Psychological Safety with respect to Person With Disability at...
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0 Psychological Safety with respect to Person With Disability at Workplace School of Management and Labour Studies M.A Human Resource Management and Labour Relations TISS Mumbai Dissertation Submitted in guidance of Dr.Sasmita Palo Submitted by : Manish Jain M2017HRM022| M.A HRM&LR
Transcript of Psychological Safety with respect to Person With Disability at...
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Psychological Safety with respect to Person With
Disability at Workplace
School of Management and Labour Studies
M.A Human Resource Management and Labour Relations
TISS Mumbai
Dissertation Submitted in guidance of Dr.Sasmita Palo
Submitted by : Manish Jain
M2017HRM022| M.A HRM&LR
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my gratitude towards Prof. Vijay Kumar and Prof. Sasmita Palo
for their guidance and suggestions on the subject matter. They helped me in defining and
limiting the scope of the study, method of data collection and analysis, and by also
sharing the relevant literature on the construct chosen for the study i.e. psychological
safety at workplace.
I would like to thank all the participants who provided their feedback and responses to the
questionnaire. It would not have been possible to reach out the targeted audience and
collect data unless they would not have helped in connecting to other participants.
I would also like to thank my batchmates and roommates for their feedbacks, cooperation,
and most importantly for the last minutes favours.
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ABSTRACT
The present study investigated the role of “Psychological safety with respect to Person
With Disability (Visually Impaired)at workplace”. The construct was studied through
triangular method that was entirely qualitative in nature and included an extensive
literature review at first place followed by perception survey and interviews that captured
the experiences and feelings of psychological safety by Pwd employees working in
different organisations, both private and public enterprise, based out of India. Findings
revealed the direct relations of four factors namely, “individual and personality”,
“colleagues and co-workers”, “managerial and supervisory support”, and “organisational
culture and policy” with level of psychological safety in case of Pwd employees.
Propositions were then drawn based on the findings towards the end with implication of
the study discussed, especially for organisations that emphasise on hiring person with
disability in their workforce.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
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1.1 Theoretical background 8
1.1.1 What is psychological safety? 8
1.1.2 Why psychological safety? 9
1.1.3 Psychological factors affecting safety 10
1.1.4 Person with disability 12
1.2 Objective of the study 14
1.3 Scope of the study 15
1.4 Research questions 15
1.5 Limitation of the study 16
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
17
2.1 Evolution 17
2.2 How psychological safety is different
from other organisational constructs
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2.2.1 Trust 18
2.2.2 Group cohesion 19
2.2.3 Self esteem 20
2.2.4 Mindfulness 21
2.3 Psychological safety and learning 22
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organisations
2.4 Psychological safety and employee
engagement
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2.5 Psychological safety and creativity at
workplace
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2.6 Psychological safety and work teams 25
2.7 Psychological safety and employee voice 26
2.8 Psychological safety and accountability 27
2.9 Limitation of the literature 28
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
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3.1 Approach 29
3.2 Methods of data collection and sources of
data
29
3.2.1 Literature 29
3.2.2 Survey 30
3.2.3 Interviews 31
3.3 Sampling procedure: technique and size 31
3.3.1 Sampling technique 32
3.3.2 Sample size 34
3.4 Demographic overview 34
CHAPTER 4
DATA ANALYSIS
36
4.1 Analysis plan 36
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4.2 Responses to interview 39
4.3 Responses to survey 45
CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS
49
5.1 Proposition 49
CHAPTER 6
RECOMMENDATIONS
57
6.1 Implications of the study 57
6.2 Future research 58
CHAPTER 7
REFERENCE
59
CHAPTER 8
APPENDIX
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8.1 Interview questionnaire 65
8.2 Survey questionnaire 66
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1. INTRODUCTION
Safety has been an important discussion area in the field of psychology, management,
behavioural management and healthcare. In an organisational setup, safety of an employee is
generally studied at three levels namely physical, emotional and psychological. For years,
workplace safety focused on the physical protection of employees only. Physical safety
means controlling risks and hazards to protect workers from physical harm. Over a period of
time, emotional safety has become a focal point for many large organisations across
geographies. In fact, if you think about it, emotional safety is more of an issue for workers
than physical safety. There are plenty of physically unsafe jobs in the labour market such as
police, army and military, fire-fighters, etc. but at the same time, there are jobs such as
airhostess, nurses, models, call operators, waiters, etc. involving encounter with some sort of
traumas, mental stress and anxiety which calls for emotional safety at workplace. In other
words, for working class, the anxiety is the result of the job they are engaged in. job anxiety
may be defined as "a generalized feeling of vague fear and insecurity and apprehensive
mental state of the employee pertaining to various constituents of his job life”. Research also
reveals that lack of emotional safety creates an environment of fear which severely
constrains, or even shuts down, cognitive systems as humans go into survival mode.
Taking a step forward, we have psychological safety that is closely linked with mental
structure, emotions and feelings of an individual that defines his or her inter-personal
relations with others. They can be parents, teachers, classmates, friends, colleagues, manager,
etc. For example, a student in a class room may not ask questions because he fears how his
peers may react. A very talented individual may not showcase his or her talent on the stage,
because the individual fears how people react to his or her performance. An employee in a
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team meeting in an organisation may not openly express his ideas, may be because he fears
what his manager might say. Results from a number of empirical studies conducted in various
regions and countries show that psychological safety plays an important role in workplace
effectiveness (Edmondson and Lei, 2014). Psychological safety in organisations means a
culture where all employees can speak up confidently, contribute new ideas and questions
and admit fallibility without fear of retribution or humiliation from colleagues. It can be
defined as "being able to show and employ one's self without fear of negative consequences
of self-image, status or career" (Kahn 1990, p. 708).
In fact, when we talk about learning organisations in general, psychological safety constitutes
a major building block that contributes towards a learning behaviour at workplace. Because,
it is often believed that employees work with their full potential only when they feel safe to
contribute their ideas, opinions, suggestions and participate in decision making process and
for this, they are rewarded and appreciated through positive reinforces by the management. A
learning organisation is a one that facilitates learning of its members and continuously works
on transforming itself as per the requirements of the business environment in which it
operates. It makes the organisation competitive in the market by continuously maintaining the
level of innovation. Some other benefits of learning organisation includes improves
efficiency, quality of outputs, corporate image, long term decision making, knowledge
sharing, etc.
“Appreciation of differences” is another building block that promotes a culture of learning in
organisations. It means an atmosphere where employees from different walks of life and
diverse backgrounds are valued and respected for being different from others. However,
differences may vary from personality traits, values, beliefs, intelligence, abilities, learning
styles to ethnicity, age, background, sexual orientation, gender, physical or mental disability,
etc. for the purpose of this study , acceptance of person with disabilities as an equal member
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of the organisation, providing fair career advancement opportunities, involvement in decision
making would be considered as appreciation of differences.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out how relevant is the concept of
psychological safety with respect to person with disability at workplace and the factors that
contribute to psychologically safe climate in case of person with disabilities.
1.1 Theoretical Background
1.1.1 Psychological Safety
The term “psychological safety” is attributed to Amy C. Edmondson, a Professor of
Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, who describes it as “a sense of
confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up.”
Edmondson puts the concept into context further explaining that, when team members are
motivated at work and want to share an idea for improving performance, they frequently do
not speak up because they fear that they will be harshly judged.
Psychological safety is defined by Kahn as, “being able to show and employ one’s self
without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status or career”. In other words, team
members feel accepted and respected within their current roles.
Psychological safety is essential because employees, who are psychologically safe, feel that
they can put themselves on the line, ask questions, report mistakes, seek feedback, and
resolve problems, or propose a new idea without the fear of negative consequences - to
themselves, their image, their job or their career. When employees do not feel
psychologically safe they experience a sense of threat, demoralization, unengaged and they
perceive organisation climate as ambiguous and unpredictable.
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Kahn (1990: 703), in a qualitative field study, found that psychological safety was one of
three psychological conditions that “shaped how people inhabited their roles in the
organization.”
1.1.2 Why Psychological Safety?
In an ever changing and dynamic environment where all the organisations are operating in a
VUCA setting i.e. volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, the key to deal with such
situation is to encourage a continuous learning culture in the organisation where all the
employees interact and contribute together in accomplishing the larger goals by challenging
the status –quo, asking questions, seeking advice and help, provide feedback, experiment
with new ideas and suggestions, etc. this would ensure that the organisation remains
competitive in the market by maintaining the level of innovation and high performance. But
in between all the above mentioned initiatives, employees are generally hold accountable and
are seen incompetent, ignorant and dis-respected when they fail to contribute in the expected
or desired manner. Such actions by the management have negative outcomes i.e. employees
refrain to contribute in the future when they feel the environment is unsafe and a risk to self-
image and reputation is present.
Thus, psychological safety become essential to ensure that employees feel safe and secure
because research reveals that when individuals feels the environment is safe, they open up in
a group, ask questions, report mistakes, seek feedbacks, resolve problems and present their
ideas without fear of any negative outcomes such as threat to self-image, job, promotions,
punishments, career, etc. Schein (1985: 298-299) argued that psychological safety support
individuals in overcoming the learning anxiety, defensiveness and fear that occurs when
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people are presented with data or words that disconfirm their expectations and hopes, which
can hinder productive learning behaviour.
Psychological safety benefits not only employees but also teams and organizations in many
different ways. Some of the most widely empirically supported consequences of a team being
psychologically safe are discussed below:
Increases the ability in individuals to take risks.
Expands the scope of learning from mistakes amongst the members in a team.
Allow individuals to network and socialize.
Transforms an organisation into a Learning organisation.
Enhances employee engagement.
Boosts individual and team performance.
Provides room for team innovation and creativity.
Increases the chances that an attempted process innovation will be successful.
1.1.3 Psychological Factors Affecting Safety
Psychological factors are elements that impact employees’ psychological reactions to work
and work conditions, affecting psychological health problems. It includes the way work is
carried out and the context in which work occurs and includes relationships and interactions
with managers, colleagues, clients, etc.
Some of the common factors that contribute to psychological safety at workplace are
discussed below-
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Participative decision making: Employees at all level must be provided opportunities
by the management to contribute their ideas, suggestions and recommendations. To
achieve this, communication channels should be opened and flexible especially,
upward communication i.e. making employees speaks to those who occupy senior
positions and have authority to take decisions. In order to ensure maximum
participation of employees, organisations conduct periodic town halls. The town halls
can be monthly, half-yearly or annually depending upon the requirements and
functioning of particular business.
Leader’s integrity: Management delivery of promises and commitments shapes the
perception of leader’s integrity amongst employees. Leaders must conduct themselves
with utmost ethics and values. There shouldn’t be difference between their words and
actions.
Awareness on mental health: Education about workplace stress, job anxiety, impact
on health through workshops and other initiatives must be imparted to employees.
Organisations today, focus on developing mental toughness of teams so that they can
respond more positively to challenges and deal with adversities confidently.
Encouraging compassion: organisations must create an environment where showing
compassion for others is appreciated. This helps to reduce distance of discomfort
between them so that they can come together and contribute towards the
accomplishment of goals.
Earning trust: trust fosters a culture of safe environment where the employees and
teams can perform to their full potential. Management should able to earn trust and
demonstrate such actions and engage in such activities that signals that they are trust
worthy.
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Celebrating diversity: diversity in teams helps in bringing new prospective and ideas
because individuals comes from different walks of life with varied backgrounds and
experiences. Research found that organisations that celebrate diversity and encourage
their employees to put forward their voices and different point of view without fear of
being punished, are more productive and provide psychologically safe climate to their
employees.
Apart from the above mention factors, there are other factors which may impact the
psychological safety. They can be classified into personal and organisational factors. Personal
factors include personality, self-esteem, Self Consciousness, past experiences, etc.
Individuals who constantly worry about what others think of them are likely to experience
less psychological safety at work (May 2004). Organisational factors includes policies and
norms, values, culture, structure, etc. these factors affect the behaviour of employees in terms
of promoting learning culture by developing policies pertaining to discrimination and
bullying of employees at workplace.
1.1.4 Person with Disability
The U.S. Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) documented more than
thirty-five different definitions of disability in the U.S. federal code (ICDR 2003). However,
the most salient definition of disability is found in the ADA, which defines a person with a
disability as someone who has:
(1) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more “major life
activities,”
(2) a record of such impairment, or
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(3) is regarded as having such impairment (ODEP 2009).
Major life activities include sitting; standing, and lifting; and mental, emotional, and
cognitive processes (Lengnick-Hall 2007).
According to the 2008 Disability Status Report, published by Cornell University, people with
disabilities represented 10.4 percent of the working-age population (ages twenty-one to sixty-
four) (Erickson, Lee, and von Schrader 2009). Within the working-age population with
disabilities, 51.9 percent had ambulatory difficulty, 39.4 percent had cognitive difficulty, 21.8
percent had hearing difficulty, and 18.1 percent had visual difficulty. The employment rate of
working-age people with disabilities in the United States was 39.5 percent, less than half that
of their counterparts without disabilities (79.9 percent) (Erickson, Lee, and von Schrader
2009).
In India the persons with disability act (PWD) specifies that organizations should create equal
opportunities and a non-discriminatory environment for disabled people and allow them
facilities that will help them put in their best performance under circumstances. The "people
with disabilities act 1995" dictates that at least 3% of the jobs be filled by disabled
individuals in the public sector. However many of the public sector organizations are
nowhere near that target.
Schur et al. (2009) argued that there has been less research on the experiences people with
disabilities in the workplace than on their employment levels. A focus workplace accords
with developments in the sociology of disability because it draws (implicit ly or explicitly) on
the social model of disability (Foster, 2007). In this approach, it is not impairments that
prevent people from being productive, but the environment attitudes they encounter. The way
work is organized within a set of social relations, well as the design of the workplace, are of
particular importance (Barnes and Mercer, 2005). Barnes and Mercer (2005) refer to UK
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evidence on people with disabilities being in less well-paid occupations, and in jobs for
which they are over-qualified. Other UK evidence suggests that people with disabilities earn
less, receive less training and are more likely to exit employment (Rigg, 2005). In the US,
they are less likely to get good jobs, and do less well in terms of pay and benefits, training,
job security, promotions and participation in decisions (Schur et al., 2009).
In various articles (Cunningham et al., 2004; Dibben et al., 2001; James et al., 2002, 2006),
Cunningham and colleagues showed that compliance with legislation, including anti-
discrimination legislation, informed formal organizational policies on long-term sickness
absence, and the management of serious ill-health, but failed to impact on the behaviour of
line managers. Managers prioritized other organizational policies, and were constrained by
cost considerations and poorly trained or supported.
1.2 Objective of the study
Organisations around the globe are putting considerable efforts in diversifying their
workforce and making the organisation as an inclusive roof where person with disabilities
feel respected and valued for their contributions. Generally, the first step towards this is to
map the suitable roles where people with disabilities can work to their full capabilities and
potential. Once, the organisations identify the suitable roles and competencies required to
perform the job in hand, they look for disabled pool of candidates who could fill up those
identified roles. In simple words, “putting the right person at the right job”. While this
practise of appreciating differences via hiring is highly evident nowadays and large pool of
organisations are following these practises. But the real challenge that these organisations
fails to address is taking care of mental well-being of the hired disabled workforce.
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This research is an attempt to study how relevant is the concept of psychological safety in
context of person with disabilities working out of both private and public sector undertakings
in India. The objective is to find out the factors that effect the level of psychological safety by
capturing the experiences of Pwd employees.
1.3 Scope Of The Study
The study extents to all organisations including both private and public sector undertakings
operating in India where person with disability (visually impaired) are employed.
It covers the response of Pwd employees, both male and females, and designations at
different level i.e. from entry level to middle, senior and executive level. Further, responses
are from different industries like FMCG, banking and finance, IT and BPO that ensure larger
scope and coverage.
1.4 Research Questions
This study will try to address the following questions-
a. Are person with disabilities feel psychologically safe at their workplace?
b. What are some major causes for absence of psychologically safe climate in case of
person with disabilities?
c. Does the level of psychologically safe climate differ with different sectors namely
private and public sector undertakings?
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1.5 Limitation of the study
Following are the limitations of the proposed research-
In India, there is very little understanding of the concept of psychological safety at
workplace. Very few organisations work on creating a psychologically safe
environment for their employees.
In India very few person with disabilityarecounted as working professionals or
holding full-time job. Even, out of the total population size of Pwd employees,
majority of them are employed at the entry level. Hence sample size is limited.
The study is limited only to a small sample size. A larger sample size with employees
from various sectors and industries would have resulted into comprehensive outcome.
As proposed, the study could not be carried on conducting a comparative analysis
between the level of psychologically safe climate present or absent in private sector
undertaking and public sector undertaking.
A quantitative study was supposed to be conducted to validate the propositions but
due to constraints it was not done.
Along with interviews, a focused group discussion could have been conducted and the
behaviours could have been observed.
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2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Evolution
The construct was first explored by organisational scholars in the 1960s and in 1965, MIT
Professors Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis argued that psychological safety was essential
for making people feel secure and capable of changing their behavior in response to shifting
organizational challenges. They also argued that psychological safety helps people overcome
the defensiveness, or learning anxiety, that occurs when they are presented with data that
contradict their expectations or hopes.
The term “psychological safety” was first coined by Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard
Business School. Narrating her story via. a TEDx talk about how she first explore the concept
of psychological safety, she was studying medical teams at hospitals during her graduation
days on finding out what differentiate the high performing teams from others. In her mind,
she thought that one differentiating factor would be that the high performing teams would
make relatively less medical errors. But to her surprise, she discovered the exact opposite, i.e.
the high performing teams were the ones that were making more errors than low performing
teams. Digging deeper, she went further on finding the reason behind. Her findings revealed
that the high performing teams were making errors because some members despite knowing
it, never communicated openly to other teams members due to lack of psychological safety in
the team. From then, scholars started conducting studies on understanding the nature of
psychological safety, identifying factors that contribute to this interpersonal construct, and
examining its implications for employees, teams, and organizations.
Much research has been conducted into the benefits of cultivating psychologically safe teams.
For example, Google’s “Project Aristotle” in 2015 was a landmark study that highlighted the
relevance of psychological safety. It was then that most organisations started taking it
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seriously. The motive of the study was to find out what it takes to build the most effective
team and the factors that contribute towards it. They found that employees in psychologically
safe teams were less likely to want to leave Google, more likely to enjoy the benefits of
diversity and inclusion, brought in more revenue and were rated as effective twice as often by
executives.
Given the trend of today’s knowledge economies that demands employees to integrate
perspectives, share information and ideas, and collaborate to achieve shared goals, the
construct of psychological safety becomes vital as it reduces the inter-personal gap between
employees and promotes team work.
2.2 How Psychological Safety is Different From Other Organisational Constructs
2.2.1 Trust
A recent increase in research on trust in organizations suggests a growing interest in intra-
psychic states that affect performance and other organizational outcomes (Kramer, 1999).
Most research on trust has focused on either the experiences of individuals or on
organizations as entities and how trust can facilitate inter-organizational relationships, such as
with suppliers or customers. Jones and George (1998: 531-2) maintain that trust is “an
expression of confidence between the parties in an exchange of some kind—confidence that
they will not be harmed or put at risk by the actions of the other party or confidence that no
party to the exchange will exploit the other’s vulnerability.
There are studies on both interpersonal trust and psychological safety; for example May and
Gilson (1999) showed that co-worker trust had a significant positive effect on psychological
safety. Kahn (1990) found that “interpersonal relationships promoted psychological safety
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when they were supportive and trusting.” The concepts of psychological safety and trust have
much in common; they both describe intra-psychic states involving perceptions of risk or
vulnerability, as well as making choices to minimize negative consequences and both have
potential positive consequences for work groups and organizations.
Although both constructs involve a willingness to be vulnerable to others' actions, they are
conceptually and theoretically distinct. In particular, psychological safety is centrally tied to
learning behavior, while trust lowers transactions costs and reduces the need to monitor
behavior. In her research in 1993, Amy C. Edmondson conducted studies of operating room,
nursing, new product development, management, service, and production teams to illustrate
how the construct of psychological safety differs from the related construct of trust. One
difference between psychological safety and trust was that psychological safety focuses on a
belief about a group norm, but trust focuses on a belief that one person has about another.
Next, psychological safety was defined by how group members think they are viewed by
others in the group, but trust was defined by how one views another. Kramer (1999) identifies
two approaches in the trust literature, rational and relational models of choice. Although
psychological safety also involves an element of choice—generally a tacit choice—its
definition is easily distinguished from definitions of trust within the rational model, in which
individuals are presumed to make efficient choices based on risk-evaluation by maximizing
expected gains or minimizing expected losses.
2.2.2 Group Cohesion
“Group cohesiveness is an outcome of bonds that link members of a social group to one
another and to the group as a whole.” It can be broken down into four main components:
social relations, task relations, perceived unity, and emotions. For example, in order to
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develop a product or service, it becomes important that the team members collaborate and
work together. The challenge that is often faced is that of coordinating the activities that lead
to development of such product or service because organisational psychology highlights the
difficulties different individuals face in collaborating with other team members. For some it is
smooth to work with different personalities but others might struggle on that part. The
success also depends upon the technical knowledge and abilities specific to each and every
role associated therein such as testing, developing, coding, programming and so on and
creativity and problem solving. Research have also shown that cohesiveness can reduce
willingness to disagree and challenge others views, implying the lack of inter-personal risk
taking. Thus, organisations started focusing on how to establish healthy relationships in the
work environment within a group and make the group cohesive. Literature found that a
successful Collaboration involves number of factors such as offering support in carrying out
different tasks, understanding the needs of other individuals, accepting that the task in hand is
to be carried by cooperation of all the members and not the individual effort will help,
accepting the fact that no one is perfect and there are certain particulars that one might not
know the reaction to. This allows individuals to step out of their comfort zone and share ideas
and information, integrating perspectives and coordinate the task in hand. Thus, calls for a
psychologically safe climate within the group setup.
2.2.3 Self esteem
Self-esteem is composed of two distinct dimensions, competence and worth (Gecas 1982;
Gecas& Schwalbe 1983). The competence dimension (efficacy-based self-esteem) refers to
the degree to which people see themselves as capable and efficacious. The worth dimension
refers to the degree to which individuals feel they are persons of value. People seek
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opportunities (and the groups that provide them) to verify their identities and avoid situations
(and groups) where self-verification is problematic.
Verification of group-based identities is also likely to produce self-esteem, since confirmation
of identities within the group signifies approval and acceptance of the self (Burke & Stets
1999). Conversely, a lack of self-verification within groups is likely to leave the individual
feeling inefficacious and unaccepted by the group. It has been suggested that worth-based
self-esteem is most at risk when an individual is faced with possible exclusion from social
groups (Leary & Downs 1995).
Self-esteem refers most generally to an individual’s overall positive evaluation of the self
(Gecas 1982; Rosenberg 1990; Rosenberg et al. 1995). When individuals receive self-
verifying feedback within the group (through reflected appraisals and social comparisons),
feelings that one is accepted and valued by others within the group are reinforced, increasing
worth-based self-esteem (Brown &Lohr 1987; Ellison 1993; Burke & Stets 1999).
2.2.4 Mindfulness
Mindfulness in simple words means the consciousness and awareness that an individual have
about his or her surroundings but psychological safety is more than mindfulness. It deals at
group level where the group make necessary adjustments based on outward observations of
the surrounding. On the other hand, mindfulness is an individual becoming internally
enlightened about his/her environment. Clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970s
have developed a number of therapeutic applications based on mindfulness for helping people
experiencing a variety of psychological conditions. We often see people around us in
different settings; prefer not to speak despite possessing knowledge on the subject matter.
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The cause for such behaviour could be the internal factors of the individual or due to the
external factors such as people and environment around them that stopped them to speak.
2.3 Psychological Safety and Learning Organisations
In a study on organizational change, Schein and Bennis (1965) argued that environment
characterized by psychological safety is necessary for individuals to feel safe to change their
behavior. This is because psychological safety is likely to help employee’s defensiveness and
learning anxiety. For example, when individuals encounter new information that disconfirms
their prior knowledge, expectations, or hopes, they may experience of anxiety that will
hinder their ability to learn. A sense of psychological safety is likely to overcome their
anxiety and make good use of new input (Schein, 1985). However, Amy C. Edmondson had
drawn the role of psychological safety in collaboration of team work in their research and
emphasizes the centrality of psychological safety for learning behaviour. The study found
several types of work groups in very different organizational contexts that suggested an
important role for psychological safety in facilitating collaborative work, in particular when
work groups face uncertainty and change and need to learn together. Thus, they argued that
psychological safety may have important consequences for understanding organizational
learning. The studies reviewed above point to specific actions that team leaders can take to
promote psychological safety and to thereby catalyse a process of encouraging learning in an
organization, work group by work group. This is one area where leaders can play a pivotal
role in promoting learning behaviour among employees. Transformational leaders can
encourage their team members to come up with new ideas and bring in varied perspective
and facilitate discussions through intellectual stimulation. Research has found two aspects of
leadership to be instrumental in creating psychologically safe teams that is, participatory
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management and inclusive management. Participatory management means when the leader
ensures that all the team members are participating in identifying the problems, devising
strategies and implementing the solutions. Leaders also ensure that employees are involved
in key decision making process and every member is able to speak out the concerns,
suggestions and opinions. To sum up, psychological safety reduces learning anxiety, and
creates a positive context for experimentation and mistakes, thus facilitating learning and
leading to higher-level performance. (Edmondson, A.C., & Lei, Z. (2014)
2.4 Psychological safety and Employee Engagement
In a research conducted by May (2004) in an insurance company, it was found that the
association between adherence to co-worker norms and engagement was partially mediated
by psychological safety. Trustworthy colleague and supervisory behaviours are expected to
lead to feelings of psychological safety and a willingness to devote them at work which
means the employee is emotionally engaged. It is well proven in the literature that when the
employee feels psychologically safe in teams, they are able to work with full potential and
bring creativity and innovation to the table. While the absence of psychologically safe
environment hampers the creativity of employees because they fear of negative consequences
that might ruin their career growth. Psychological safety is proved to be significantly related
to engagement. Those individuals who constantly worry about what others think of them are
likely to experience less psychological safety at work. They will be inhibited when it comes
to trying new ways of accomplishing their tasks.
It was concluded that the psychological safety and employee engagement relation may be
stronger for more complex, uncertain, creative tasks than those that are relatively simple and
well defined.
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2.5 Psychological safety and Creativity At Workplace
Creativity is commonly defined as the production of ideas, products or procedures that are novel
and potentially useful (Amabile, 1988; Shalley, 1995; Oldham & Cummings, 1996). In their
research, RONIT KARK and ABRAHAM CARMELI had found a positive relation between
psychological safety and feeling of vitality and creativity at work. The study found that the
discrete positive emotion of vitality, suggest that affective states of high positive excitement,
energy, enthusiasm, and vigor are key mechanisms for fostering creative behavior.
Researchers also argued that in order to be able to be creative or to be able to offer a brand-
new idea that is useful, the individual must be able to feel that there’s a potential that it will
be accepted: that someone will actually listen to him/her and if they feel that people are
going to laugh, judge, their ideas would be rejected and would not be taken into account by
the management, etc. then they won’t be able to offer the ideas.
Anna Bornemisza conducted a study to investigate the relationship between psychological
safety, tolerance of ambiguity, playfulness and creativity. The constructs were measured by
Swedish translations of the Team Psychological Safety Scale, the Multiple Stimulus Types
Ambiguity Tolerance Scale-II, the Short Measure of Adult Playfulness Scale and the Work
Climate Questionnaire. It was discovered that the link between psychological safety and
creativity and between ambiguity tolerance and playfulness were the strongest. Also,
psychological safety significantly contributed to creativity even when playfulness and
ambiguity tolerance were controlled for. It is evident from varied literature that creativity
involves some degree of psychological safety. Organisations generally encourage creativity
and innovation by constituting effective work groups that have representation of members
coming from different walks of life with diverse skillsets, knowledge, experiences,
25
perspectives, ideas, suggestions, etc. Other than diversity in the team, organisations must
also ensure that the team members trust and communicate openly with each other within and
outside the group in a way that they challenge and support ideas, value and respect divergent
views and work collectively to continuously learn and innovate without any fear of negative
consequences.
2.6 Psychological safety and work teams
Organizational work teams are groups that exist within the context of a larger organization,
have clearly defined membership, and share responsibility for a team product or service
(Hackman, 1987; Alderfer, 1987). Amy Edmondson argued that their learning behavior
consists of activities carried out by team members through whom a team obtains and
processes data that allow it to adapt and improve. Examples of learning behavior include
seeking feedback, sharing information, asking for help, talking about errors, and
experimenting. It is through these activities that teams can detect changes in the environment,
learn about customers' requirements, improve members' collective understanding of a
situation, or discover unexpected consequences of their previous actions. Literature have
emphasised on two aspects of team that help in improving its psychological safety. One being
the clear team structure where members understand their roles and responsibilities in the
team. A clear team structure also defines the boundaries within which the members are
required to operate. Second, strong relationship between team members. The equation that
the team members share with each other determines the strong bond they have. Relationships
are strong when there exist some degree of trust. Generally, members do raise their voices
against something wrong only when they know that it would be taken positively by others
and this happens because the presence of trust between the members. These useful outcomes
26
often go unrealized in organizations. Members of groups tend not to share the unique
knowledge they hold, such that group discussions consist primarily of jointly held
information (Stasser and Titus, 1987), posing a dilemma for learning in groups.
2.7 Psychological Safety and Employee Voice
Over the years, a considerable number of different constructs have been developed to
describe different forms and facets of employees' willingness or unwillingness to speak up
about important issues, situations, or concerns in the workplace (e.g., voice, whistle-blowing,
spiral of silence, employee silence; Graham, 1986; Morrison & Milliken, 2000; Noelle-
Neumann, 1974; Pinder&Harlos, 2001; Van Dyne &LePine, 1998). Research had found that
these constructs differ in communicative direction (upward, lateral, downward, or external),
level of analysis (individual, group, or organization), the type of situation or concern to which
one may speak up or remain silent. While in another set of studies it was found that
employee’s reluctance to speak up about work-related matters has been linked to many
important individual and organizational outcomes such as failure to address ethical
transgressions (Clapham & Cooper, 2005), lower commitment and job satisfaction
(Vakola&Bouradas, 2005), stress and depression (Cortina &Magley, 2003).
Employees of all types and levels confront problems and formulate ideas when carrying out
day-to-day activities in organizations. This, in fact is the nature of work in a dynamic
environment. Yet, even when they believe they have something useful to say, people often
choose silence over voice (speaking up [e.g., Ryan &Oestrich 1998; Milliken, Morrison,
&Hewlin 2003]). Whether seen as primarily rational and calculative or as fear-driven and
spontaneous, the belief that voice is risky has been described as a general expectation that
speaking up will have undesired outcomes, such as harm to one’s reputation or image,
27
reduced self-esteem or emotional well-being, or negative work evaluations and reduced
opportunities for promotion (e.g., Ashford et al. 1998; Milliken et al. 2003).
2.8 Psychological Safety and Accountability
In order to create an effective team, leaders need to find a right balance between
psychological safety and accountability because safety of employees may act as an asset in a
short run but too much of safety turns out to be a liability for the organisation in the long run.
Looking it from different lens, excessive psychological safety could also be a detriment in a
way that if employees are too comfortable with each other, they may end up spending an
inappropriate amount of time in casual conversation at the expense of their work. A complete
lack of censorship could create a low barrier to seeking feedback and help or speaking up
with concerns that valuable time is wasted on unimportant things. It is not only about making
the employees feel safe at workplace rather the employees must be kept engaged so that they
are able to produce what they are capable of and put their efforts in achieving the desired
goals. Leaders while expecting excellence in performance of employees should also reward
the level of efforts that have been put by them because employees are encouraged to work
hard and put more efforts when they are rewarded or recognised by the management. at the
same time, leaders should trust their employees. Despite the member is failing to perform in
certain situation, leaders must show faith in their team members.
Note:
It is to note here that these seminal works emerge from different literatures and speak to
different levels of analysis; they should not be seen as competing viewpoints but rather as
complementary views of the same construct i.e. psychological safety at workplace.
28
2.9 Limitation of the literature
Creating emotional safety and security is not difficult if the organization cares to do it. The
process is not about spending money, but about a commitment to the well-being of
employees. While there is lot that have been written and spoken on the significance of
psychological safety at workplace in respect to general population but hardly any research
paper or literature had emphasize or studied on the relevance of the concept in respect to
person with disabilities. Even the literature is limited in Indian context. Scholars have not
attempted to study the impact of the construct on employees in Indian organisations.
Hence, the lack of existing literature to guide the study is a limitation.
29
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Approach
This study was carried out with support of triangulation method that is entirely qualitative in
nature. Since, psychological safety is a recent construct that was talked about in 1960s, I
studied the available literature and previous research around the subject matter and it’s
relations with various organisational constructs like well-being, trust, mindfulness, employee
satisfaction, creativity and innovation, productivity and performance, learning organisations,
etc. The first part of the research is a study of literature to identify the factors impacting
psychological safety and to what extent. The second part is a survey analysis to understand
the employee’s (person with disability) perceptions about psychological safety and to what
extent they feel psychologically safe at their respective workplace. The final part of the
research is interviews to understand the factors that contribute or don’t contribute towards a
psychological safe climate from employees point of view and test whether the organisation is
psychologically safe or not for such section of employees.
3.2 Methods Of Data Collection and sources of data
3.2.1 Literature
The construct of psychological safety was studied through extensive literature review that
also highlighted it’s relations with other organisational behaviour constructs like individual’s
behaviour in teams, team behaviour, team performance, organisation’s performance,
organisation learning, employee engagement and little on creativity. The major contribution
to the literature was made by Amy C. Edmondson through her research papers on subjects
like, “Managing the risk of learning: Psychological safety in work teams”, 2002 and
30
“Psychological safety, trust and learning in organisations: A group-level lens”. She talked
about the consequences of psychological safety in work teams and emphasised on the
centrality of psychological safety for learning behaviour through field research in variety of
organisational settings and variety of professions such as physician and nurse, pilot, lawyer,
executives, etc. she stated impression management as one of the major reason to remain silent
that result into loss of peer learning opportunities. Narrating her story via. a TEDx talk about
how she first explore the concept of psychological safety, she was studying medical teams at
hospitals during her graduation days on finding out what differentiate the high performing
teams from others. In her mind, she thought that one differentiating factor would be that the
high performing teams would make relatively less medical errors. But to her surprise, she
discovered the exact opposite, i.e. the high performing teams were the ones that were making
more errors than low performing teams. Digging deeper, she went further on finding the
reason behind. Her findings revealed that the high performing teams were making errors
because some members despite knowing it, never communicated openly to other teams
members due to lack of psychological safety in the team.
3.2.2 Survey
A structured questionnaire with 15 items was initially floated amongst Pwd employees
working in different organisations (both private and public sector) to know how safe they feel
their respective organisational environment is, and what their understanding of safe
environment means. Based on the responses, it would be concluded if the organisation is
psychologically safe or unsafe and to what extent. Individuals were expected to respond on a
five pointer likert scale on the given statements i.1qe. Strongly disagree, disagree, neutral,
agree and strongly agree.
31
Likert scale:
The Likert Scale is a 5- or 7-point scale that offers a range of answer options — from one
extreme attitude to another, like “extremely likely” to “not at all likely.” Typically, they
include a moderate or neutral midpoint.
Likert scales are widely used to measure attitudes and opinions with a greater degree of
nuance than a simple “yes/no” question.
3.2.3 Interviews
After capturing the perceptions of individuals on psychological safety at their respective
organisation through the survey analysis, semi-structured interviews were conducted to dive
deeper into the construct of psychological safety with respect to Pwd employees and to
identify the factors that impact psychological safety in an organisation. To study the factors,
questions were designed in such a manner that the employee could reflect upon personal,
managerial and organisational level and share their past experiences at each level.
Interviews lasted for 40-50 minutes and was an open ended questionnaire, giving more space
to the interviewer to explain their answers with contexts and examples.
3.3 Sampling Procedure:Technique and Size
Since it is difficult for a researcher to study the whole population due to limited resources e.g.
time, cost and energy, the researcher prefers to select some percent of the population for his
study, rather than studying the whole population. Such percent of total population that is
selected is called sample. In simple words, a sample is a subset of the population.
32
3.3.1 Sampling Technique
There are several sampling techniques that are used by the researcher to choose and select the
sample size. Generally, the different sampling techniques are categorised into two groups-
probability sampling and non-probability sampling or in other words random and non-
random sampling. In random sampling, all the eligible individuals have an equal chance for
getting chosen for the sample. For example, if the researcher wants to pick any one individual
out of 10, then in this case, all the 10 individuals have equal chance of getting selected or
picked as a sample. On the contradictory, in non-random sampling, all the individuals are not
given equal chance for representation as a sample.
Probability sampling further have four types-
Simple random sampling: any random individual is chosen for sampling out of the
entire population. All the eligible individuals have equal chance of getting
represented.
Systematic sampling: individuals are picked at regular interval from sampling size.
Example, every 5th, 10th, 20th, individual.
Stratified sampling: Population is divided into two or more strata with each stratum
having similar characteristics. Later on, equal sample size is obtained from each
stratum.
Cluster sampling: Population is divided into sub-groups also known as clusters which
are then randomly selected as the sample for the study.
Non-probability sampling further have four types-
Convenience sampling: when the researcher selects the sample size as per his or her
convenience or availability of the participants.
33
Quota sampling: As the name suggest, the sample is selected out of a particular group
or section of population. It can be either based on race, sex, religion, nationality,
ethnicity, disability, etc. depending upon the objective of carrying the research.
Judgement sampling: When the researcher understand the population and make
judgement based on his or her intuition and they select the sample based on their
opinion and rationale.
Snowball sampling: this technique is used when it is hard to reach out the sample and
existing individual are asked to nominate further individuals with same need of the
researcher
For the purpose of this study, non-probability technique of sampling is adopted, specifically,
quota, snowball and convenient sampling because the target audience was pre-decided i.e.
Person with disability (Visually Impaired). The data was recorded via. Interviews and survey,
from the Pwd employees only and rest of the population was neglected for this study because
in past, number of research had been carried out to find the relation and impact of
psychological safety on working of employees in an organisational setting and the factors that
impact psychological safety. But in this study, the construct was studied specifically in
relations with person with disability, visually impaired with the objective to find out the
factors that effect the level of psychological safety in their case. Also, to reach out the
targeted audience, the technique of snowball sampling was used. Since, a survey was
prepared initially to capture the responses of visually impaired employees, the survey was
floated to an individual who further helped in reaching out to other visually impaired
individuals who are working in different organisations and are currently working in some
34
corporate setting including both private and public undertaking. The individual contacted
later, helped in connecting to other individual and so on and so forth.
3.3.2 Sample Size
With the help of different participants, the survey could be reached out to 20 participants who
recorded their response. The 20 respondents are from different organisations and industrial
backgrounds such as FMCG, banking and finance, IT, PSUs, consulting, etc. with experience
ranging from 1 year to more than 10 years.
Based on the response received and overarching themes identified through the response to the
survey, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 5 participants. 2 out of 5 respondents
participated in both survey and interview. While the other 3 individuals participated only in
interviews who voluntarily agreed to participate in the study.
3.4 Demographic Overview
AGE 25 and above
WORK EXPERIENCE Less than 1 year to More than 10 years
DESIGNATION From entry level to senior level
GENDER Male and Female
DISABILITY TYPE Visually Impaired (Low Vision, Blind)
INDUSTRIAL BACKGROUND IT, BPO, FMCG, Banking and Finance,
Government services, Consulting
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To sum up:
This study first verifies if there is a need to study psychological study, and then to understand
if it influences employees in the organisation in any way. Through the survey, which
consisted of 15 questions, the general perception of employees was captured pertaining to
their encounter with the construct of psychological safety. The respondents were asked to
record their responses on a scale of 5 i.e. “Strongly Disagree”, “Disagree”, “Neutral”,
“Agree” and “Strongly Agree”. Based on the responses and different themes emerged, a
questionnaire was designed keeping in mind the research questions and the objective with
which the study was carried. Interviews were also conducted to understand the construct
comprehensively from the experiences and instances narrated by respondents from their
respective workplace.
The report ahead gives the summary, analysis and the interpretation of the interviews and the
survey highlighting the important aspects that have been discovered in this study only. With
that, propositions are drawn towards the last and findings are discussed with literature if there
exists any.
36
4. DATA ANALYSIS
4.1 Analysis Plan
In order to achieve the purpose of this study, I first floated a survey to all the visually
impaired employees working in different organisations through different mediums like social
media, in-groups and through online portals like Access India that helped me in reaching the
targeted audience. Later on, I conducted interviews of another set of employees to understand
the concept deeper and it’s relevance and impact in their professional lives. The interviews
were also conducted to find out the factors that influence the psychological safety at their
respective workplace. Questions in interviews and survey were designed keeping in mind the
objective of the study and the research questions to be answered. Responses from survey and
interviews were studied and discussed while ensuring that the identity of respondents was
kept confidential. Interviews were then recorded with prior permission and repeated
responses were highlighted. The responses were then studied carefully to find out the
emerging patterns and themes. A thematic analysis was carried out based on the responses
from both survey and interviews. Finally, propositions were drawn based on the results from
thematic analysis (discussed in chapter V).
Steps followed in thematic analysis:
1. Familiarisation:
During this phase, researcher familiarizes himself or herself with the data. The data collected
through interviews are arranged systematically so that it becomes easy to study, finding out
the emerging themes and make inferences in the later phase.
37
Data collected through interviews was studied thoroughly. Interviews recorded with prior
permission were listened number of times and some brief notes were prepared out. Each
audio clip was around 50-70 minutes. Similarly, responses to the survey were exported to
Excel sheet for analysis.
2. Generating initial codes
In this phase, the researcher assigns codes to his or her data. A code is generally a brief
detailing of what is being said by the participants in the interview. The idea is to highlight the
codes so that it becomes easy to organise the data into meaningful groups.
After making the data clean and systematic to understand, responses via. interviews that were
same and appeared number of times were noted separately. The responses to survey were
compared with each other in terms of how many individuals agreed or disagreed to a
particular statement and how many of them had a neutral view point.
3. Searching for themes:
In this phase, the researcher try to search for themes out of the codes generated. The codes
are studied to make necessary interpretations so that broad themes could be identified.
Once the responses to survey were exported to Excel sheet, it became easier to observe the
emerging themes like the background of the respondents, different industrial sectors, age
group, year of experience, designation, etc. also, their experiences with supervisors, peers and
co-workers were also highlighted that helped to identify the overarching themes pertaining to
psychological safety at their respective workplace.
38
4. Reviewing themes:
The researcher in this phase try to refine and review the theme identified in the earlier stage.
The themes are reviewed in a way that there is no overlapping between different themes. The
researcher also observes the themes to check whether the identified theme need to be further
categorised into sub-theme for better understanding and covering.
The very idea to conduct interviews post survey was to substantiate the responses from the
survey. The possible themes that were identified from survey were then emphasised during
interviews. Even the questionnaire to interviews was designed based out of the themes
identified so that it can be studied in detail.
5. Defining and naming themes:
Here, the researcher names the identified themes after due review process. Post naming, a
brief description is also provided for each theme.
The themes identified were then grouped into four broad categories namely individual, peers
and colleagues, managers and supervisors, and organisational policies. These themes
emerged out of both survey and interviews. All the above mentioned themes communicates
the relationships of psychological safety and it’s impact on the working of Pwd employees at
their respective workplace. To elaborate on each theme, “individual” means the personal
traits of the employee that affects his or her interaction with the environment at workplace.
Such personal characteristics of employees were studied in relation with their feeling of
psychological safety. The other theme i.e. “Peers and colleagues” shows how the presence or
absence of peer support affect the level of psychological safety. The third theme i.e.
“Manager and supervisor” talks about the level of managerial support that is provided or not
39
to the employee that directly influence his or her psychological safety. The last theme i.e.
“organisation” deals with the impact of organisational culture and policies on psychological
safety of employees. The above mentioned themes are discussed in detail in subsequent
sections.
6. Producing the report:
After collecting, cleaning, collating, processing and analysing the data, a comprehensive
report is prepared that includes different aspects like the objective of carrying out the
research, what were the research questions, tools for data collection, methodology adapted,
why particular class of target audience, what were the findings, etc. in the subsequent
sections the findings from the survey and interviews are discussed.
4.2 Responses to Interviews
After floating the survey amongst the target audience, interviews were then conducted in
order to understand their perception about psychological safety at workplace and what are the
factors that contribute to psychological safety in case of Pwd employees. The interviews were
semi-structured and were aimed to capture their experiences from the past and some instances
that would help in determining whether they feel psychological safety or not.
Before starting the interview, I introduced the construct of psychological safety to
respondents and briefly told them about prior research that has been conducted by different
scholars on the construct. Since I had some broad themes in my mind before starting the
interview, I designed the questionnaire that revolve around the identified themes so that it
could be studied comprehensively and could be validated with the responses to survey.
40
The first question that I started the interview was, “"Do you feel free to share suggestions and
concerns with your colleagues?” While most of them answered with “yes”. They said that it
was bit problematic in the initial days but later, when they spent a considerable amount of
time together in a team, the boundaries started diluting. Employees who are working for a
long period of time with their peers and co-workers in the organisation generally share strong
bond than an employee who have recently joined the group because they are equip with the
working style of other members and had worked together on number of projects and devised
strategies to resolve the organisational problems with cooperation in the past. While it would
take time and efforts for the new joinee to mingle and gel up with others in the organisation.
Secondly, those who said that they feel free to share suggestions and ideas, cited frequency of
meeting as one of the reason. Since they used to meet on regular basis, they are use to the
environment so they no longer feel threaten to put forward their view points.
One of the respondent mentioned that at workplace, it is very important that employees are
sensitised on the working styles of person with disabilities. He added that his peers are aware
about his special needs that make him comfortable to share any suggestions and concerns
with them. The same reason was stated by other respondent in her interview. She disagreed
with the question and said that she do not feel free to share suggestions with the team because
her team mates are not educated about her needs and her working style. Another respondent
answered the question with a different angle. She argued that even if the organisation or co-
workers are not aware about our needs, it is our responsibility to make them realise and show
them what capabilities we possess and the value that we can add to the job in hand. So, her
argument was very straight and clear that our interactions with other people in the
organisation depend upon us because all individuals would not come forward and extent their
hand first from their end as many are hesitant to start the conversation. Sharing his opinion on
the same question, one respondent from a banking setting shared his story of struggle from
41
his initial days of joining. He discussed one instance when he was ignored by his peers in a
meeting due to being different on the team. The team leader didn’t assign him the same level
of work that was assigned to other team members on a belief that he won’t be able to do it. It
was then after a considerable amount of time that he proved his talent and delivered the task
with full conviction and potential that his team leader understood his capabilities and started
taking him seriously after that instance. “We have to show them our capabilities through our
work then only people would understand our value”, he added in a bold tone. It was not only
his argument; many other respondents also spoke on similar lines to other questions. For
instance, responses to the question, “”Do you feel hesitant to ask other members of the team
for any sort of help?”, respondents answered “no” and went on stating the reasons that people
in the organisation specially their bosses have seen their performance and are ready to extent
every possible support required because they also know that we need little help which is
enough to deliver our job effectively. Also, most of them agree that their peers are
encouraging and supportive to each other that provides a level of comfort to them.
One feature was very evident from interviews, that is, disabled employees have to take an
extra pain to showcase their capabilities and have to prove to people around them that they
also have the potential to bring change with their persistence and determination. This is
where the individual characteristics come into play and how different personality traits like
persistence, determination, dedication, self-driven, openness to experience, extroversion, etc.
can affect the level of psychological safety apart from the other factors. People high on
openness and those that are out-going generally make their own way and put efforts to put
themselves in a comfortable zone that leads to psychological safety in one sense. It was
evident from some interviews that Pwd employees are passionate towards inclusivity and
want to take every step that goes to that direction of making the workplace inclusive for
disabled workforce.
42
Discussing about the other theme i.e. “managerial support”, questions were asked to find how
the presence of manager/supervisor/boss/head’s support influence the level of psychological
safety. Participants were asked questions that aimed at finding their relations with their
managers and level of bond they share with them that ultimately have effect on their feeling
of psychologically safe. The question that was asked was, “”Do you perceive your manager
as significantly concerned with your well-being as an employee with special needs?” Though
there were mix responses to this but majority of them answered with “Yes” and shared their
arguments to support the statement. One lady narrated her story from the past where she was
supported by her manager in terms of hardware and software needs. She went on saying that
when she joined the particular department, she was the only disabled employee and other
members in the department were not friendly with her. It was her manager who helped her in
establishing relationship with other members in the department and introduced her to them.
Not only that, her manager ensured that she was given access to JAWS, a software for
visually impaired people, on time so that it should not result into delay in performance of her
job. In another instance, her manager also bought her a tablet so that she could prepare
presentations during meetings and to make her life easy to pen down the notes. While in an
interview, a respondent shared his experience with his manager. He mentioned that whenever
he meets his manager in his cabin, he feels confident and use to come out with a smile on his
face. His manager provides him moral support and motivates him to perform better by
appreciating his work. He also added, by comparing his manager with the previous one, that
the new manager is more concerned about his well-being and ensures that he do not face any
sort of hindrance and difficulty in performing his job which was not the case with his
previous manager who never bothered to think on those lines also. Taking it further, a lady
shared that her manager never discriminated her on being different in a way that even if she
makes any mistake or fail to perform any task, her manager never sympathised with her and
43
treated in the same manner as he used to treat other employees in the team. The lady by
highlighting that behaviour of her manager, suggested that all managers should ideally
behave on similar tone because such positive gestures act as a motivator to perform better in
future. “No disabled employee would like to be discriminated positively as well because it
compel them to think that my manager is not concerned about my well-being and take me
lightly, which is not the case”, she added.
Even, the next question painted similar story in terms of manager’s support for promotion
and training of employees. When asked, “”Are you given fair opportunities for training and
encouraged to apply for higher positions by your manager?", maximum respondents stated
“Yes” and cited multiple arguments barring few who mentioned that whenever there is any
training or workshop planned in the organisation, they were never nominated by their
manager for same. The reasons were multiple like manager of one employee said it would be
of no value addition for him in his current job while the manager of another employee in
different organisation had no confidence in him.
Manager is the most important touch point for an employee’s career, retention, engagement
or performance. He is the one who guides, mentors and supports the employee. Starting from
evaluating the performance to identifying training needs to supporting the employee in career
progression and retention in the organisation, supervisor plays a significant role. Studies have
proved that immediate supervisors play a prominent role in either growth or fall of an
employee. In fact, it is often said that if an employee leaves the organisation, he does not
leave the company but he leaves his boss. Thus, it becomes very crucial that the right
managerial support is provided to the employee so that he or she feels safe at workplace. And
specifically in case of a disabled employee, manager should be supportive and aware about
the needs of such employees. They must put every effort to ensure that an inclusive
environment is provided to such employees where they are not discriminated or sympathised
44
on any grounds for just being different on the team. They should be motivated and
encouraged to work hard and perform with full potential. This brings us to our next
proposition that right managerial support have a direct relation with the feeling of
psychological safety of employees. If the manager support is present, a sense of mental peace
is there that my manager is right there to support me and plays a crucial role in my career
growth by providing equal chance for promotions and in developing right set of competencies
required to perform different roles.
The other theme that emerged out of the responses to the interviews was “organisational
culture and policies”. To study this, questions were asked to the respondents to find out how
organisational culture, value, ethics and policies affects level of psychological safety of
employees. The first question that was asked to participants on that regard was, “”Are
policies on discrimination, harassment, bullying, and related issues actively implemented?”
There were mix responses with both “Yes” and “No” with support of different arguments.
One respondent mentioned that though there are such policies laid down by the organisation
but on ground they are not implemented. He gave number of instances where he was
discriminated by his peers but no formal action had been taken against them. While on the
other hand, another respondent in different organisation stated that such policies pertaining to
discrimination and harassment are present and are practised seriously by employees at all
level. Even the organisation has defined the course of action in the Employee Resourcing
Handbook if in case the person with disability has been discriminated by any employee in the
organisation. For disabled employees to be fully integrated into a workplace, it is essential
that all employees are familiar with the affirmed commitment of their organization to being
disabled-friendly. Respondents also mentioned the importance of disability etiquettes
workshops conducted by various organisations as it helps in ensuring that employees in the
organisation are sensitised and no discrimination on the basis of disability takes place. Such
45
workshops also provide basic information to employees on how they can help their disabled
colleagues in case any emergency arise in the organisation. Sometimes employees may be
consciously or unconsciously biased about their disabled counterparts. However, such
Sensitizing trainings and etiquette workshops on part of the organisation can help in
dispelling such notions.
The next question that was asked to the participants was, “”Is the physical structure of your
workspace inclusive and safe and conducive to productivity?” Again there were mix
responses with both “Yes” and “No” Some respondents found their physical infrastructure to
be inclusive and safe for work. It was easy for them to move around freely and independently
in the organisation because of the presence of proper infrastructural and technical assistance.
Some common assistive technology aids available for visually impaired employees include
Braille panels and displays engraved at different locations such as lifts, restrooms, canteen,
emergency exits, etc., specialized screen reader software and listening devices, and browsers
that provide user-friendly Web interface. It brings us to another proposition that
organisational support in terms of inclusive policies and culture directly effect the level of
psychological safety of PWD employees.
4.3 Responses To Survey
1. I feel free to share suggestions and concerns with my colleagues
Strongly Disagree 1
Disagree 2
Neutral 4
Agree 9
Strongly Agree 4
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2. I feel that my job provides value to my life
Strongly Disagree 1
Disagree 2
Neutral 4
Agree 5
Strongly Agree 8
3. I feel hesitant to ask other members of the team for any sort of help
Strongly Disagree 1
Disagree 9
Neutral 4
Agree 4
Strongly Agree 2
4. I feel vulnerable or insecure on raising voice against any inappropriate action in
the organisation
Yes 9
No 11
5. I perceive my manager as significantly concerned with my well-being as an
employee with special needs
Strongly Disagree 3
Disagree 5
Neutral 8
Agree 2
Strongly Agree 2
6. I have sometimes felt rejected by others for being different on the team
Strongly Disagree 3
Disagree 2
Neutral 4
Agree 5
Strongly Agree 6
47
7. My unique skills and talents are valued and utilized while working with a team
Strongly Disagree 2
Disagree 2
Neutral 5
Agree 5
Strongly Agree 6
8. I am given fair opportunities for training and encouraged to apply for higher
positions
Strongly Disagree 3
Disagree 4
Neutral 6
Agree 7
Strongly Agree 0
9. I feel involved by my managers or senior leadership in key decision making
process
Strongly Disagree 5
Disagree 4
Neutral 5
Agree 5
Strongly Agree 1
10. Are policies on discrimination, harassment, bullying, and related issues actively
implemented?
Strongly Disagree 3
Disagree 4
Neutral 7
Agree 4
Strongly Agree 2
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11. Is the physical structure of your workspace inclusive and safe and conducive to
productivity
Strongly Disagree 2
Disagree 4
Neutral 5
Agree 5
Strongly Agree 4
12. I feel that the organisation provides an environment for free and open expression
of ideas, opinions and beliefs
Yes 11
No 5
May Be 4
13. To whom should you discuss your work-related issues? Is there a clear protocol?
Yes 8
No 8
May Be 4
14. Are there any initiatives taken by your organisation for promoting mental well-
being of employees?
Yes 7
No 9
May Be 4
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5. DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS
5.1 Propositions
Proposition 1: Strong bond leads to high level of psychological safety
It is believed that close relations dilute the barriers between people. Individuals are able
to express their thoughts freely and share concerns confidently without fear of any
repercussions. This type of equations people generally share with their in-group members
that includes family and friends because there exist an element of trust between them.
Similarly in an organisational setting, employees interact with each other every day for
some or the other purpose. Therefore, it is essential that they establish good bond and
close relations with each other so that they can freely communicate and collaborate to
achieve the desired outcomes. Unless that strong bond and safe environment is present,
employees won’t be able to speak assertively and challenge the ideas of each other that
would certainly hamper the learning of the entire group in the long run.
It was also evident from the responses to the survey. 70% of the respondent agreed on the
statement, “I feel free to share suggestions and concerns with my colleagues”. Similarly, 67%
disagreed to the statement, “I feel hesitant to ask other members of the team for any sort of
help”. Later, it was validated from experiences shared by respondents during interviews. One
lady said, “I don’t hesitate to put forward my ideas and suggestions because my team mates
know me well and I am also comfortable with them”. While the other lady mentioned that, “I
have spent a good amount of time with other members in my team and it is not only about the
organisational setup but also outside workplace. We use to hang out on weekends that
strengthens our bond”.
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Two major factors contributing to strong bond among team members are highlighted here;
“considerable amount of time” and “outside workplace”. People establish good relations only
when they have spent good amount of time together that makes them feel comfortable and
psychologically safe. Employees who are working for a long period of time with their peers
and co-workers in the organisation generally share strong bond than an employee who have
recently joined the group because they are equip with the working style of other members and
had worked together on number of projects and devised strategies to resolve the
organisational problems with cooperation in the past. While it would take time and efforts for
the new joinee to mingle and gel up with others in the organisation. This is one reason why
he or she feel psychologically unsafe i.e. fear of getting wrong, threat to self-image, etc.
Taking into consideration the other factor i.e. “outside workplace”, Some employees prefer to
develop networks and socialise when they are not in an organisational setting. Many
companies hold events and plan team building exercises and programs, outside the four walls
of workplace as it builds relationships and can lead to a more open and collaborative culture.
It also encourages employees to get to know each other outside work and allows them to chat
casually and discuss on subject matters that are not related to work. The idea is to give
employees their own space so that they are able to develop connections, personal bonds and
relations that break the wall of discomfort and fear. Thus, leading to a productive and
effective team.
Proposition 2: Inclusivity at workplace is directly related to level of psychological
safety
More the inclusive environment, more will be the level of psychological safety and vice
versa. When the environment is supportive and accepting and where the individual’s views
51
are respected and valued, people will feel inclusive and therefore will be motivated to come
up with more ideas in future. This was validated from the responses to the survey and
interviews. 55% of respondents agreed to the statement, “My unique skills and talents are
valued and utilized while working with a team.” While only 20% disagreed and 25% have
neutral views. When asked during interviews, they mentioned that when they are accepted by
others in the team and are valued for their unique skills and capabilities, feeling of inclusivity
is more. When there is more inclusivity and acceptance, they feel more psychologically safe
because they are well aware of the fact that team members do not discriminate them and take
their viewpoints seriously that’s why , they are able to share their opinions and ideas without
any mental fear. However, the inclusive environment is not present in majority of the cases.
75% respondents to interviews mentioned that they do not feel involved by their managers or
senior leadership in key decision making process. Amy Edmondson argues that leaders who
explicitly ask for team member’s input are likely to encourage team psychological safety.
Asking for feedback suggests to others that their opinion is respected; it may also contribute
to an environment of active participation.
Bringing more light to it, 55% of respondents to survey agreed to the statement, “I have
sometimes felt rejected by others for being different on the team”. Only 25% disagreed and
another 20% have neutral view. One of the respondent narrated his story of rejection where
he was not allocated any task by the department head because of his disability and asked HR
to shift him to another department. In another story, respondent discussed an instance when
he was not shared the details about a project while all the other members were aware about
the same. He was not kept in loop and was not told about the progress until he himself made
efforts to take hold of the situation. The reason that was cited by the head was that he thought
that the respondent won’t be able to contribute or add value to the project so he thought to
assign him some other task which was bit easy to perform.
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Proposition 3: Manager’s support and leader’s acceptance increases level of
psychological safety
Edmondson (2004) argues that if a leader is approachable and accessible for subordinates,
people feel more comfortable in their work environment and are able to contribute
confidently. If leaders undertake authoritative stances or act in retaliatory ways, team
members are likely to feel that their opinions are not welcomed or valued (Edmondson 1996).
It is very important that the management is sensitised towards the needs of person with
disabilities. Unless the managers and leaders are not aware about them, it would be difficult
on their part to provide the employee a wonderful experience in the organisation. Nor the
employee would feel inclusive and engaged.
One of the respondent narrated an instance from the past where her manager went extra mile
to ensure that all the required technical support is available to her in terms of software and
hardware availability. Her manager wrote an application to senior management to purchase
the JAWS software for her. JAWS is a talking software that enables a visually impaired
individual to perform his or her job. It reads out all the content that is visible on the screen so
that the individual can hear to that and grasp the words without seeing them. Her manager
also ensured that the files being shared with her are accessible and are software friendly and
do not contain much of the graphical content. In the meeting setup as well, her manager use
to read out the presentations for her whenever required. In another interview, a respondent
spoke about his relationship with his manager in a banking organisation. He mentioned that
whenever he meets his manager in his cabin, he feels confident and use to come out with a
smile on his face. His manager provides him moral support and motivates him to perform
better by appreciating his work. He also added, by comparing his manager with the previous
one, that the new manager is more concerned about his well-being and ensures that he do not
53
face any sort of hindrance and difficulty in performing his job which was not the case with
his previous manager who never bothered to think on those lines also.
Proposition 4: Organisational policies influences psychological safety of employees
The organisation norms and culture with which the employees have been living all their life
makes a huge impact on the psychological safety.
Policies and procedures in the organisation form a part of organisation culture. The unwritten
rules and the untold norms affect the behaviour of employees in the organisations. While
every organisation explicitly talks about policies pertaining to discrimination or bullying at
workplace, very few of them bring it to practise. Majority of the respondent to both survey
and interviews said that not much organisational support is present in terms of grievance
redressal mechanism for disabled employees and initiatives by organisation to promote
inclusivity and disabled friendly environment. The first question that was asked to
participants on that regard was, “”Are policies on discrimination, harassment, bullying, and
related issues actively implemented?” There were mix responses with both “Yes” and “No”
with support of different arguments. One respondent mentioned that though there are such
policies laid down by the organisation but on ground they are not implemented. He gave
number of instances where he was discriminated by his peers but no formal action had been
taken against them. While on the other hand, another respondent in different organisation
stated that such policies pertaining to discrimination and harassment are present and are
practised seriously by employees at all level. Even the organisation has defined the course of
action in the Employee Resourcing Handbook if in case the person with disability has been
discriminated by any employee in the organisation. For disabled employees to be fully
integrated into a workplace, it is essential that all employees are familiar with the affirmed
54
commitment of their organization to being disabled-friendly. Respondents also mentioned the
importance of disability etiquettes workshops conducted by various organisations as it helps
in ensuring that employees in the organisation are sensitised and no discrimination on the
basis of disability takes place. Such workshops also provide basic information to employees
on how they can help their disabled colleagues in case any emergency arise in the
organisation. Sometimes employees may be consciously or unconsciously biased about their
disabled counterparts. However, such Sensitizing trainings and etiquette workshops on part of
the organisation can help in dispelling such notions.
The next question that was asked to the participants was, “”Is the physical structure of your
workspace inclusive and safe and conducive to productivity?” Again there were mix
responses with both “Yes” and “No” Some respondents found their physical infrastructure to
be inclusive and safe for work. It was easy for them to move around freely and independently
in the organisation because of the presence of proper infrastructural and technical assistance.
Some common assistive technology aids available for visually impaired employees include
Braille panels and displays engraved at different locations such as lifts, restrooms, canteen,
emergency exits, etc., specialized screen reader software and listening devices, and browsers
that provide user-friendly Web interface. It brings us to another proposition that
organisational support in terms of inclusive policies and culture directly effect the level of
psychological safety of Pwd employees.
Proposition 5: psychological safety varies from one grade to another.
Power has a great influence in team psychological safety. Individuals who are at the senior
level in the organisation have more power over others below them and control and guide their
behaviour and action. For example, in case where the department head or any representative
55
of senior management are chairing the meeting, employees at lower level do not prefer taking
risk of expressing their concerns openly and speak out all that they have in their minds. In
order to convince them, the employees feel the responsibility to go with research and exact
data so that they cannot be questioned leading to embarrassment or rejection of points.
However, this is not true in case where meeting or discussion takes place with peers or
employees at similar designations because they can take risk to speak anything due to the
level of comfort they have with their team mates. Also, employees working at the entry level
or lower level generally do not take risk of challenging the ideas of the senior management
because they are at the first step of the career ladder and criticising or challenging the status
quo would have adverse effect on their career in a long run. Hence, they prefer to be silent
and choose to follow instructions of middle or senior level management without raising any
questions. Thus, it can be argued that the level of psychological safety depends upon the
position that the individual hold in the organisation.
Proposition 6: psychologically safe climate leads to retention of employees
Well-being of employees is one of the major factors that leads to less absenteeism and
retention of employees in the organisation. Physical, mental and psychological safety
together constitutes the well-being of employees. The presence of psychologically safe
environment allows an employee to contribute freely and confidently without any fear of
negative outcome in terms of self-image, punishment, criticism, promotion, etc. though there
are very few organisations that succeed in providing such psychological safe environment to
it’s employee. For example, Google from it’s Project Aristotle, found that employees in
psychologically safe teams were less likely to want to leave Google, more likely to enjoy the
benefits of diversity and inclusion, brought in more revenue and were rated as effective twice
56
as often by executives. The young generation, also known as “Gen Z”, who would be joining
the corporates demands for challenging assignments and high degree of autonomy where they
are encouraged and appreciated by the senior leadership team for their efforts. At the same
time, employees want real time feedback so that they can improve their performance and
bring better on the table. The real challenge for the organisation today is to retain the high
potential talent in the organisation because they are the rain-makers for the organisation and
are very much in demand in the competitive market. Therefore, to ensure that such talent is
retained in the organisation, a continuous safe learning environment must be provided to
employees where they are involved in decision making process, have high degree of
autonomy, peer learning is encouraged, feedback on performance is real time, etc.
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6. RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1 Implications of the study
It was very evident from the finding of the study that the construct of psychological safety
plays an important role in the day to day working of Pwd employees in organisations. Factors
like personality and traits, relationship with colleagues, peers, managers, supervisors,
organisational culture, values and policies, determines the level of psychological safety in
case of person with disabilities.
Therefore, organisations that emphasise on diversity and inclusion in respect to person with
disabilities must keep in consideration the following points that emerged out of the
experiences shared by the respondents to the study:
Person with disability should not only be hired by organisations with the view to
achieve the targeted numbers. Management must work on ensuring that once they are
on-boarded, they do not struggle for inclusive environment.
It is the duty of HR to identify the suitable roles and task within the organisation
where Pwd employee can work with their full potential and contribute in the
development of organisation.
HR must organise periodic workshops and training sessions on “Disability Etiquettes”
that would make employees at all levels aware and sensitised towards the special
needs of Pwd employees so that no biases and notions prevails at workplace.
Managers must provide honest and fair performance feedback to disabled employees.
They should not take it casually and sympathise with them in case they make any
mistakes. It would spread a message that they are discriminated by their managers.
Managers must provide moral support and encourage them to improve their
performance by appreciating their efforts and contributions.
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Assistive technology must be provided to all the disabled employees such as
softwares and hardwares that allow them to perform their job.
Organisations must work on making the infrastructure inclusive i.e. accessible for
disabled workforce where they can move freely and independently around the
workplace by engraving braille panels and displays at different locations like
elevators, canteen, entrance, washrooms, etc. sound system must be installed to assist
visually impaired employees at the time of emergency.
All the communication channels such as websites and online portals must be
accessible to disabled users.
Organisations must formulate and implement policies pertaining to discrimination,
bullying and harassment at workplace. They must comply with equal opportunity
policy by which no person can be discriminated against on the grounds of their
disability.
6.2 Future research
The findings of the study highlighted the importance of psychological safety with respect to
person with disability at workplace. Researchers should also conduct their studies particularly
for the disabled section of workforce since no literature is available on those lines. In this
study, only visually impaired category of disabled employees were targeted. However, future
research can be conducted on other category of disability as there are more than 21 types of
disabilities defined under “Person With Disability Act 2016”.
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8. APPENDIX
8.1 InterviewQuestionaire
1. When you are in a formal meeting, are you able to openly share your ideas and talk freely
and confidently? If yes, to what extent? If no, why?
2. How do your team mates react on your ideas or suggestions? Do they value and show
acceptance to your view-point and ideas?
3. If in case you don’t speak in a meting, do the person who is leading the meeting ask you to
speak? If yes, how?
04. When a new individual joins the meeting for the first time, do he feels free to speak or he
is encouraged or given chance to share his opinions in the meeting?
5. Could you give some instances from the past when you were discriminated or rejected on
being different on the team?
6. Is your manager or head of the department concerned with your well-being as an employee
with special needs?
7. could you share some instances where your manager went on extra mile to provide any
technical or moral support to you?
8. Do your manager encourage you to participate in decision making process?
9. Are the policies pertaining to discrimination, bulleying and harassment being implemented
at all the level in the organisation?
10. Has any action against discrimination been taken by the organisation in the past?
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8.2 Survey Questionaire and Response
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