Leadership, Talent & 360 Specialists | Hogan Assessments Authorised Distributor UK & Ireland

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Psychological Safety & Engagement

The Psychological Safety and Engagement (PSE) is a team or working group climate assessment designed to help teams gain awareness of the working environment experienced by all members, particularly focusing on how safe individuals feel during interactions and whether their work feels engaging. This tool enables teams to understand the collective climate, fostering open communication and collaboration, and supports the identification of actions to enhance psychological safety and engagement within the group.

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About Psychological Safety & Engagement

Background

Many organisations today are striving to create inclusive cultures where all team members feel valued and able to contribute ideas or concerns without fear of negative consequences.

Without clear feedback on how team members perceive their environment, leaders may be unaware of issues that undermine psychological safety or reduce day-to-day engagement.

Insights

Teams with high PSE scores tend to be clear about their purpose, goals, and responsibilities. They are generally more open, collaborative, learn from each other, and respect one another. This environment can encourage sharing and challenging opinions, leading to innovation and high-quality decisions.

Actionable Insights: Teams can gain awareness of the working climate experienced by everyone, which supports targeted actions to improve psychological safety and engagement.

Improved Outcomes: Potential commercial outcomes include better collaboration, reduced absenteeism, reduced employee turnover, higher employee engagement, and more willingness to work. Teams tend to also benefit from more open and constructive challenging, improved innovation, and faster resolutions.

Team Performance Axes

The working climate within a team is assessed along two key axes: psychological safety and engagement. Collectively, these define four distinct zones—Anxiety Zone, Apathy Zone, Comfort Zone, and High Performance Zone.

Psychological Safety: Explores the extent to which team members feel safe to express themselves, share ideas, and participate without fear of negative consequences.

Engagement: Captures how team members rate their engagement with the tasks and activities of the group.

Comfort Zone

Individuals may feel safe but may not be fully engaged, leading to limited challenge, motivation, and potential complacency.

Commercial Impact:

  • Reduced accountability, with less pressure to deliver results.

  • Lower drive for high perofrmance and improvement.

  • Missed opportunities for innovataion and growth due to lack of proactive action.

High Performance Zone

Team members feel psychologically safe and highly engaged with open dialogue, constructive debate, and strong motivation to deliver quality outcomes. This fosters trust, respect, and high performance.

Commercial Impact:

  • Higher productivity and better business results.

  • Faster trust-building, execution, and alignment.

  • Improved self-awareness, problem-solving, and innovation, driving impact.

Apathy Zone

People may feel disengaged, with low psychological safety and limited participant or ownership of outcomes.

Commercial Impact:

  • Reluctance to take responsibility or drive results.

  • Poor collaboration and limited participant idea-sharing thus reducing innovation.

  • Focus on individual agendas over team goals, weakening performance and outcomes.

Anxiety Zone

Team members may feel unsafe and under pressure, leading to low engagement and reluctance to share ideas.

Commercial Impact:

  • Reduced productivity despite capability.

  • Increased risk of burnout, disengagement, or emotional fatigue.

  • Less risk-taking and challenge, limiting innovation and slowing execution.

Feedback Scale

The Psychological Safety & Engagement (PSE) survey uses a 10-point feedback scale. Team members rate their engagement and psychological safety by providing scores between 1 (strongly disagree) and 10 (strongly agree) across the survey questions. The survey includes 12 question items in total, 6 focused on engagement and 6 on psychological safety.

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Sample Question: Within this group I admit my mistakes without fear of retribution.

Interpretation 

An overview of where the team are in terms of the 4 zones is clearly presented on page 1.  Page 2 of the report focuses on the spread of individual scores for each area of psychological safety and engagement.  

These results are interpreted confidentially by APS' AI Agents (all data and interpretation is managed confidentially within the EU).

(Individuals are not named in the results in order to maintain anonymity/psychological safety).

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✅ Confidential and anonymised feedback from team members.

✅ Focused on real workplace experiences and climate.

✅ Indicates the spread of individuals in a team or work group across the 4 zones.

✅ Optional AI Generated insights and development tips based on actual scores.

Research Perspective

Why Psychological Safety Matters

Recent studies confirm that psychological safety and engagement are critical for commercial performance. The evidence shows that when people feel safe to speak up, share ideas, and take manageable risks without fear of blame, teams unlock higher productivity, creativity, and adaptability—factors that directly impact an organisation’s bottom line.

Research across industries and geographies demonstrates that organisations with high engagement and psychologically safe cultures have significantly better retention, stronger customer satisfaction, and measurable improvements in profitability and innovation. Conversely, when trust and engagement are missing, productivity stalls, staff turnover increases (especially among younger talent), and companies struggle to adapt to changing markets or technology.

Evidence from company surveys and global benchmarks also shows that trust, inclusive leadership, and open dialogue across all levels are the building blocks of psychological safety and engagement. Leaders who explain decisions, actively seek out employee views, and demonstrate genuine care see far higher commitment and discretionary effort from their teams.

References:

Edmondson, A. et al. (2020) Psychological safety, emotional intelligence, and leadership in a time of flux. McKinsey & Company.
Feuer, N. and Mastrogiovanni, M. (2025) ‘Most employees don’t trust their leaders. Here’s what to do about it.’ Harvard Business Review.
Gallup (2026) State of the Global Workplace 2026.
Great Place To Work® Institute Inc. (2025) European Workforce Study 2025.
Harter, J.K. et al. (2024) The relationship between engagement at work and organizational outcomes: Q12® meta-analysis. 11th edn. Gallup.

Sample Report

The PSE assessment can be used alongside other APS tools such as BEI360, Reflections, Team Insights, Hogan Assessments, and Executive Coaching for a comprehensive approach to team development.

Sample reports are available, demonstrating the structure and insights offered without any commitment.

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