Workplace Psychological Safety Survey Template

Psychological safety is essential for open communication in the workplace, learning and high performance. Despite this, many business owners and HR professionals don’t know how safe their team truly feels to speak up, share ideas or admit mistakes. 

A psychologically safe workplace survey helps you measure this, uncover barriers and find opportunities to build trust and collaboration. Ready to build a psychologically safe workplace? Here’s how.

About this free survey template

Our psychological safety survey template is designed to make it easy for you to measure psychological safety within your teams and take action to build a more open, supportive and high-performing workplace.

Here’s what you’ll find:

• An overview of psychological safety
• Survey instructions
• Ready-to-use survey questions 
• Open-ended reflection questions
• Action planning guide
• Tips for building psychological safety 

What is psychological safety in the workplace?

Psychological safety means employees feel safe to speak up, share ideas, ask questions and admit mistakes without fear of embarrassment or punishment.

Coined by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, psychological safety is a critical foundation for trust and team learning. When people feel emotionally secure, they are more likely to contribute ideas, raise concerns and take smart risks. All of which are key behaviours that drive innovation, problem-solving and continuous improvement.

If employees don’t feel this in their workplace, they are more likely to stay silent, avoid taking initiative or hide mistakes out of fear. This all leads to missed opportunities and low engagement. Which is definitely not what a growth focused business wants. 

But by fostering psychological safety, you create a culture where people feel valued, supported and motivated to do their best work.

Why should businesses measure psychological safety?

Measuring psychological safety helps businesses understand if employees feel comfortable to share ideas, raise concerns and admit mistakes without fear of negative consequences. Without this insight, it’s easy to assume your workplace feels open and supportive, while silent issues or hidden fears may be holding your teams back.

Psychological safety surveys drive higher engagement, innovation and team performance. When employees feel comfortable, they are more likely to contribute ideas, collaborate effectively and learn from mistakes. By measuring psychological safety, you can:

• Identify barriers to open communication that may be affecting performance.
• Pinpoint areas for leadership or culture improvement within teams.
• Track progress as you implement initiatives to build trust and openness.
• Empower your people to do their best work in an environment where they feel heard and valued.

Ultimately, measuring psychological safety is a proactive step toward building a culture where people thrive, which directly impacts retention, productivity and your organisation’s long-term success.

10 example psychological safety survey questions

Ready to get started with a psychological safety survey template but unsure where to begin? We’ve put together 10 example questions to guide you.

1. When someone makes a mistake in this team, it is often held against him or her.
2. In this team, it is easy to discuss difficult issues and problems.
3. It is completely safe to take a risk on this team.
4. It is difficult to ask other members of this team for help.
5. In this team, people talk about mistakes and ways to prevent and learn from them.
6. Members of this team often raise concerns they have about team plans or decisions.
7. In this team, people are sometimes rejected for being different.
8. We often take time to figure out ways to improve our team’s work processes.
9. This team tends to handle conflicts and differences of opinion privately or offline, rather than addressing them directly as a group.
10. This team is not very good at keeping everyone informed who needs to buy into what the team is planning and accomplishing.

How to use these questions

When conducting a psychological safety survey, it’s possible to include lots of different types of questions: 

• Use a Likert scale (e.g., 1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree) for each question for easy tracking.
• Add an optional comment box for each to capture qualitative insights.
• Review responses regularly to identify team trends, celebrate strengths and take focused action on areas for improvement.

Our advice is to use a combination of question types, allowing for employees to rank how they feel on a scale, as well as offering the opportunity to go into detail with a written answer. 

Empower your employees with Employment Hero

Creating a psychologically safe workplace doesn’t happen by accident, it happens when you, as a business owner or HR professional, listen to your team. But we get that with a never-ending to-do list, it can be hard to find the time. 

This is where Employment Hero can help you out. Run effective employee surveys, gather meaningful feedback and take action to strengthen trust and openness across your teams. 

Employment Hero’s Employment Operating System takes the traditional isolated aspects of employment and integrates them into a seamless, human and AI-powered solution that empowers employers, employees and job seekers alike. 

Get started with the psychological safety survey template.