VIRTUAL EVENT: Fostering Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Virtual Event: Fostering Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Speaker: Ciara Gogan, Founder and Principal Inclusion Leader at Uplift Inclusion LLC

Registration Deadline: Virtual participation registration closes at midnight 1 day prior to the event. 

Location: Virtual

Virtual: Login details will be sent to all attendees prior to the meeting, up to 24 hours in advance.

Description:

The program will begin with an introduction to the topic and speaker. Participants will then explore how psychological safety strengthens team performance, employee engagement, and organizational innovation.

Psychological safety, the ability to speak up, take risks, disagree openly, and surface concerns without fear of negative consequences, is one of the strongest predictors of team performance, employee engagement, and organizational innovation. Yet most HR professionals know the challenge of moving it from aspiration to practice within their own organizations.

This interactive session equips HR professionals with a clear, evidence-based framework for understanding, assessing, and championing psychological safety, no matter the size, industry, or stage of their organization. Through facilitated discussion, small-group exercises, and peer exchange, participants will build on each other's experiences and leave with tools they can put to work immediately.

The session opens with an exploration of the well-documented trust gap between leadership perception and employee experience, and why closing it is central to any engagement or retention strategy. Participants will learn the Four Stages of Psychological Safety, Inclusion Safety, Learner Safety, Contributor Safety, and Challenger Safety, as both a shared language and a diagnostic tool they can apply within their own organizations.

From there, the workshop dives into four focus areas that directly influence trust: open communication and transparency, acting visibly on feedback, cultural and interpersonal inclusion, and reframing failure as a catalyst for learning. Participants will work through real scenarios, share cross-industry insights with fellow HR practitioners, and develop individualized action plans tailored to their unique organizational contexts.

Format

Interactive and participatory, expect small-group breakouts, live polling, and candid peer-to-peer exchange. This is a working session, not a lecture.

Facilitated by Ciara Gogan, Uplift Inclusion LLC.

Learning Objectives: 

Participants will learn to:

• Understand the trust gap between leadership perception and employee experience, and its impact on engagement and retention
• Learn the Four Stages of Psychological Safety as a diagnostic framework to assess team and organizational readiness
• Identify four key focus areas for building trust: open communication, acting on feedback, cultural and interpersonal inclusion, and reframing failure as a learning opportunity
• Exchange cross-industry insights with fellow HR practitioners to broaden perspective and challenge assumptions

*PENDING for one (1.0) PDCs with SHRM and HRCI.

If you wish to sponsor future events, please contact Christina at publicrelations@bgshrm.org for a 2026 Sponsorship Packet.