Ep. 134: Does caring about psychosocial safety mean we have to stop telling jokes at work?

In this episode, David Provan and Drew Rae examine workplace humor through the lens of psychosocial safety, discussing Helen Lingard, Rita Zhang, and Katie Chan's 2025 paper "Not Just a Joke: Women's Experiences of Workplace Humour in the Australian Construction Industry" published in the Journal of Management in Engineering. The research reveals that 65% of women in construction experience sexual harassment, with humor frequently weaponized to mask discrimination and maintain male dominance in a workforce that is 97% male.