Working Across Time Zones: How Does It Work?

Posing in front of the Pink Palace (Ahsan Manzil) in Dhaka.

As many of you know, I’ve just returned from working in Bangalore, India and Dhaka, Bangladesh for about three weeks. Both places were incredible and I could write reams about the people, culture, food, history… But I was there on work and for now, I’ll focus on that. I was mainly there for one client’s projects, but I continued to work on other projects based in the States. I know that many nonprofit staff who work for international NGOs live and work out of suitcases, and in our globally connected world, working across time zones supposedly doesn’t make much of a difference.

My experience is this: working in a different time zone from your main base of operations does make a difference but it’s not necessarily “bad”.

• What’s urgent changes: The biggest (and best) difference I found in working in a time-zone that was 12 hours ahead of the US was a shift in expectations about responsiveness. Most of our clients expected (and received) a reply within 12-24 hours but unlike when I’m in the States, people didn’t expect a reply within an hour or even in minutes. Suddenly, the “urgency” factor dropped off – except in true emergencies. A lesson for all of us trying / struggling to be responsive 24/7: very few emails truly require one to drop everything and reply.
• Streamlined and clearer communication: Another gain for me was being able to organize my communication (especially by email) by aggregating and structuring whatever I had to say, rather than responding one-to-one to several emails. Two things helped me here:

1.  Since I was often responding to people 10+ hours later, I got to see multiple responses/ comments/ questions on a particular subject, which allowed me then to respond comprehensively to all the issues raised by different people. In many cases, others on an email thread provided an answer/solution, which meant that I didn’t have to!
2. I also found that I often needed to aggregate all the questions and reply to them in one shot – which had more to do with power and internet shortages than a difference in time zones – and doing so, helped me clarify my thinking which, I hope, was reflected in my writing.

• A team/support system is vital: I was fortunate in that there was no client crisis that required my physical presence, but that doesn’t mean that it was easy. What made it manageable was having a great support system: first, my partner Stephanie, and team members Kate and Sarah shouldered some of my responsibilities, and second, I had the understanding of our clients that I was doing everything for them as best as possible, even though I was in another part of the world. This type of support and trust is vital.
  And it’s why I think companies like Yahoo are struggling with virtual / work from home systems. Somewhere, deep down, some companies or some people believe that given a chance their employees would do no work and instead spend their time at the beach. Well, no one is knocking a day or two at the beach, but really, most of us work because we like to work. We may not love a particular job – and that’s a post for another day – but most of us would go absolutely bananas if were idle all day.

This was my experience. What are some of yours? We’d love to know – because we know what a difference the location makes! I’m preparing to leave for Haiti in a few days and this trip, I imagine, will be quite different. I will only be working on one project because it happens to be in a rural community with no real electricity or internet. I’ll report back on how this experience of working away from my main workplace goes in a couple of weeks.