Trust is often talked about as a soft skill, something nice to have alongside the ‘real’ work. In a technical, safety-critical sector like nuclear, that framing doesn’t hold up. Trust is operational.
Psychological safety, the sense that people can speak up, ask questions, admit uncertainty, or raise concerns without professional risk, isn’t separate from technical performance. It’s foundational to it. Teams that don’t trust one another are less likely to surface problems early, challenge assumptions, or share the dissenting views that can prevents costly mistakes.
Inclusion work is, in large part, trust-building work. When people from different backgrounds, disciplines, and lived experiences feel genuinely able to contribute, technical decision-making improves. This isn’t an abstract claim; it’s the practical case for inclusion in sectors like ours, where the cost of a missed concern or an unspoken doubt can be high.
Building that kind of trust doesn’t happen through a single initiative. It’s built through consistent, small signals: how disagreement is handled, whether junior voices are heard, whether people see others like them represented in the room. That’s the work worth doing, this week and beyond.
This is the second blog post in our National Inclusion Week 2026 series. Read the first post here: What “Build Trust. Navigate Change” Means for IDN