The Role of Autonomy in Defining Work Arrangements and Its Effect on Psychological Safety.

Abstract

This study examines the interaction between work arrangements (in- person, remote, or hybrid) and autonomy in defining this arrangement on perceived psychological safety in Brazilian workers (N = 506; 300 women, 206 men). This study adopted a cross-sectional design, data were collected in a non-probabilistic convenience sampling, the measures used were psychological safety, working arrangements and autonomy. The analyses included independent samples t-tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings indicated that psychological safety increased with virtuality levels. Interestingly, when companies choose to implement remote and hybrid work arrangements, employees felt more psychologically safe than when they chose to do so voluntarily. This research suggests that organizations committed to remote work arrangements promote the perceived psychological safety of their workers. Employees may feel that, by establishing a telework arrangement, the organization demonstrates trustworthy behavior toward them.