In the middle of last year I was asked to help a multinational Tier 1 construction company to help with their thinking on a major project that was about to be rolled out. This company knew there were cultural issues that would affect people negatively.

The morning of this meeting we did a language audit, very standard for Social Psychology of Risk. The language that was surfaced by all in the room was excellent and the categorisation into WorkSpace, HeadSpace and GroupSpace was done intuitively.

They understood the relative lack of experience in the workforce coming out of COVID. The interruption of the programme due to high infection rates. The complexity of multiple sites and retaining management to ensure continuity. The relative short time on sites for trades before moving to a new site with new rules, new associates and new management.

These and more were surfaced and everyone agreed they were real issues in the workplace.

But how do we record this?

This company’s solution was a excel spreadsheet and a Risk Matrix.

Everyone knows what it is like when people start debating the numbers in a risk matrix, is it a high 19 or a high 20? Will it be a single death or multiple deaths????

When trying to evaluate e-motions, feeling, , kindness, culture, attitudes, the stuff of life, a numerical solution is not a qualitative solution, nor is it a quantitative solution either (kind of hard to justify those numbers consistently).

Understanding the dialectic and iCue listening are key in evaluating Psychosocial and Cultural issues. SPoR calls this HeadSpace and GroupSpace. WorkSpace we all know about.

Until then, things will probably be about a 7. You choose the scale.