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Psychological Safety – How Internal Communication Can Encourage Employees to Speak Up
Psychological safety describes the perception of being able to engage in risky interpersonal behaviour through communication without fearing negative consequences. When employees feel psychologically safe in their workplace, they share their opinions, articulate criticism, propose creative solutions, and ultimately help their organization to become a better place.
A research project at the University of Vienna addresses psychological safety from the perspective of strategic communication and examined communication settings in the workplace that make employees feel psychologically safe or unsafe. The role of communication channels and formats is central in determining whether employees feel empowered to speak up.
Perspective on psychological safety
A novel perspective on psychological safety focuses on strategic communication and highlights the role of specific workplace communication settings in shaping employees’ sense of safety. Rather than viewing psychological safety as a general climate, this approach emphasizes how particular constellations of participants, topics, tones, channels, and organizational structures can either enable or constrain risk-taking behaviors, depending on the situation. For example, employees might feel safe to suggest a new approach for solving a problem to a friendly colleague in a private chat – but highly unsafe to critically discuss the top leader’s business strategy in a face-to-face meeting with a lot of other team members present.
Characteristics and patterns of safe and unsafe communication settings
Study participants described various characteristics of communication settings that were perceived as increasing or decreasing psychological safety. These characteristics were organized according to typical components of communication settings within an organization.
How internal communication managers can contribute to psychological safety
Internal communication professionals can consider various measures to support psychological safety in their organization, enhance employees’ willingness to speak up, and, ultimately, contribute to their organization’s capability to learn and grow. Obviously, it is impossible for internal communication managers to control every aspect of psychologically safe communication settings.
Psychological safety is not only an issue of company culture, but also a matter of its communication. Our insights show how communication managers can design environments where employees speak up, collaborate, and innovate.
Dr. Jens Hagelstein
Outlook
The study puts psychological safety on the agenda of internal communication managers. The analytical approach uncovered attributes of communication settings that contribute to employees’ perception of psychological safety in the workplace. Now it is up to internal communication managers to apply these findings, improve their communication infrastructures.
About the study
The study is part of the larger research project “Psychological safety and internal communication” carried out at the University of Vienna and led by Prof. Sabine Einwiller and Dr. Jens Hagelstein. More information.