Close the Loop: Why Healthy Communication & Feedback Matter in Managing Psychosocial Hazards

Psychosocial hazards are key contributors to both physical and mental health issues in the workplace. They are harder to identify because they are often invisible to the eye. For example, lack of recognition, job insecurity, or fear of speaking up are often masked by surface-level productivity or silence. These hazards often go unnoticed until they show up as burnout, absenteeism, reduced performance, or safety incidents.

Companies sometimes attempt to control these hazards with policies or training. But, in the Hierarchy of Controls for Psychosocial Hazards, policies and awareness programs sit at the bottom. These are good initiatives to raise awareness, but they don’t control psychosocial problems very well because they depend too much on the worker adopting good habits.

Higher-level controls like role clarity and, particularly, the continuous exchange of meaningful communication and feedback, play a far more critical role in mitigating psychosocial risk on a daily basis. These are things you have more control over as a company. This article focuses on how closing the loop of communication mitigates psychosocial hazards.

TapRooT® Tools Help Identify the Root Causes Driving Psychosocial Hazards

Under the root cause “Employee Communications NI (Needs Improvement),” the TapRooT® System helps investigators examine how the company may have communicated poorly and failed to ensure that important information was conveyed clearly, timely, and completely.

The TapRooT® Root Cause Tree® Dictionary guides you in asking the right questions to identify psychosocial hazards that may be embedded in the two-way street of employer-employee communication. These questions highlight difficulties in closing the communication loop. Here are just a few:

• Did management’s employee communications program fail to communicate management’s concerns for quality workmanship, safety, and the environment?
• Are management’s verbal/written communications and actions inconsistent, and therefore do not support excellence in safety, environment, and quality?
• Did low morale or a feeling from personnel that “Management doesn’t care what I do right, they only notice me when I do wrong,” contribute to the issue?

Other clues are the types of things employees say when a psychosocial hazard is embedded in communications:

• “They told us once during a meeting, but there was no written follow-up.”
• “I wasn’t told about that change until after it happened.”
• “I heard three different versions of what we were supposed to do.”
• “I found out through a coworker, not from management.”

The TapRooT® Root Cause Tree® Dictionary questions help identify not only technical communication failures but also systemic weaknesses in the communication culture. When workers receive inconsistent or unclear directions or when communication is one-way and lacks confirmation, the likelihood of stress, confusion, and errors increases.

Another root cause in TapRooT® Analysis is “Employee Feedback NI.” This root cause prompts investigators to consider whether the company failed to create a culture or system that encourages employees to speak up, report issues, or share insights, and whether those voices were ignored or dismissed when they did. It emphasizes the breakdown in upward communication and the missed opportunities for proactive improvement.

TapRooT® Root Cause Tree® Dictionary questions include:

• Did employee concerns fail to reach the attention of the management level that could initiate effective corrective actions?
• Did employees fail to receive prompt management feedback to their concerns?
• Did employees believe other employees had been fired, demoted, or not promoted because of expressing safety, quality, or environmental concerns?

When employee voices are discouraged, dismissed, or unacknowledged, you hear things like this:

• “I reported that issue months ago, but nobody got back to me.”
• “We get told what to do, not asked what we think.”
• “Bringing up concerns just gets you labeled as negative.”
• “We don’t have a safe space to talk about problems.”

A poor feedback loop is a psychosocial hazard that is often overlooked. When employees feel that their voice is ignored or unwelcome, trust erodes. This contributes to disengagement, anxiety, and increased risk.

The Role of Investigators in Mitigating Psychosocial Hazards

Integrating psychosocial hazard awareness into incident investigations is important. To close the loop, investigators should:

• Examine whether communication failures contributed to the stress or confusion that led to the incident.
• Assess whether employees felt safe and empowered to share concerns.
• Use structured tools like TapRooT® RCA to expose hidden weaknesses in communication and feedback systems.

Healthy communication and feedback systems are protective mechanisms against psychosocial harm. Using tools like TapRooT® RCA, companies are identifying and correcting communication failures and also fostering a culture of respect, clarity, and responsiveness. Closing the loop in communication is, ultimately, a vital act of care for the workforce.

As one wise t-shirt says, “I don’t want to be in the loop or out of the loop. I want to be aware of the loop & its contents but free from any loop-related responsibilities.”

Unfortunately, when it comes to safety and psychosocial risks, being in the loop is non-negotiable. Just make sure it’s a loop that closes.

Get the TapRooT® Root Cause Tree® Dictionary, 10th Edition (2025), plus many other investigative tools by attending a TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Course.