Psychological Safety in the Workplace: Why It’s Not Just an HR Issue

Psychological safety is often a misunderstood topic or simplified as “something HR should handle.” But the reality is different. It is not just a benefit. Nor is it a one-off initiative. And it is certainly not an HR team’s KPI. It is a fundamental condition for people to be able to perform, grow, and collaborate openly.

What is psychological safety?

The concept of psychological safety is defined as an environment where people feel safe to express their opinions, admit a mistake, ask a question, or come up with an idea—without fear of humiliation, punishment, or negative consequences.

This doesn’t mean everyone always agrees. Nor does it mean a “nice culture” where we avoid conflicts. On the contrary—healthy psychological safety enables constructive disagreement and the building of healthy relationships.

What are its benefits?

Companies that actively build psychological safety consistently achieve better results in the long run. Why?

• More innovation and ideas: People are not afraid to come up with new ideas—even if they are not perfect.
• Faster learning from mistakes: Mistakes are not hidden, but shared. This accelerates process improvement.
• Higher engagement and motivation: When people feel respect and trust, they naturally get more involved.
• Better team collaboration: Open communication reduces misunderstandings and passive aggression.
• Lower turnover.

Who influences psychological safety?

Everyone influences it. But if we go down the hierarchy:

1. Top management: Sets the tone of communication and builds the overall atmosphere from the top. If leadership doesn’t admit a mistake, no one else will. It’s not for nothing that they say, “A fish rots from the head down.”
2. Managers: Have the biggest day-to-day impact. How they respond to questions, mistakes, or feedback directly shapes the safety within the team.
3. Colleagues: Psychological safety isn’t just “top-down.” Sarcasm, belittling, or ignoring each other among colleagues can quickly destroy it.
4. HR: Has an important role—but a different one than many companies think (we’ll get to that).

Why is it not an HR team KPI?

This is a key misunderstanding. Psychological safety often ends up as an item on the HR dashboard: “Increase psychological safety by X%.” The problem is that HR cannot deliver it as a project.

1. HR doesn’t own the day-to-day behavior in the company: Psychological safety is created in micro-moments—in a meeting, in a 1:1, in reaction to a mistake. These situations are managed not by HR, but by managers and teams.
2. It cannot be implemented from the top: A workshop or training alone will not change behavior. Without a change in leadership mindset, everything remains just on paper.
3. HR cannot be held responsible for how people treat each other every day and how they feel.

So what is the role of HR?

HR’s role is more of an architect and facilitator, not an owner.

• Helps define what psychological safety means in the specific company.
• Equips managers with tools (feedback, conducting interviews, dealing with mistakes).
• Creates space for open communication.
• Points out risks and blind spots.

Can psychological safety be measured?

It cannot be measured precisely. It can be indicated, its trend monitored, and the reality within teams understood.

And that is absolutely sufficient—if you actually work with the data and some change happens.

Tip: Use the Anonymous surveys module to measure team atmosphere. Honest feedback without fear of reprisal is the key to high engagement and loyalty of your people.

Methods of detection

Most often through a combination of several approaches:

1. Surveys

The foundation is based on the work of Amy Edmondson, who created a scale for measuring psychological safety in teams.

Typical questions might be, for example:

• “I can admit a mistake in this team without fear.”
• “People in this team can openly express their opinions.”
• “No one in this team would embarrass me for not knowing something.”
• “It is safe to take risks in this team (e.g., coming up with a new idea).”

Answers are usually rated on a scale (e.g., 1–5). The result is not an “objective truth,” but people’s perception—a mirror.

2. Pulse surveys (continuous measurement)

• Short surveys regularly (monthly / quarterly),
• You monitor the development over time.
• You compare teams with each other.

Important: It only makes sense if the data is followed by concrete action.

3. Qualitative data (this is a gamechanger)

Numbers are just the beginning. True understanding comes from:

• 1:1 interviews
• Focus groups
• Feedback
• Exit interviews and other sources.

Because a score of 3.8 won’t tell you much. But a specific sentence from an employee will.

4. Indirect indicators

Psychological safety can also be read from data you already have in the company:

• Turnover (especially in specific teams)
• Absenteeism and sickness rates
• Engagement score
• Number of ideas and initiatives
• Feedback on managers
• People’s activity in meetings (silence in a meeting is also data).

Measurement has its limits

1. People may not tell the truth: If they don’t believe in anonymity and a “climate of blame” prevails in the company (they are afraid to say something for fear of punishment), the results will be skewed.
2. Without action, it causes harm: Asking and changing nothing can lead to a loss of trust, and next time they won’t tell you anything.
3. It cannot be outsourced: A tool will only give you numbers and answers to questions. The change must be driven by leadership.

What are the takeaways?

Creating psychological safety should not be an HR KPI.

• If you own a company and expect HR to establish and maintain psychological safety, you are mistaken.
• If you are an employee and expect HR to have a magic wand and solve your overtime, stress, overworking, and opening your laptop on vacation, you are also mistaken.
• If you are a manager and expect your people’s dissatisfaction to be solved by paying for overtime, 1:1s focused only on KPIs, or constantly moving them in your calendar because you have other priorities, you are mistaken.
• If you are in HR and expect to create psychological safety by writing a subpage on the intranet and organizing one wellbeing workshop, you are mistaken.

Psychological safety lies elsewhere.

It is shaped by:

• Relationships across the entire organization,
• The leadership of the organization,
• Processes that work,
• Systems that work,
• Open communication and the fact that I am not afraid to speak up, that I know and can admit a mistake,
• Mutual respect and esteem, etc.

 

Conclusion for People Teams

How to approach psychological safety and wellbeing in the company from an HR perspective?

• Listen to people,
• Learn to get to the core of the problem,
• Prepare your arguments,
• And argue to the right people why a change is needed and what will happen if you don’t make it (e.g., turnover, low engagement, dissatisfaction, reputational risk, burnout, etc.).

 

And don’t forget—you need to start with yourself. You too must be well (and safe).

And if someone doesn’t listen to you or puts something on your shoulders that is “breaking your back” in the long run, that is probably not an environment that could be called psychologically safe.