The notion of psychological safety has been around for a decade, but it’s seldom been more popular. Indeed, Amy Edmondson, widely regarded as the driver of our understanding of the term, won the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award for Right Kind of Wrong, her latest book on the topic.

However, getting it right is often easier said than done, and research from HEC Paris highlights the risks involved when paying lip service to psychological safety. The study looks at the power of employee voice, or providing employees with the ability to raise concerns and express ideas, in terms of making workplaces fair and equitable.

No guarantees

However, the study shows that managers can often make the right noises about encouraging employee voice, but don’t always follow through. The researchers believe that this can often be due to something they refer to as “voice veneer”, which is when employee concerns are addressed on a superficial level, but when employees do speak up they’re gently eased out.

The finding emerged after an analysis of workers at the Disney resort in California, and especially a unionization drive among the resort’s puppeteers. The puppeteers protested when the company moved from high-quality puppets to cheaper alternatives that were painful to operate. Despite the company signing a contract with the puppeteers, it was never enacted because they discontinued the puppet shows.

The researchers believe this problem is particularly pronounced when workers lack power, but it can also rear its head when workers are operating remotely and are therefore physically and socially isolated.

“Our current labor market, we suspect, thus provides a rich breeding ground for it,” they explain. “As organizations are increasingly called upon to live up to their employees’ hopes, a closer look at how worker voices are handled may be key in understanding the perils of voice veneer for all involved.”

Raising concerns

Edmondson has shown there are clear benefits to organizations when employees are given the security and confidence to raise concerns, but doing so can remain a risky proposition. The researchers wanted to understand how it actually works in practice.

Interviews with former Disney puppeteers and posts from union organizers on social media revealed their hopes and frustrations as they fought to be heard. Disney negotiated with them and agreed to a labor contract, giving the puppeteers a sense that their efforts had paid off. But by gradually reducing its use of puppeteers, Disney weakened the impact of their fight and prevented any lasting change.

The researchers believe their work highlights a form of resistance to speaking up that goes beyond more traditional methods of keeping employees quiet. The results highlight how the veneer of voice can be deployed when these other methods fail, but doing so significantly harms the trust employees have in their managers and their employers. For instance, it was common for respondents to say how they loved their work, but hated Disney.

Short-term thinking

It’s the epitome of short-term thinking that may produce immediate results in terms of keeping employees quiet, but it has significant implications down the road.

“It might seem like a short-term solution to half-address what needs to be done, but you’re not tackling the problem and you are risking disengagement,” the researchers explain. “As an employer, you are not addressing what employees are asking for. You are putting something shiny around it. But when you scratch it, can you ever trust management again?”

The episode marks part of an ongoing battle between the puppeteers and Disney, which began in 2014 when they started the unionization process. The aim was to codify some of the protection measures they believed would keep them safe from injury, while also bolstering their wages so that they’re more comparable with other entertainers. They also wanted greater support for medical expenses.

Within six months, nearly all of the puppeteers had signed unionization authorization cards, which is the first step in formally voting for a union to be formed. This led to a new labor contract being signed. It’s a contract that expired in 2020, however, and by 2024, no puppeteers were employed by Disney.

“The puppeteers’ conditions at Disneyland were not unique at the park: nearly 75% of Disneyland employees were unable to afford basic living expenses without a second job,” the researchers explain. “Compared to the nationwide mean hourly wage of $21.02 earned (at that time) by entertainers and performers, sports and related workers (many employed by amusement parks and arcades), according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Disneyland puppeteers earned a median hourly wage of only $16.74.”

The benefits of providing psychological safety are well documented and help to provide a better workplace, but the Disney example shows that when the goals of employees and employers differ, it can encourage managers to create the veneer of voice that ultimately erodes trust. Genuine psychological safety requires consistent actions that align with stated commitments. For companies, failing to do so risks alienating talent, fostering resentment, and undermining the very principles of equity and engagement they claim to champion.