It’s the middle of the night but you’ve got to take this call. It’s not
an emergency, it’s just one of your key clients and it’s morning at his office
halfway across the globe. Still, you’ve got to pick up. Sounds extreme,
perhaps, but it’s a fact of life for many in today's globalised work force.
What do you do when your clients and colleagues are spread across
different time zones? For some time-zone-trotting professionals, the answer is
something akin to a personal time warp.
Fredrich Kahrl faced this dilemma
after moving to Berlin from San Francisco. Kahrl's wife had accepted a one-year
fellowship and the couple were keen to spend the time in Germany together with
their toddler. However, Kahrl — a consultant at Energy + Environmental
Economics, an energy consulting firm — wanted to continue working for his
US-based employer.
Kahrl's boss allowed him to stay on as long as he kept in
touch through weekly meetings and didn’t drop the ball with his mostly American
and Canadian clients. What this meant, though, was working non-traditional
hours. When Berlin was preparing to go to bed, Kahrl was preparing for meetings
and taking calls at odd hours, including once in the middle of the night in the
bathroom, so as not to disturb the family, all asleep in their small apartment.
“Distance is dead, but time zones aren’t,” said Erran Carmel, dean of
the Kogod School of Business at American University in Washington DC and
co-author of I'm Working While They're Sleeping: Time Zone Separation
Challenges and Solutions. And, he said, the time zone dilemma is one that
technology can’t solve. People still need to sleep, spend time with their
family and “construct a rhythm of their day,” he said.
Enter time-shifting. These days, more people are working outside the
regular daytime work day, integrating calls and emails from far flung
colleagues and clients throughout the evening and early morning hours. The
decidedly low-tech strategy is one principal way to manage working across time
zones, said Carmel.
While the number of workers dependent on time zones is unknown,
Microsoft has estimated that there are more than 500 million knowledge workers
worldwide. Carmel estimates that more 10 million of them must coordinate with
others regularly across time zones. With team members spread across continents,
even simple tasks like scheduling a meeting mean at least one person adjusts
his or her schedule, waking a few hours earlier or staying up later to
coordinate with everyone else, Carmel said.
And they do so with little corporate guidance. While there has been
plenty of emphasis by companies on tackling culture or language barriers
amongst a global workforce and clientele, workers scattered across the globe
are typically on their own when it comes to trying to balance their personal
and professional
lives.
Working round-the-clock
Manu Gopinath, Global Head of Human Resources at California-based UST
Global, starts his work day at 7:00. The global information technology services
provider has about 15,000 employees in 20 countries and Gopinath has to
coordinate with people in seven different time zones on a daily basis.
The company holds most of its global calls from 7:00 to 11:00 Pacific
Time, which is eight hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. But it’s a window that
works best for most time zones, Gopinath said. It’s the busiest part of
Gopinath’s work day; he has to juggle multiple calls, emails and deal with
time-critical issues. After that he takes a break before getting back to work.
Gopinath is home early in the evening to spend time with his wife and young
children and then logs back on for an hour or two at the start of the business
day in Europe and Asia before heading to bed.
“It’s more about work-life integration than work-life balance,” said
Gopinath, who has worked at UST Global since its launch 15 years ago. Given the
global nature of his job, Gopinath, 40, said he would rather answer texts and
take quick calls while spending time with his kids than make a choice
between work and his personal life.
“In many cases I get calls or texts or WhatsApp messages during the
evening,” he said. “If I am watching TV I can just quickly respond and keep the
work moving.”
Becoming a night owl
Miranda Ash lives in London and works with many American clients and
colleagues, so she shifts her day in the other direction. Ash, a self-described
night owl, often starts her work day in the afternoon — morning in the US — and
works until about 22:00 or 23:00, taking a break to have dinner with husband.
“I think it works well for him because he gets to watch football
(soccer) at night,” she said.
Ash had worked typical daytime hours before becoming global director
for membership and awards at WorldBlu, a workplace
consulting firm, about five years ago. The company’s eight employees are spread
across five times zones with clients all over the globe.
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