Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic that gripped the United States from early 2020 through mid2022 accelerated remote work trends. Increasingly employees are working from the office, from home, or sometimes in each location. Given this distributed work, questions
and input from workers have increased value, and psychological safety may be
challenged by distance and differences. There is a growing need to understand how
psychological safety is formed and maintained across different working arrangements and
among team members who are no longer fully co-located. The purpose of this qualitative
phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of psychological safety within a
hybrid work team at a nuclear generating station in the United States. By shedding light
on these aspects, this research contributes to our understanding of psychological safety in
a unique context and provides valuable insights that can benefit nuclear generating station
leaders, particularly those navigating hybrid work arrangements in the wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Findings revealed that psychological safety is essential for open
communication, collaboration and employees’ willingness to voice concerns.
Transitioning to hybrid work had differing effects on union and non-union employees,
reinforcing the importance of effective use of communication technologies as well as
communication practices. The findings offer practical recommendations for enhancing
communication, addressing perceptions of personal failure, and fostering positive norms
within hybrid work teams, while also providing nuclear generation station leadership with
crucial insights into the effect of psychological safety on team dynamics.