Published on: April 27, 2026 at 12:45 pm
By Marc Hogan
Many leaders and managers might reasonably believe that employees need a return to the office in order to feel safe enough to speak up with their best ideas and to point out problems. But for at least some employees, the option to work remotely some or all of the time can paradoxically bring a greater feeling of psychological safety that makes them more communicative.
That’s according to Academy of Management Scholar Sean Martin of the University of Virginia, who noted that he has found in as-yet-unpublished research that remote work can help develop a sense of safety in some workers that encourages them to speak their minds and contribute to discussions in meetings.
“It is not necessarily a majority,” he said, adding that remote work can be particularly beneficial for employees who experience the imposter phenomenon, meaning they believe that they don’t know what everyone at their organization expects them to know.
“For those people, having the ability to work remotely at least a couple of days a week goes a long way to making them feel psychologically safe and makes them more likely to speak up,” Martin said.
Martin said business leaders and managers need to weigh the pros and cons to decide what’s in their best interests, recognizing that there are very few decisions that are all good or all bad. If leaders want a strong culture, he said, having people in the office at least some of the time might be necessary so employees can get to know each other better and establish the norms and practices that management desires.
“At the same time, if you find yourself in a situation where the culture’s in a pretty good place, there could be some benefit to giving people the flexibility to work remotely a couple of days a week to help them feel relief and a little bit more safety so that you can elicit their best insights, their best efforts,” Martin said.
To be sure, Martin noted, leaders might have good reasons for sweeping return-to-office mandates. While some might contend that their organization’s culture is paramount, he said, others might argue that they want low status differences as part of their culture, and so it’s unfair to have some employees work remotely while others in the organization simply can’t due to the nature of their jobs.
“It doesn’t have to be all black or white,” Martin said, noting that flexible working options may be better for some employees, while others might not need them.
“There’s probably some people for whom the workplace is inherently scary,” he said. “For some workers, being around a boss who might not be the nicest, or being around judgmental co-workers, or being in a system that feels like it’s always evaluating you inside of a competitive climate could be a bad thing.”
