topic was a critical foundation for everything from having meaningful conversations about well-being to ensuring high performance."

But how do you successfully roll out a psychological safety programme to 6,500 employees from China to the head office in Bagsværd?

"We were getting stuck in dialogue cards, so we wanted a solution that was both different and easy to use for managers with very different backgrounds around the world. And it had to be a solution that was independent of having an external consultant standing in a room."

Novozymes got its own online course on psychological safety

Around this time, Camilla watched a webinar with Danni and Morten on psychological safety.

"I saw how present they were on screen and how they involved those watching. So maybe they could facilitate just such a process for us - through the screen."

In collaboration with Camilla, we created a tailor-made online course on psychological safety in Danish and English. Novozymes' managers worldwide were able to access the course via the company's own platform and use it in their teams as they see fit.

The programme was made available to Novozymes in such a way that the managers themselves invite their teams to the programme. Then they watch the videos together in a meeting room and do the exercises together. Without Danni, Morten or any other consultants having to be physically present at any stage of the process. Included in the process are introductory videos for the manager, so they can get started without any additional prerequisites.

Were the leaders in on it? Very much so.

170 leaders from around the world participated in virtual kick-off

Camilla tells:

"I am very proud of how much space the process has been given in our organisation. I had the opportunity to send out an email to all managers when we invited them to the kick-off. And we try to be critical with what we spam all managers with. 170 managers attended when we had the global launch, and that was a lot! That in itself was a great learning that it's such a high priority for leaders out in the company across regions and work areas."

Much to be gained from the tools of psychological safety

Camilla herself has been through the first part of the process in her team of six.

"My manager was surprised at how much we got out of it, as we already have a high level of security in the team. There is really a lot to gain from the psychological safety tools."

Camilla elaborates:

"One of the things that stood out for me was this exercise: everyone answers the question anonymously: "What takes courage for you to do?" The answers came up on a post-it on the wall, and we realized that we could have all written any of the statements. But the biggest eye-opener was that when a group of managers did the same exercise, they turned out to have exactly the same insecurities as us. It shows that thoughts like 'how will people think of me if I bring this up?' are completely universal. And knowing among your colleagues that you're not alone in your doubts and fears - that's hugely disempowering."

Novozymes has developed and rolled out a digital solution that teaches managers and employees the basic principles of psychological safety and how to put them into practice. No matter where they are in the world and what time zone they are in.

"The programme works especially because it is adapted to our organisation," says Camilla. "For example, Danni and Morten took the time to interview 5 different managers across regions - including a colleague from China and one in the US - and it was a very respectful way to enter into the collaboration. Clips from these interviews were then used in the video material, where the leaders talk about how this connects to our values, for example. Overall, it was an incredibly trusting and open collaboration that created a really great online solution for our company."

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Access the course yourself here

You can already access your own digital course on psychological safety.