The Key to Successful Teams for the Equine Practice Owner: Physical and Mental Safety

Developed by the AAEP Practice Culture Subcommittee 2023

Psychological safety can be defined as the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.

Why is it key to changing our team dynamics? A lack of psychological safety within the practice presents risks to the business.

• Retention: If employees do not feel a level of safety within their team, you are not going to hear about it. You are going to feel it as they leave to find new positions. Employee turnover takes profit out of your bottom line and significantly detracts from clinic morale.
• Status Quo:Practices miss out on opportunities to grow and improve when employees are afraid to share what isn’t working and to offer new and innovative ideas.
• Failures: When people don’t feel safe to admit their mistakes it can lead to poor outcomes like patient fatalities or worker injuries, repeated errors or omissions in patient care and poor customer service.

Download the resource to access the full handbook.