Fearless Internal Communication: Part 1 of a four-part series on psychological safety in the workplace

➡️ You spend a month organizing a Town Hall and you dedicate 20 minutes in the program for questions. The CEO’s invitation to ask her anything is met with nothing but awkward silence.

➡️ You write a thought-provoking blog for the intranet, and you hope it sparks a great discussion. The article gets 308 likes, but no comments.

➡️ You are leading a change initiative and you want to better understand the impact on key employees, but the only input you get is through gossip and back channels.

Scenarios like these are a good indication that there is a lack of psychological safety in your organization.  

FREE WEBINAR: Elevating Other Voices: How to Promote Diversity & Inclusion Through Employee Storytelling

Not only does this impact your ability as internal communication professional to build a better employee experience and culture, but it can also have disastrous implications for the ability of your organization to successfully navigate a volatile and uncertain world.

Amy Edmondson, the Harvard professor that is considered the leading expert in psychological safety extensively (superfan here) defines the concept as:

A belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.

She, among many other researchers, has proven that psychological safety is the underpinning for people to work effectively, for teams to thrive, and for overall success in the organization. She calls organizations with high levels of psychological safety “fearless”.

Why Psychological Safety Matters for Your Organization

The magic of psychological safety is not only that it eliminates the fear that holds people back, but it also:

Creates an environment for people to be themselves and not apologize for it

Encourages people to depend on one another

 about agreeing with each other for the sake of being nice. I like to call this ‘group think’, where teams and organizations are so busy agreeing with each other that they don’t consider a different perspective. 

Psychological safety is also not about giving people praise or unconditional support for everything that is said, nor is it about creating a workplace where people are not expected to adhere to high standards or meet deadlines.

I’ve been interested in the concept of psychological safety for several years now. As someone who has worked with organizations for over 20 years to improve internal communication and to successfully manage major change initiatives, I’ve long believed that the best communication with employees is authentic, transparent, and two-way. 

After discovering Edmondson’s work, I realized psychological safety was often the missing element in organizations struggling to get internal communications right.

My discovery was reinforced by a difficult experience with a client. I was supporting two projects and my work was making a difference. 

Because of this, I was asked to help with another high-profile initiative. In the end, I was juggling three projects. I pushed myself too hard, got sick (thanks H1N1!), and made some typos on a draft PowerPoint presentation. 

My contract was ended early because of an incomplete sentence on a deck. After beating myself up for several weeks, I started to reflect on the organization’s culture. Many people reached out to me and told me how much they loved my work and what a difference it made. 

Many were fearful that the same thing would happen to them. I realized that the organization suffered from a lack of psychological safety. 

While I learned some personal lessons, it became clear to me that without psychological safety, even organizations considered great places to work could become toxic and rife with fear.

Incorporating Psychological Safety into our Work

I began to integrate concepts related to psychological safety in our communications audits and when developing strategies and materials for leaders. 

Our guidance was heavily influenced by Edmondson’s work. A few months ago, I was selected to participate in a certification program developed by Edmondson and her team at Harvard. In this program, I deepened my knowledge. 

In this four-part series,  I’ll explore the four dimensions of psychological safety and how it helps people and teams thrive. 

I’ll share why psychological safety is more important than ever and how it should be a key component of creating the future of work. 

In the final blog, I’ll share a roadmap for internal communications professionals to work with leaders to build psychological safety in their organizations.

Follow along over the next few weeks as I share my expertise in this area.

Understanding psychological safety and making it central to our work as internal communications professionals will transform our practice. 

(In the second part of this series, next Wednesday, July 28th, Andrea takes a deeper dive into the four dimensions of psychological safety and how critical it is to corporate priorities such as inclusion and belonging, innovation, learning, and resilience)

Why Psychological Safety Matters in Internal Communications

If I asked you this one question, how would you answer? In 2021, do you feel powerful or helpless?

I’m sure there are several more questions like this? Are your energized or overwhelmed? Do you feel valued and respected or are you simply tired and exhausted?

In this year's  Gallagher State of the Sector report, they came to the following conclusion of 2020: “As difficult as they’ve been, there’s no denying that the past 12 months have forced something of an internal communication renaissance. 

"But do you want that to be a flash in the pan? An offer of the week? A missed opportunity? Of course, you don’t. Driving that momentum forward has to be priority number-one for IC pros this year.”

There is a reason more than 2,500 communication and HR professionals around the globe took the time to register for my recent Poppulo webinar on 

Building a Communication Plan for Returning to the Hybrid Workplace

Change is normal. Employees are valued. Productivity is paramount. And communication has become more complicated. They need you. They always did.

But the pandemic has given more of you access and authority and your role is now seen as critical in smooth operations that limit disruption and have an impact on the bottom line.

And changes will not stop. We’ll start with hybrid workplaces, then digital transformations, then mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures based on organizational sustainability strategies, then reorganizations and restructurings. 

Amidst it all, we will continue to accelerate our diversity programs and prepare for the war on talent and demographic shifts.

I’ve always believed that Internal Communication is an integral enabler of business success. 

Our greatest opportunity is not to communicate on behalf of our organizations but instead to influence how our organizations, leaders, managers, and people communicate. 

When things go wrong,  it’s not always because plans and strategies weren't sound; it's often because those on the ground being asked to deliver were not aware or did not understand why decisions were made, didn’t clearly understand their role or what to do.

And they probably didn’t believe in the direction or the reasons why change was necessary anyway because of the communications deficit. A proactive communication plan supporting organizations could be the difference between success and failure.

The question for you is are you ready to use your power to move forward and make progress? Do you have the right resources to help your organization succeed and are you prepared to make the case for investment? 

Do you have the tools at your disposal to ensure the right employees, get the right information at the right time? Do you have the right access to decisions makers to move quickly and effectively?

How to Build a Communications Plan for a Hybrid Workplace 

walks you through the transition you need to redefine your role and set yourself, your team, and your organization up for success.

Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”  

I want each and every one of you to look back at this time as a turning point that helped you harness the power of internal communication to connect the dots between strategies and results, values and behaviors, and brand promise,  and employee and customer experience.

Internal Communicators: You’ve Got the Power. It's Time to Wield it.

Being an Internal Communicator requires being adept and confident at influencing others. 

From the relationships and stakeholders we have and the messaging we share, influencing is a key component of the communicator's skill set to be truly effective in your role. 

In established relationships, we have learned what works well and how to make a positive impact or impression upon them. 

But how do you influence a senior leader you really don't know well or at all?

Here are five ways to hone your influencing capabilities and place yourself in the realms of trusted advisor with the leader you don’t know (yet).

How To Build a Communications Plan For a Hybrid Workplace

The first place to start when trying to influence someone you don’t know or haven’t got established connections with yet is go fact-finding. 

Play the detective - curious and open-minded. As a communicator, you are adept at spending time understanding your audience, their needs, their challenges, their communication preferences.  It’s the same here. 

Watch videos of them. Observe their speeches. Read their emails, blogs, and social media posts. 

The effectiveness of your influencing approach will be determined by how well you know them and communicating in a way that mirrors their own style and preferences.

Make it your business and mission to understand and observe them even if it has to start from afar.

2. Find a link between you, someone you both know

Even if you have zero personal connection with the leader you need to build a relationship with, and influence, there will be a common link between you both through at least one other person..

Your task is to find that person who connects you. Ask them for tips, insight, and information about the leader in question and how best to influence them. 

If you haven’t yet been introduced to or met the person you’re trying to influence, this key contact could be the one who opens the door for you.

Nothing gets you noticed and more magnetic than being a go-to font of expertise. From your knowledge of the business to the solid understanding of your audience and culture, to the communications you craft and deliver to the data you gather and interpret, make sure you’re on top of your game. 

Word travels fast when you’re respected for your craft and it’s likely the leader will be more open to listening to or connecting with you if you’re well regarded.

4. Influence with your head, heart & hands

When the time comes to connect with your leader, to build rapport and make headway with influencing there are three key ways to approach it … and of course you’ll know which one or two to leverage by the knowledge you’ve gathered about them so far.

If you’ve noticed they’re logical in their style and communications you can influence them by appealing to their rational mind. They will appreciate data, facts, trends, knowing what’s worked before. 

They will value you based on your expertise and reputation too because they will more likely listen to someone in a place of authority (trusted experts are weighted with authority).

Leaders with a more empathetic, people-focused style will be more influenced by an approach that considers people’s emotions and feelings. 

Appeal to their values and that of your organization, as well as their reputation, influence, and responsibilities as a people leader.

Influencing others with the hands' approach involves cooperative appeals centered on collaboration and teamwork. Ensure you seek their input and encourage or enable them to work alongside you in partnership.

This kind of leader will appreciate collaborating on a goal that benefits the greater good, especially if you’re working toward making impactful, lasting change.

Persistence almost always pays off, so don’t worry if your attempts to connect with or influence your new leader don’t seem to work at first.  

But remember that persistence can work against you unless you pair it with flexibility. 

Adapting your approach to tailor it to them, learning as you go along, noticing what switches them off or annoys them, is all part of building rapport and an understanding relationship with someone so that you can influence them – and, as a result, be even more influential yourself.

To further enhance your influencing capabilities you might also like to take a read of another Poppulo article I wrote: 

How to Influence Senior Leaders When Working Remotely

5 Ways to Influence Senior Leaders You Don't Know Well

As the global disaster of our generation wanes and people begin to emerge from isolation, misaligned expectations about the future of remote work models have started to appear, with potentially damaging consequences.

Surveys show that much of the workforce has enjoyed the benefits of working from home – especially having more quality time with family and friends and freedom from commuting – and they don’t want to lose this.

Conversely, many employers are anxious to get employees back in the office – despite seeing higher productivity levels once people got used to the sudden plunge into remote working and all the teething problems that came with that.

They want people to return to the office and the traditional ways of engagement.

In short, Houston, we have a problem. Organizations are already experiencing this friction. Leadership must prevail to avoid serious business disruption.

 rises to become an accepted practice in the corporate world.

How can organizations find a clear path forward?

Simply put, the expectations of the worker base have changed. Most embrace many of the benefits of remote work flexibility. A majority want to retain some, if not all, of these benefits.

How to Build a Communications Plan for a Hybrid Workplace

As employees are often considered the most important asset for success, employers are now faced with evaluating how a hybrid model may impact business operations, productivity, employee satisfaction, and achievement of business goals.

Happy employees are more productive. Supporting a flexible work model could go a long way to both attract and retain quality workers. 

But a hybrid environment adds complexity, potentially more conflict, and possibly even inequity. Organizations must consider the business needs.

The decision of where and how to work is not binary. As people emerge from their isolation cocoons, many want to get away from home to see coworkers and clients in person, and return to the office setting.

But often, people are expressing they want a situation that supports better flexibility and an enhanced work-life balance. There is no clear requirement for companies as they explore the options. 

Even manufacturing operations, where the bulk of the workers are required to be physically present on an assembly line, may have back-office employees that don’t necessarily need to be in the office all the time. 

Payroll, human resources, marketing, and salespeople might want flexibility.

Some businesses have already decided to fully embrace the remote model. Empty offices are no longer a necessary expense and are being sold or the leases are being allowed to expire. 

Expenditures like electricity, office maintenance, and insurance can be wiped off the books.

Other companies are planning on a hybrid model where workers may only come into the office a few days of the week. That can reduce the overall requirements for space, utilities, and other costs while still supporting some face-to-face interaction. 

Maintaining the remote-work capabilities remains an important corporate asset.

Lastly, there are businesses already planning the ‘welcome back to the office’ party, where everyone will return to their rightful place in their cubicle, station, or office. 

Coffee and donuts will be the conciliatory offerings as managers will demand workers return to the office. These and many other permutations may not align with the desires of employees. In fact, they may actually create serious problems.

Everyone has a unique perspective of the benefits and drawbacks of working remotely. Their personal experiences have forged their opinions of what they want as employees.

Now is a good time for leaders to revisit policies, revise work practices, and consider evolving from traditional mindsets with a competitive attitude. 

It is an opportune time to consider reforging the organization into a more agile and stronger organization! Exploration at a minimum is warranted.

The first step is to establish a productive dialog between management and employees to understand how a new model could benefit the organization. 

Communication, planning, and collaboration are crucial. Employees must feel that their voices are being heard and considered. Empathy, which was experienced during the lockdown, is a requirement to navigate this journey. 

For many employees, their lives may be drastically different as compared to before the pandemic and everyday work in the office may not be desirable or feasible anymore.

Communication is key. Employees must feel safe in expressing their needs and limitations. Executives must be clear in their concerns and flexibility. These are unusual times and we must be sensitive to both the needs of employees and the success of the business.

Make no mistake, these are crucial discussions. Employee loyalty will be won or lost on this battlefield! They will remember how they were treated. 

Was their company a great advocate, sensitive, and flexible or was their employer apathetic to their viewpoints, contributions, and needs? 

How organizations approach this challenge will determine if they reinforce or undermine the dedication of their workforce.

If companies don’t proactively get ahead of the needs of employees, it can create chaos. This is true for expectations, emotional needs, and also for the tools and technologies they use to conduct work.

Take for example all those communication and data sharing tools that were the backbone of remote work. Even if the company IT department won't support them, workers will still use them for work, inside and outside the office. 

Unmanaged technology tools create what is known as ‘shadow IT’, which can be a nightmare for an organization to control and can create vulnerabilities to the confidentiality of data and availability of operations.

It is better to be proactive in understanding the worker's needs and providing them the tools to be productive while also meeting security, safety, and privacy requirements.

Good decisions begin with good leadership. Decisions need to be made and communicated properly and in a timely manner.  Everyone hates ambiguity. Executives must decide if and how the organization will change. They are also responsible for deciding the path and timelines that will impact everyone.

Once a plan is finalized, start communication with the basics:

Will there be a physical office to return to and will the office arrangements be different?

What kinds of workers are allowed to work partially/fully remote and why?

How often do office workers need to come into the office and will there be flexibility?

Follow up with well-thought-out policies and procedures that reinforce corporate ethics, equality, and equity principles. For example, will people who choose to come into the office have an informal advantage for advancement? 

Are there policies or processes that encourage or forbid such directions? Clarity is important.

Lastly, it is up to the leadership to not only communicate but also show by example. Policies remain weak until executives showcase them in their actions. Leaders lead from the front and during these uncertain times, employees need leadership to set a good example more than ever.

It is a time when great leaders emerge to build stronger teams and accomplish great goals.

The work environment is again shifting and many will be returning to a new normal that has yet to be determined by most organizations.

There will be challenges as part of the world shifts to a hybrid model, but proper leadership acting proactively can forge an optimal path for their business and employees.

Disruption Looms as Employees Return to the Workplace

Poppulo has won a prestigious International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) award for a content campaign that focused on how employee communication drives business outcomes.

The IABC Gold Quill Award of Merit will be presented to Poppulo, which is part of the FWI Group, and its campaign partner 

 of Australia – who were commissioned to create an executive white paper as the core of the campaign – at the IABC World Conference at the end of this month.

Welcoming the award, Poppulo’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, 

 said it underlined the company’s reputation as a global thought leader in the employee communications space, in addition to being the world’s leading software platform in the burgeoning sector.

How to build a communications plan for a hybrid workplace

“The IABC Gold Quill award is a wonderful endorsement of our thought leadership content and campaigns that support internal communication as a key driver of employee experience, and strategic alignment around business goals,” said Maher. 

It’s terrific to get this recognition from the IABC, an organization renowned for promoting and honoring excellence in business communication.

She also paid tribute to frequent Poppulo collaborator 

, CEO of Artis Advisory, for her “outstanding ability and exceptional expertise both as an organizational alignment strategist and communication professional”.

How Employee Communication Drives Business Outcomes

Zora Artis said: “I am thrilled that our collaboration has been recognized by IABC, meeting their Global Scale of Excellence in the writing category. 

Researching and creating content that has a demonstrable impact on business and helps to develop strategic communicators is work I love to do, and working with the passionate team at Poppulo was a delight.

The executive paper launched Poppulo’s campaign in October 2020 to demonstrate how crucial employee communication is to create clarity and drive business results during transformation and change. It had a clear line of sight to business leaders and strategic outcomes, and was Poppulo’s best-performing content asset in 2020.

The IABC’s Gold Quill Awards recognize excellence in strategic communication, research, training, and skills worldwide. Gold Quill is the only awards program that honors the dedication, innovation, and passion of communicators on a global scale.  These are symbols of excellence recognizing smart thinking, technical skills, flawless execution, and proven results.

Commenting on the Poppulo/Artis Advisory whitepaper, the IABC Gold Quill Award evaluators said: 

The primary message that clearly comes through is that companies that invest in their employees, their well-being, and in communications are most successful.

"The research scan, information, and accompanying case studies created engaging content for intellectual discussion and as a backdrop for strategies and even a tactical march forward."

Poppulo campaign linking employee comms to business outcomes wins IABC award

What metrics does your organization track about its reputation? 

Your marketing team probably looks at customer satisfaction or a net promoter score. Perhaps they track reviews on Amazon, Yelp or Google. 

The HR team is probably measuring employee engagement and satisfaction, and the PR team is keeping tabs on brand awareness and sentiment. But for most organizations, there is a vast, unmeasured, unmonitored conversation going on that’s damaging their brand and making it hard to find and keep top talent.

Of course, we’re talking about those employer rating sites like Glassdoor or Indeed, where current and former employees let you know just what’s on their minds. 

It’s tempting to dismiss these as venting sites for angry people but the stuff that employees are saying on these sites, as well as on Google, Reddit, Facebook, and (soon) LinkedIn has a huge impact on your brand, not just as a place to work but as a place to do business.

For example, a client of ours was recently publishing positive messages from its CEO about the organization’s impressive work in building a diverse and equitable workplace. What they didn’t know was that former employees had been complaining for years on Google about a location where there was alleged racism by managers. 

A search of this company’s name brought up all those allegations, along with the fact that the company had never responded to a single comment.

Even if you want to dismiss reviewers as bitter, angry haters, consider that 86% of candidates base their decision to apply for a role on the employer reviews, and the average candidate reads four reviews before applying. For HR folks, that’s eroding the spending value of your recruitment dollars.

And let’s remember that it’s not just candidates reading this stuff: it’s current employees, customers, partners, investors, regulators, and the whole darn world. 

So marketers will want to address the brand carnage risk that goes along with that exposure. Communications teams will want to get ahead of any nasty narratives that are conflicting with the messaging inside the organizations.

majority (63%) of employers don’t bother responding

 to employer reviews at all, which is too bad because, as much as it doesn’t feel like it, they are a gift. 

These reviews give communications, HR and brand teams some important metrics around employee and candidate experiences, value propositions for new hires, barriers to retention, employer brand sentiment and solid evidence of places where what you’re saying isn’t quite lining up with what’s happening in your workplaces (also called the truth-to-BS ratio).

Ok, so if employer reviews are such a gift, why don’t employers respond to them in a meaningful way, gather their pearls of wisdom and mine them for data about building that competitive culture everyone is always talking about? Simple answer: No playbook.

The problem with reviews is that they’re not really anyone’s job. They are that fly-ball to the outfield that the marketing team won’t touch because it’s clearly an HR thing, and HR won’t chase because they aren’t communications people, and communications teams hope isn’t coming toward them because it’s time-consuming and sometimes deals with difficult things that belong to HR.


The first thing we need to do is make it somebody’s job -- not the summer student, not the intern – someone who has a bit of experience, good writing skills, and the common sense to know when to escalate the difficult stuff.

 It matters less where they sit than that they have a few hours a week to tackle this work.


Next, do an audit of your current reviews. Remember to look beyond the obvious places, such as Glassdoor and Indeed and check out sites like 

Oh, don’t forget Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and, well, any other place people speak their minds about things. If you are a large employer, this is where you may want to get some outside help.

Now that you know where people are talking about you, it’s time to design how your organization will respond to different types of reviews. Responding is key, with 

89% of candidates reporting they want the employer’s perspective

 to employers that respond to reviews and manage their employer brand. And remember, not all reviews are negative or nasty – sometimes people say lovely things, and we want to be all over those opinions, too.


As we start ramping up our hiring for a post-pandemic world, here are seven ideas for rethinking reviews:

Treat them as seriously as customer reviews

Have a clear escalation path for the scary stuff


For more information or a free consultation about managing employer reviews, 

Do you know what they’re saying about your company? No, really.

Back in the day, when our hunter-gathering ancestors were scraping together a subsistence-based existence on the plains of Africa, the notion of division of labor and task specialization were not high on the list of priorities.

This all began to change as soon as we discovered the ability to create a surplus. It’s difficult to pin down exactly when this became a thing but best estimates are that when agriculture took hold in the fertile crescent, a region covering eastern Turkey, Iraq, and southwestern Iran some 10,000 years ago, in fairly short order the division of roles and the emergence of specialist workers began to occur. We know this thanks to tablets left behind from ancient Mesopotamia which give us accounts of how the world of work was changing... forever.


The ultimate guide to HR employee communications strategy

The development of specific jobs in ancient Mesopotamia led to increasing trade and economic growth. This allowed people to hone their time and energies on one set of tasks and not have to understand how to do all the jobs needed for civilization to blossom. This specialization created the first hierarchies in early society, as some jobs were deemed more important than others; this led to some people “having more authority and power over others, eventually 

You could argue that the long, often slow, yet steady emergence of ever-increasing specialization in the workplace continued at a snail’s pace until the start of the 

 in western Europe from around 1760. That’s when the pace of job specialization went into relative overdrive as new roles popped up everywhere.

This is also when the notion of having to organize groups of people for optimum performance came onto the agenda. Initially, management was tasked with overseeing staff and ensuring targets were being met, yet the act of carrying this out quickly developed into a recognized, if somewhat simplistic, discipline called ‘personnel management. However, the shot in the arm for the discipline was unquestionably the first world war.

Suddenly much of the male workforce was being recruited for the battlefront, and swathes of the manufacturing industry, now on a war footing, needed to be re-staffed. En masse, women joined the vacated roles and it quickly became apparent that the old-style apprenticeship approach was no longer fit for purpose. Human resources had finally been recognized as crucial to helping the war effort. 

At its most basic, early HR (then known as personnel management) was about sourcing, hiring, and firing staff, and the focus was solely on people as a resource to be exploited to maximum corporate benefit. Yet increasing industrialization was continuing to drive the growth in ever greater numbers of discrete specialist roles within the organizational hierarchy of businesses.

Modern HR has been built upon this foundational bedrock, accumulating recognition as a discipline and developing in expertise over time.

Around the turn of the 1980s “human resources” began to be better understood. Where “personnel” more or less describes workers, acknowledgment of the “human” and “resource” monikers illustrated the acceptance of people in all things work-related and the value of employees per se. “It was as though a lightbulb had been switched on: these workers are actually valuable assets that can be nurtured, developed and encouraged to be loyal, bringing untold benefits to 

The modern view of HRM is one focused on recognizing the value of the human resource to an 

; its ‘human capital’. It is also diverse, encompassing a range of skills and practices surrounding the development and management of 

Thus, contemporary views of Human Resource Management are very much focused on areas affecting a company’s human capital, including:

Recruitment and staff acquisition/retention

In part, due to this specialization, new categories of HR practitioners have emerged focusing on specific aspects of the practice. A sample of these new verticals includes:

The degree of specialization occurring within an HR department will be dictated by the size of the company and the industry sector, amongst other internal and external factors. But the key takeaway is to recognize the changing face of HRM. 

It has evolved to reflect new working practices and business demands and, according to experts in the field, this will continue as the drive to an ever more employee-centric 

So, whilst it is true to say that HRM was, and remains, about hiring and firing, today it is also so much more. Human Resource Management has become the science of all things relating to effective employment, before, during, and after an employee joins an organization.

What are the core functions of human resource management?

How to align HR wellness programs with business strategy

. The HR department is essential when it comes to doing so, as it is their job to develop methods that reduce company spending on new hires. 

All Articles

The best on employee communications delivered weekly to your inbox.

Cookies preferences

Manage consent preferences