1.
All About Time Zones
It’s the subject of songs, books, poems, movies, and religious texts. A most precious commodity. We never have enough of it, yet sometimes we have too much of it on our hands. Occasionally we borrow it, sometimes it flies, and at other times it just stands still. Sometimes we waste it, and at other moments it’s on our side. We try desperately to manage it but often feel that it really manages us. What is it? Time.
Such mighty juxtaposition for such a tiny little word. We all have the same 24 hours to work with. We are all very busy. And now, thanks to technology, we have the easiest access we have ever had to people on the other side of the globe.
Let’s Level Set, Shall We?
You may have never thought about it this way, but working with another person in another part of the world creates a virtual workplace. Even if the rest of your co-workers are surrounding you in cubicleland, that single co-worker in different time zone or country makes you a member of the virtual workplace club! Welcome. And while working with those in other time zones has its advantages, it also has its challenges.
The biggest is most definitely time differences. You have to search and calculate the exact time difference between where you are and the country on the other end. You work forward—and backward and forward again—and then when you finally schedule your meeting, you realize you didn’t take Europe’s daylight saving time into account (which, in case you didn’t know, is different than the United States’s) and someone ends up missing the meeting.
So here you are, playing a very tricky, very sophisticated game of zones. But what are the most important things to keep in mind when strategizing your next move? Let’s get started.
Manage Your Own Expectations
When working with people from around the globe, the most important piece of advice we can offer is to manage your own expectations. In this highly technological age, we have become accustomed to receiving immediate or semi-immediate responses when reaching out for information. We send an email, we get a response shortly thereafter. We expect it, like a dog gets used to getting a treat every time he performs a trick or command. But what happens when that dog doesn’t get his treat immediately? He gets impatient, annoyed, agitated until he gets what he wants or, more significantly, what he has come to expect. In the United States, it’s often difficult for us to wait for a response when we’re on the East Coast and we’ve sent an email to someone on the West Coast, which is a mere three hours behind. U.S. time differences can be even greater—there are four hours between the East Coast and Alaska and five or six hours between the East Coast and Hawaii (which does not participate in daylight saving time). When you take a typical nine to five workday into consideration, six hours is a lot!
But consider what it’s like if you’re on the East Coast and you send an email to someone in, say, South Korea, which is 13 hours ahead. Let’s say you sent that email around noon your time. What time did it hit the inbox of the person in Korea? (You didn’t think we were going to make you do math in this book, did ya?) You guessed it! They received it at 1 a.m., when they’re more likely to be sleeping than online checking email. And by the time they do see your email, you’ll be the one who’s asleep! And furthermore, how often do we wait to respond to emails because we have to gather information, talk to someone higher up, jet off to a meeting, or take care of something else that simply takes higher priority at the moment?
The game of zones becomes a waiting game, and a response may take significantly longer to receive. However, the opportunity to collaborate with and leverage the vast global talent pool far outweighs the small challenges it presents. So, manage your own expectations. Think ahead and be patient!
Blessed Are the Flexible, For They Will Not Break
Take a scenario like the one presented above. Now, remove “email” and insert “conference call.”
Now stop groaning.
Flexibility is the name of the game when it comes to working with global teams and global time zones. When you have to consider time zones that are a full 12 hours (or more) apart, you must time conference calls very carefully to accommodate everyone. This requires flexibility and a whole new level of commitment from you and your team.
One virtual position that I held required me to plan the annual meeting for a professional membership group. In 2017 their meeting was held in Singapore, a full 12-hour difference from where I was located.
When sending emails to my contacts there, I had to think ahead about the information I was seeking. I learned to not expect an answer until the next working day because when I was sending the email, they were either not working or fast asleep. We also had to set up phone calls several times throughout the process to discuss details. We decided to switch times every call—one would be 9 a.m. my time and 9 p.m. theirs, and the next time, we would flip. This required flexibility on both our parts, but it worked out perfectly in the end.
—Kathy
One tip is to consider flipping conference calls each time when your team members are this spread out. This means that sacrificing some of your own “off hours” to make the 12-hour time difference conference call work. For example, if your monthly call happens at 9 a.m. your time (which equals 9 p.m. their time), consider swapping the time for the next call. This helps create a more fair environment, because everyone equally sacrifices their personal time. You don’t want anyone feeling like they’re not cared about or considered, or resentment may start to build.
This might be a new concept for you. Sometimes when people work a strict nine-to-five job, they believe that their off time is their time off. Fair enough. It may be challenging to adopt a new way of working or thinking. We get it. But working globally means thinking globally. And we would say again that the benefits of remote work and the ability to interact and work closely with people all over the globe is exciting and beneficial and will yield very positive influences on your company or organization. So, be flexible. Flexible people bend—they don’t break. Embrace the vast and diverse possibilities! You’ll be glad you did!
Culture
When working with people around the globe, you will experience many cultural differences. Did you know that in Singapore, for example, if a bus company says they’re picking you up at midnight, you had better be there at midnight? In an experience that Kathy had, when she asked the bus company why they didn’t wait for her party, their answer was “We did wait. The driver left at 12:01!”
You need to do a little research. Much like the Myers-Briggs personality test can give you great insight into how other people tick, a little research on the culture of the country you’re working with can go a long way in helping avoid unnecessary faux pas and embarrassment. You can find all sorts of information about this online. Or better yet? Ask the person you’re working with! Who is going to turn you down the opportunity to answer questions about their culture? Plus, this kind of research—talking with the person you’re working with—will provide much more relevant cultural information. And as a bonus? You’ll build a nice rapport with that person, who will appreciate that you took an interest in them and their culture.
Language and expressions are other important cultural considerations. Once, Ben was working with a global committee at the United Nations when he got on a conference call with 15 people who represented just about every major continent. While English was the working language, it didn’t mean everyone knew everyone else’s colloquialisms or turns of phrase. So, when Ben made the mistake of saying “Now this topic might take us down a very strange rabbit hole,” he meant to imply that it would bring up a variety of additional topics that he didn’t want to explore. Instead it brought about an unnecessary 20-minute conversation about what a “rabbit hole” had to do with the topic, and why we didn’t want to travel down one. We would say in this instance, it’s important to think not just about the game of zones, but the game of causal language too. Our advice here is to keep it simple. When working with people from other cultures and countries, the simpler the language, the better.
National culture is a consideration that you should not take lightly. A person’s culture is a part of their very being, so taking the time to learn about someone and the values and norms that they have woven into their identity will level-up your working relationships and minimize the risk of offending a valuable team member.
Cultural differences are no less visible in a virtual workspace than in an in-person environment. I remember a U.S.-based project manager insisting that she didn’t have to deal with cultural differences on her global team because everyone lived and worked in their countries of origin. Almost that moment her phone rang, and she excused herself—it was her colleague in India. When she returned from the call, she spent a long time lamenting how her colleagues India and China didn’t understand work-life balance, expecting her to be available to them 24/7.
—Caliopy Glaros, Founder and Principal Consultant, Philanthropy Without Borders
A Few More Thoughts
That’s our take on how to best handle the game of zones. You may also have organizational policies outlining how to deal with these situations, but we hope these help to fill any holes. You may think you’ve got it handled, but we’d just be up sick all night if we didn’t at least mention them one more time:
Manage your expectations.
Use technology wisely. Take advantage of smart tools to help when working with people in various time zones.
Be flexible and understanding, but also try to be consistent. That way everyone on the team can anticipate things like emails, deliverables, and expectations.
Do your research on culture. Build a great rapport with your international co-workers by asking about their culture and what is important to them as part of the virtual workplace growth. You should also make sure everyone is working with the same tools and expectations.
Be proactive. Think through conference call schedules and be mindful of time differences. Plan ahead so you can send emails (especially those of a somewhat urgent nature) well in advance to allow for the time difference and include ample time to await a response.
Be inclusive. If you really want to show your international colleagues that you appreciate their culture, learn and use simple phrases in their language such as “hello,” “goodbye,” “please,” and “thank you.”
Signing Off
It is an exciting time. We have the privilege of interacting with and getting to know people from all around the globe, something that just two or three decades ago was practically impossible without actual, physical travel. This paved the way for the virtual workplace to exist. Proving we could work virtually and successfully with individuals around the world meant we could and should consider doing the same with those just one or more time zones away. Don’t ever forget that. We are wise to take this privilege and leverage it for our mutual greatest success as opposed to assuming that something as minor as time differences could derail the whole process. Look to the opportunities that our global community presents and prepare for them wisely! When we can make a 12-hour time difference work, we are capable of just about anything in the virtual workplace, and that’s something worth celebrating no matter where you are, no matter when you are.