Research commissioned by representatives of the social enterprise Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England also revealed that just over a third (35%) of workers don’t feel safe asking for help, and 49% don’t feel comfortable expressing their needs at work.

From a poll of 2,000 working adults in the UK, almost one in seven employees (15%) reported that they had made preventable mistakes as a result of feeling unsafe at work.

The two main reasons people are reluctant to speak up at work are “fear of retaliation and a belief that nothing is going to be done about it,” said Wim Vandekerckhove, professor of business ethics at EDHEC Business School.

Vandekerckhove told HR magazine: “Both of these beliefs are subject to the general state of the economy. Overall, many people are worried about how AI might affect their jobs, and we seem to be heading for an economic downturn across sectors. Both these sentiments can have a spill-over effect on people’s felt ability to speak up.”


Andrew Pepper-Parsons, a director of the whistleblowing charity Protect, cited research showing that Gen Z are less likely to raise concerns about wrongdoing compared to older workers.

Pepper-Parsons told HR magazine: “One reason for this could be that younger workers are newer to the workplace and so are unsure how the systems work.”

To create a speak-up culture, “people need to genuinely believe that the organisation and their peers want them to say something when they feel there’s a problem, and that it will be appropriately dealt with,” said Ellie Herriot, director and head of training at workplace culture specialists Byrne Dean.

Speaking to HR magazine, Herriot encouraged HR professionals to help raise the confidence of all people within an organisation, so that they can better raise issues and talk about them with their colleagues.

Herriot added: “Sorting things out before they become a bigger problem by having an emotionally intelligent conversation, and by being clearer about your needs, can really help. This requires upskilling everyone – including managers, employees and freelancers – with the skills to have difficult but necessary conversations.”