Psychological Safety and Internal Communication: Employees’ Perceptions of Psychologically Safe Communication Settings in the Workplace

This study identifies communication settings in the workplace that enhance psychological safety, that is, enable employees to engage in potentially risky behavior without fearing negative consequences, such as articulating criticism, resolving conflicts, and proposing creative and unorthodox solutions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with N  = 56 employees across various functions and roles in large and medium-sized enterprises in Germany and Austria. Interview partners were asked to describe concrete communication situations in which they have felt safe or unsafe to voice their concerns. Written communication channels in general (such as e-mail) and, in particular, those that allow for anonymous contributions motivate employees to speak up. This also applies to face-to-face dialogue and structured feedback formats. Moreover, employees feel safe when they have prepared in advance for the conversation and when they talk to peers of the same age or professional experience, or to coaches and counselors. Psychological safety is low when talking about workload and its distribution or the responsibility for mistakes, when irony or a technical jargon are used, or during times of structural change. Our results support internal communication professionals in contributing to a psychologically safe working environment and advance psychological safety research by demonstrating the considerable impact of internal communication.