Creating a blame free environment

When something goes awry in the workplace, it is natural to want to find out what went wrong and who was responsible for the problem. However, a plethora of research has demonstrated that blaming employees and punishing them for mistakes can do far more harm than good. Doing so has been shown to sour relationships, lower worker productivity, and limit opportunities for growth within the team and organisation as whole.

Creating a blame-free environment resolves many of these issues and provides a more holistic view of what went wrong and how this can be fixed so as to prevent something similar from happening again in the future. This article will explore how to create a blame-free working environment in your organisation and how this can be beneficial to your business.

Encourage openness and honesty

Ensuring employees feel safe to come forward and discuss their difficulties and errors is vital to the success of any organisation. It is also a mark of high-quality leadership. Building an environment of openness and honesty will help reveal and mitigate many problems that arise. This is simply because it is far better to find out about a problem or mistake the moment it happens rather than a few days, weeks or months down the line when the impact may be more severe and potentially damaging to the company.

A 2001 psychological study has shown that bad events are more likely to stick with us than good ones, as our brains are wired to avoid the bad rather than pursue the good. This also shows up in how managers treat their employees, too. Indeed, if an employee gets blamed or punished, or witnesses someone else being blamed for speaking out about a problem or mistake, they are more likely to avoid being honest when something goes wrong in their own work.

In this way, the so-called blame culture can have a severe negative impact on an organisation and its employees. Creating a blame-free environment helps encourage openness and honesty and can prevent mistakes from being hidden or repeated in the future.

Define what counts as an educated risk

One risk of creating a no blame culture is that it may deny employees agency or remove their sense of responsibility to protect the interests of their company. An organisation without blame is reliant on workers’ goodwill and sense of obligation, and this may make some leaders nervous about implementing a blame free system.

However, this problem can be mitigated by setting definitions and boundaries about what counts as an educated risk. Employees should be able to test new ideas and innovate whilst also being clear about what impact this may have on the business, both positive and negative. Furthermore, managers need to be aware of the new things their employees are trying so they can prepare for any potential fallout and have open discussions about the next course of action.

Having clear boundaries in place will help everyone remain clear on what counts as an educated risk and what does not. It will allow everyone to feel more comfortable pursuing new ideas.

Expect failure and reward success

It goes without saying that when an employee does well, they should be recognised and rewarded for their efforts. This includes, and is probably more essential, when they succeed after failure. We’ve already discussed how the brain recalls bad experiences more than good ones and further research shows that bad feedback following failure can negatively impact wellbeing and lower performance in the future. Leaders should therefore prioritise the long game when providing feedback to their employees and recognise that with experimentation, there is sometimes failure.

Often success arrives after numerous failed attempts at something new as the employee learns from their mistakes and builds their understanding of the opportunity they are exploring. Therefore, expecting failure and rewarding success will lead to the best outcomes and ensuring there is no blame tied to failure will help employees feel comfortable trying new things and learning from their mistakes.

Creating a blame-free environment in the workplace will not happen overnight and it does require an understanding from everyone about what this means and why it’s important to create this new culture. However, the psychological and organisational benefits of removing blame and encouraging honesty and experimentation are clear and should be explored by all leaders who want to elevate their employee relations, improve satisfaction, and boost productivity.