Why Are Young Workers So Afraid to Speak Up at Work?

The working population of the UK is ever-shifting, as new generations of employees join the workforce and shift the demographic dial. There is always a cohort of younger workers in businesses, but they weren’t always this quiet. There is a phenomenon present amongst those at the start of their careers, wherein silence and knuckling-down has become a new normal – often to the detriment of workplace culture. But it’s not happening in a vacuum.

Indeed, many younger employees feel unable or unwilling to raise concerns at work, especially around workplace safety, workload-based pressures and wider workplace culture issues. Indeed, around a third of young employees have considered leaving their current roles due to not feeling psychologically safe. What is the cause of this fear of speaking up, and what does it lead to?

Why Younger Workers Often Feel They Can’t Say Anything

First, let’s examine the key drivers behind a modern culture of silence amongst younger workers in the UK. Often, these are new employees with no prior employment experience, hence completely new to professional working environments. This lack of practical experience can lead to a feeling of disempowerment, and even ignorance with respect to what ‘normal’ is in a workplace. Hence, younger employees are less inclined to “rock the boat” if they see something they aren’t sure is normal.

This impotence is multiplied by the lack of stature younger employees feel they have in professional environments. By speaking up over an issue, they fear risking their position; it’s an insecurity that comes with the unsteady nature of probation periods in early-career roles, and one that goes to a wider anxiety over finances fuelled by recent cost-of-living crises.

When Silence Becomes Part of Workplace Culture

This isn’t just theoretical, either. In fact, many businesses weaponise the disempowered self-image of younger workers to enforce silence in the wake of personal injury at work; a recent survey by National Accident Helpline found that 34% of 18–24-year-olds had signed an NDA or waiver following a workplace injury. The wider concern here is that younger workers may not fully understand what they are signing, or that other levers can be pulled in order to enforce regulatory compliance.

What Happens When Workers Don’t Feel Safe to Speak Up

The impact of employers deploying NDAs instead of institutional reform is huge for employee wellbeing, comfort and culture. All it succeeds in doing is cultivating a culture of fear and silence, which negatively impacts workplace safety, morale and trust and equal measure. Unsafe working conditions go unreported, and injury risks increase; workers do not corroborate reports of negligence or discrimination, and cycles continue. Speaking up should not feel like whistleblowing, but rather a part of a healthy workplace culture.