Job Security and Psychological Safety

In a lot of “What Psychological Safety Is Not” articles, we often come across statements like “psychological safety is not job security”.

And that’s true, to a degree. Psychological safety is not the same as job security – they’re two different things. And we’re not going to magically make people feel psychologically safe if we tell them their job is secure for life. Simply knowing that you’ve got a secure job doesn’t automatically mean you feel completely safe to raise concerns, ask for help or admit mistakes; there are many risks to speaking up, and the effect on our job is just one aspect of them. Having said that, it might help, as suggested by this LinkedIn survey that we ran:

Bar chart showing that most people feel psychologically safer in a secure job

That led us to more deeply question whether feeling that our job could be at risk has an impact on our likelihood to speak up, particularly in raising concerns.

Does job security impact psychological safety?

In this Research Pulse, we set out to explore how organisational upheaval and employment precariousness, such as restructures, budget cuts, or the threat of redundancies affects people’s sense of psychological safety, specifically when it comes to raising concerns at work.

We asked, “Have you ever worked in an organisation during events such as restructures, budget cuts, or redundancies?”, and if the response was yes, we then asked:

“How did those events such as restructures, budget cuts, or redundancies affect how safe you felt raising concerns at work?” The response range was from 0 (Much less safe) to 6 (Much more safe).

Bar chart showing that most people feel less psychologically safe if they feel that their job may be at risk

The results showed that over 80% of respondents (81.5%) felt somewhat unsafe or worse (scores 0 to 2) after events such as restructures, budget cuts, or redundancies. This suggests to us there is a very significant impact of organisational changes on people’s willingness to speak up. The average (mean) score of 1.55 indicates a strong general tendency towards feeling unsafe in the face of a risk to one’s employment.

Only 4.3% felt ‘very safe’ raising concerns in precarious times. We might hypothesise that those people actually felt safer because they knew that they were leaving – working your notice period can be a great time to raise concerns because your job is no longer on the line! Or it may be related to a strong financial safety net, meaning that losing your job has little to no effect on your quality of life.

It’s important to note that this is a small quantitative snapshot of 93 people and doesn’t conclusively ‘prove’ that job insecurity directly causes a drop in psychological safety – just that it appears to correlate. We kept the survey intentionally short to maximise response rate, which meant we didn’t explore personal experiences in depth or ask for stories about why people felt the way they did. That said, the data warrants serious attention, and we plan to dive deeper into the reasons and feelings behind these scores in future research.

Seeing this in practice

Beyond the numbers, our day-to-day work with teams and organisations confirms this effect. When people sense that their jobs are on the line (especially if they know someone somewhere is compiling a list of who stays and who goes) they become much less likely to challenge decisions, raise concerns, or offer new ideas, particularly if those ideas might seem risky. In an environment where mistakes can be costly, not just to the company, but to one’s own career, does any sensible person want to risk drawing attention to themselves?

Saying that “psychological safety is not job security” can too easily slip into the claim “psychological safety has nothing to do with job security”. And that is patently untrue. Ignoring the link between job security and psychological safety risks letting organisations – especially those facing or enacting redundancies – shift the burden of reduced psychological safety onto employees. We may even find leaders using this false claim to absolve themselves of responsibility for managing changes with the utmost care for those experiencing job insecurity. The belief that we can take job insecurity off the table as a cause for low psychological safety actually risks making the problem much worse.

Perhaps most crucially, it’s worth remembering that psychological safety is a belief. It doesn’t matter whether the threat is real or perceived: if people believe it’s risky to speak up, they’ll act accordingly. That perception shapes behaviour just as much as any objective fact.

Admitting there might be a problem

Of course, job losses and redundancies are a fact of life. Public sector organisations may face budget cuts, commercial businesses experience market forces at work, and global economies shift; if there’s not enough money to pay people, job losses can be inevitable. We shouldn’t demonise senior leaders for making difficult decisions. But they, and we, need to acknowledge and admit that those changes and losses can significantly impact employees’ ability to speak up, ask for help and admit mistakes – further impacting the organisation in potentially serious ways. If we can at least recognise that job insecurity is likely to affect psychological safety, we can take steps to mitigate the harm.

Our next Research Pulse explores Feedback at Work – respond here and be in the chance to win stickers and a free Action Pack Bundle, total value £50.