Do Your Employees Feel Comfortable Asking Questions?

No one likes to look unintelligent at work, which is why employees often avoid asking questions. While team members may feel that keeping inquiries to themselves is the best way to prevent embarrassment, for managers, it is a sign that they do not feel psychologically safe.

Dr. Amy Edmondson, Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, first coined the term psychological safety as a way to describe a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with new ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. In essence, employees who feel psychologically safe are comfortable being vulnerable—and vulnerability is a key component in innovation and collaboration.

Make it a best practice to foster a safe space for questions—doing so is essential to maintaining strong employee engagement and creativity, which can deteriorate without it. It may be time to make some changes for the better of your entire organization. Employees should feel that they are in a safe space to ask questions.

The Benefits of Encouraging Employee Questions

When employees feel comfortable asking questions, it’s a sign of a healthy company culture. They don’t feel judged and thus feel safe bringing “what if” and “why” to the table rather than fearing humiliation. Good questions spur learning and the exchange of new ideas, fuel innovation, and build rapport among team members. Here are some other reasons to inspire employees to speak up.

Questions create dialogue that helps to build relationships.

A study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that curious people tend to have better relationships. As Dale Carnegie said in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, asking “questions the other person will enjoy answering” is a great way to spark conversation that builds relationships. Showing curiosity about a person makes them want to share more about their insight and experience, and in turn, makes them comfortable asking questions of their own.

Opening communication pathways allows for honesty, vulnerability, and openness—all of which are essential to psychological safety.

When employees speak up, it sparks change.

By providing a non-judgmental platform for people to express new ideas, your company can move in a new, exciting direction. Good questions offer valuable insights and shift how we think, thus inspiring innovation and change within an organization.

Asking why reveals purpose.

Employees want to know the reasons behind their jobs. Having that answer can give them a sense of purpose, motivate them to be better team members, and encourage them to work more productively to achieve favorable results for the organization. Many projects fail when team members don’t truly understand the importance of the results. Asking why lets them know they play a critical part, fosters employee growth, and increases job satisfaction.

Getting answers clarifies expectations.

Uncertainty is a terrible feeling. When employees fear that asking questions will make them seem like a nuisance, they are stuck not fully understanding their position, project, or future with the company. Employees need to know their role to be accountable. Employees need a clear understanding of their role to be truly accountable. Asking questions isn't a nuisance—it’s a good opportunity to gain the information they need to do their best work. Without answers, employee engagement suffers.

Encouraging employee questions reduces business risks.

When employees voice concerns, it prompts a discussion on how to deal with potential pitfalls. As solutions form, problems are mitigated, and crises averted.

How to Help Employees Speak Up

The best way to foster psychological safety in the workplace is to provide exercises that prove that their thoughts are valued. The more chances they have to ask questions, the more guidance they will receive—and the better they’ll feel about your company culture.

Encourage them to answer their questions.

When employees don’t feel psychologically safe asking managers or peers questions, asking them to brainstorm on their own can help them feel more comfortable doing so. A great exercise that helps team members learn to open up about their concerns is to have them ask themselves questions about how they feel creatively, professionally, and personally.

Managers can tell each employee to make a list of the kind of questions about themselves they contemplate regularly. A few examples are:

• What part of my job interests me most?
• What kind of work would I like to do more?
• Am I spending my time well? How can I spend it better?

This can also work to address issues with specific projects as the following questions show:

• Which part of the project brings me joy?
• Which part of the project feels most stressful?
• Would I be open to more responsibility on the next project, and why?

At the next performance evaluation, direct reports can start a discussion about their job performance expectations by sharing their list of questions. This will be especially helpful for a particularly quiet employee who does not want to speak up in a group setting.

Or the list can be shared during a team meeting if employees feel comfortable. Knowing that everyone else has done the same exercise may reduce the sense of vulnerability, spark meaningful conversations, provide valuable insights, and increase employee engagement.

Begin and end meetings by asking if there are any questions.

Approaching a manager in their office with questions can be intimidating. However, when the floor is open in a meeting, team members often feel safer bringing up concerns. Plus, asking questions can have a domino effect: As soon as one person starts asking questions, the rest of the group is likely to follow suit.

One good exercise that eliminates the intimidation factor is to have everyone write down their questions anonymously on a sticky note and then collect them. Reading each question out loud addresses each employee’s concern and allows them to feel heard while creating a space for discussion.

To clear up any confusion before and after a team meeting, you can also try going around the table and having everyone voice what they aren’t crystal clear about. If that doesn’t help team members speak up, encourage them to send an email to team leaders when they think of questions later. Employees need to see that the company’s culture values intellectual curiosity and that it’s not a sign of weakness to admit they don’t have all the answers.

Create avenues to help employees give and get feedback.

One fundamental aspect of a feedback culture is that feedback goes both ways, allowing employees to feel psychologically safe sharing concerns. During performance evaluations, direct reports should receive clear and constructive feedback from leaders, but they should be able to give feedback as well. Asking questions to managers who are actively listening should get them the honest feedback they need to succeed. Be sure that leaders are clear of this expectation throughout your leadership development program.

Feedback sessions with team members can also help employees speak up. However, a precedent for psychological safety must be set: No judging, no laughing, and no destructive dialogue will be allowed. To encourage honesty, all team members should also know that there will be no repercussions for what is said in the session.

When coaching employees on how to provide feedback in a team environment, let them know that asking good questions rather than telling is the best way to gain an understanding of each other; but that open-ended questions will yield more satisfying answers than others.

For instance, “Did you like this project?” might get a simple yes or no. But “What would make this project flow better?” can only be answered with a more detailed explanation. Other great follow-up questions are:

• What went well?
• What didn’t go well?
• What could we have done differently?
• What do we do next?

HSI Can Help: Soft Skills Training

While the exercises we mentioned above can help employees feel more comfortable asking questions, they must have empathy and understanding to communicate those questions well. Not everyone automatically has those soft skills, but they can be taught. Take the first step and offer training to help employees learn these skills.

HSI offers a variety of soft skills microlearning lessons. We’d be happy to discuss how our award-winning training helps employees feel more comfortable asking questions—leading to increased employee engagement and a more open workplace culture. Request a consultation today!

Additional Resources

• Communicating with Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
• 5 Steps to Building an Emotionally Intelligent Team
• Using Feedback and Corporate Storytelling to Improve Employee Satisfaction