PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY ISN'T UNIVERSAL: HOW TO GET IT RIGHT IN MULTICULTURAL TEAMS？

Reading time: 6 min

Psychological safety is a key element of keeping employees happy, productive, and engaged. However, workplace culture plays a crucial role in shaping how psychological safety is understood, experienced, and fostered. Despite growing efforts to create inclusive and supportive environments, many organizations still face challenges in ensuring all employees feel safe expressing themselves. Even in diverse teams, cultural differences in communication styles, hierarchy, and feedback norms can make fostering psychological safety complex. For teams new to this journey, the challenges can be even greater.

That’s why we’re going to explore the top tips for creating psychological safety. First, though, what concept are we talking about here?

McKinsey & Company offers the following definition: “Psychological safety is the absence of interpersonal fear. Feeling psychologically safe allows people to perform their best at home, school, and work.”

CIPD says, “‘Psychological safety’ refers to how confident we feel to take appropriate risks at work because of our relationships with colleagues and managers. In psychologically safe work environments, people tend to be less defensive and focus on accomplishing team goals and preventing problems, instead of just protecting themselves. They feel at ease offering original ideas, sharing different viewpoints, asking questions or admitting mistakes, knowing that they won’t face punishment or ridicule from their colleagues.”

The benefits of creating the kind of work environment that is psychologically safe are almost self-evident. Team members will be happier, more productive, more willing to raise issues, and more prepared to share possible solutions if they feel safe. Organizations everywhere should be seeking to create psychological safety, but what’s the best way to do this if you have a multicultural team?

Create a listening environment

For employees to feel safe, they need to feel heard. That involves their day-to-day work, but also when raising concerns. It’s important for managers to cultivate an environment in which employees feel comfortable coming forward and also have reasonable channels through which to do so. For example, if one of your Japanese or Serbian employees had a problem with bullying, how would they speak to you? If they had a concern about your management, how would they raise that to those above you?

Organizations that ensure employees can communicate with superiors on multiple levels and that implement fair, discreet, and action-driven solutions for complaints are far more likely to end up with employees who feel safe raising issues. They should also take second-hand reports seriously and encourage people to come forward if they see issues that concern them.

It’s key for respect to be at the core of all these policies. Take employees seriously, acknowledge cultural differences, and listen to their complaints with care. Validate them by showing that you hear them, you understand their emotions, and you want to find solutions. This is the first big step in creating a psychologically safe environment. It’s critical if you have a multicultural team and certain members are concerned about not being heard in a way that aligns with their communication style and comfort level.

Demonstrate fairness

People feel safer when they can check that they are being treated fairly, and organizations with multicultural teams have many opportunities to implement this. From fair pay to fair promotion opportunities, training, and benefits, cultivating an environment that shows equal value for all employees is an excellent way to help them feel free from fear.

It’s also important to demonstrate fairness across the hierarchy. Don’t take a manager’s word for something just because they are a manager, and don’t automatically favor long-standing employees over newer ones. In multicultural teams, where workplace norms and communication styles may differ, fairness must be actively practiced by listening to all perspectives and ensuring that every voice is heard and valued. Showing a commitment to equitable treatment fosters psychological safety and trust, which is essential for an inclusive and thriving workplace.

Tackle bullying

No workplace can feel safe if it fails to address bullying or harassment, and sadly, many organizations struggle with this even in 2025. A 2023 article placed workplace bullying at around 1 in 10 people. Many people fear bullying enough to hide key aspects of who they are, avoiding talking about things like religion, sexual preference, nationality, and more at work, often at the cost of their sense of self. This environment is at odds with psychological safety.

Many workplaces, especially those with multicultural teams, are reluctant to address bullying, often citing issues as “personality conflicts” or “interpersonal issues” and telling workers to sort it out themselves. This is very detrimental to morale and decreases the sense of safety for both the people involved and anybody else who hears about or witnesses instances of bullying.

It’s therefore crucial for workplaces to take a strong stance on bullying and find ways to tackle problems when they arise. Engaging in a good-faith effort and taking a strong stance against bullying will help employees see that they are valued and that the organization cares about their well-being.

Organizations should couple this with regular anti-harassment training sessions to ensure good awareness is achieved. This alone can demonstrate a commitment to work safety that increases the overall sense of psychological safety.

Don’t force people to speak – culture matters!

While it might seem ideal to ensure that all team members have a voice, prioritizing psychological safety doesn’t mean forcing individuals to speak up. It’s essential to create an environment where employees feel comfortable and willing to share their thoughts. For example, employees from high-context cultures may be less likely to speak up openly, so providing alternative ways to contribute, such as written feedback or one-on-one discussions, can help ensure inclusivity.

Some managers think, “Well, I’ve given them a chance, but they don’t ever do it, so I have to push.”

That might seem like logical thinking, but it’s not! It places an unfair burden on individuals and will make them feel far less safe, rather than more safe. Ultimately, you cannot force somebody to feel safe, and recognizing this is critical. All you can do is create an environment that prioritizes safety. This environment must  include respect for employees who don’t want to share, or it cannot, by definition, feel safe.

Of course, you can encourage employees who rarely speak up to try being more vocal, and ensure that the responses they get are positive and they receive praise. You can demonstrate value for their opinions and tell them that you would love to hear from them more. Encouragement is fine, but making it a job requirement for people to speak up when they don’t want to is actively harmful and will not promote psychological safety at all.

Time to get hands-on!

Set up a "what psychological safety means to me" session – Invite employees to share (verbally or in writing) what psychological safety looks like in their culture and how they prefer to communicate concerns. Use this to develop team norms that respect diverse perspectives.