This article will guide you on how to create an employee survey about psychological safety. With Specific, you can build a survey like this in just a few seconds. Let’s get right into it.
Steps to create a survey for employees about psychological safety
If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific in two simple steps:
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
You honestly don't even need to read further. Our AI combines expert knowledge of psychological safety with best-in-class survey logic, generating ready-to-use surveys in seconds. It intelligently asks employees the right follow-up questions to capture deeper insights automatically, making even advanced semantic surveys effortless. Explore how easy it is on the Specific AI survey generator.
Why psychological safety surveys matter
Let’s not sugarcoat it: if you’re not running these surveys, you’re missing out on critical signals within your workforce. Psychological safety surveys help uncover issues that block innovation, teamwork, and honest communication. This isn’t just theory—studies show that only 30% of employees feel comfortable speaking up at work, which means most workplaces have a psychological safety gap that stifles both feedback and growth [1].
Consider the missed upside: organizations with psychologically safe environments report 41% lower turnover rates and a stunning 50% increase in innovation effectiveness within teams [1][2]. If your managers and HR leaders don’t regularly gather this intel, critical concerns go unaddressed and talent quietly slips away.
Employees who feel psychologically safe are more likely to share candid feedback without fear, participate in constructive problem-solving, and actively shape your company culture. So if you want the benefits of employee recognition, improved collaboration, and higher retention, prioritizing psychological safety surveys isn’t just smart—it’s fundamental.
Still on the fence? Remember, 76% of employees report being more engaged when psychological safety is prioritized. The cost of ignoring this is poor morale, slow innovation, and constant churn [3].
What makes a good survey on psychological safety
There’s an art to composing effective employee surveys about psychological safety. The goal isn’t just to ask questions—it’s to get high-quality, honest responses that drive real action. To achieve this, focus on clear, unbiased questions in a conversational tone. Employees must feel comfortable responding as if they’re having a candid chat, not ticking boxes in a sterile form.
A strong survey avoids jargon and loaded language. For example, instead of “Do you feel management undermines you?” you’d ask, “Can you openly share your ideas in meetings?” The difference matters. Your survey should balance brevity with depth to prevent survey fatigue or shallow data.
Here’s a quick snapshot:
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Leading or judgmental questions | Neutral, open questions |
Overly formal or robotic phrasing | Conversational, approachable tone |
Long, confusing scales | Simple scales or binary choices |
Ultimately, the best measure of survey quality is response rates and the thoughtful detail in those responses. You want employees to engage freely and provide honest, rich insights—not just click through and be done.
Question types with examples for employee survey about psychological safety
The best surveys combine a mix of question types, each designed to elicit a different type of response and insight. Below are practical examples for each.
Open-ended questions are powerful for understanding context and motivations. Use them when you need employees to tell their story or elaborate on their point of view. They’re especially helpful for themes like psychological safety, where nuance matters. Example questions:
What’s one thing that would make it easier for you to share concerns or ideas at work?
Can you recall a time you wanted to speak up but didn’t? What stopped you?
Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal for structured, comparable feedback, and useful when analyzing results at scale. For example:
Do you feel comfortable admitting to mistakes at work?
Always
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question helps you measure overall sentiment towards your company’s efforts in building psychological safety. Use it periodically to track trends and hotspots. Try generating a NPS survey for employees about psychological safety with Specific. Example question:
How likely are you to recommend your company as a psychologically safe workplace to a friend?
0 (Not at all likely)
1-10 (Scale)
10 (Extremely likely)
Followup questions to uncover "the why": Adding followups after initial employee answers helps clarify thinking and enriches your survey data. For example, if an employee selects “sometimes” on comfort admitting mistakes, the AI can automatically ask:
What situation made you feel uncomfortable admitting a mistake?
This conversational style boosts completeness and honesty. To see even more examples and tips, check out our detailed list of best questions for employee surveys about psychological safety—it’s packed with actionable advice.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys turn the typical survey experience into an engaging, natural chat—moving away from rigid forms toward genuine dialogue. With traditional survey creation, you define each question one by one, anticipate possible answers, and manually set up branching for every scenario. This not only eats up time but often misses valuable follow-up nuances.
By contrast, using an AI survey generator can create conversational surveys that automatically ask the right probing questions based on each participant’s real-time answers. Here’s a quick comparison:
Manual surveys | AI-generated surveys |
|---|---|
Fixed questions | Adaptive followups |
Why use AI for employee surveys? With AI-powered surveys, you collect richer, more authentic responses with less work. Respondents engage with your survey as if they’re chatting with a trusted colleague—which means participation and honesty both go up. If you’re curious about step-by-step setup, check out our guide on how to create an employee survey.
Specific leads the field in conversational AI survey experiences, ensuring both survey creators and respondents enjoy a smooth, mobile-friendly, and highly interactive feedback process. Try for yourself and see how fast you get meaningful, actionable insights from your next AI survey example (or check out more in our interactive demos).
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are what elevate a survey from generic to genuinely insightful. If you only ask a closed question—“Do you feel comfortable sharing ideas?”—and leave it at that, you risk gathering fragmented or vague responses. Specific’s automatic AI follow-up questions feature changes the game. Our AI listens in real-time and asks participants contextual followups, just like an expert interviewer, digging deeper to reveal the real story. This means:
Less email chasing for clarifications
More complete, clear insights—every time
Feedback conversations feel natural instead of forced
Here’s how a conversation can become muddled without followups:
Employee: “Sometimes I worry people won’t agree with my feedback.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share an example of when this happened, and how it made you feel?”
How many followups to ask? In our experience, two or three well-timed follow-ups are perfect. More than that and people get fatigued; fewer, and you may miss out on useful detail. Specific lets you automatically stop and move to the next question when enough context is collected—a setting that guarantees balance as you build your survey.
This makes it a conversational survey—interactive, adaptive, and responsive to each employee. Respondents feel heard, which leads to richer, more actionable data.
AI survey analysis—Don’t worry about being overwhelmed by text-heavy responses. With tools like AI-powered survey response analysis, you can instantly surface patterns and trends, even with lots of open-ended replies.
Automated, dynamic follow-ups are a new gold standard. Give it a go: generate a survey and experience the difference for yourself.
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