RachelPatterson

I work for an IT company with HO in Australia which has recently bought a UK company as a subsidiary. We will be sharing work between the two offices in future ("follow the sun" support etc). Does anyone have experience of this? Any advice for getting past time differences in communication? Are there any cultural differences I should be aware of in working styles?

morpeth

For time differences what I have always done is look very closely at what work may require timely communication, and which doesn't. I would structure my day accordingly. If some items may require more timely response, I would have second email on my mobile, and those whom I communicated with frequently I would give that email address for anything that required more immediate response- otherwise you maybe having to look at your email constantly during non working hours. In some ways it worked out being more efficient as I would have blocks of time to concentrate without phone calls, hah !

evets

I have similar experience, but adding in North America and also India. Time zones suck, especially when you want to co-ordinate all off them. UK and Oz while not great, you will probably need to work outside your your normal business hours or they will. Prepare to organise meetings very early or late at home.

Talk to your local manager and make him/her aware of the new arrangement and say:
1: I will be working from home that day due to a meeting with the UK office.
2: I will be coming in late or leaving early due to a meeting with the UK office.

As for cultural differences, are you original from Oz or from abroad. If your UK office is based in London, then I think they will work longer hours than the Australian office. Aside from that the only real difference will be nuances in language.

The main thing to remember is that sending an email will usually take a day to get a response then you reply, another day for a response and so on. A simple task could take a day in Australia but could take days between the UK and Oz to finalise the same task.

rammygirl

On the plus side things can be sent to the UK at end of working day in Aus. The U.K. will work on it while you sleep and it should be in your in box at the start of the next working day.

Time differences can be made to work for you, but you need to factor them in.

morpeth

I found the same situation could be positive in the same way between USA and UK or Europe, or Far East. Depends I guess though depends on type of business.

Beoz

Yep. Every day. Culturally its fine. The time difference is a pain. I do it with the US and Europe. Calls at all weird times. The wife gets pissed.

Its worse at the other end of the year when the time diff is 11 hours. Currently 9.

Beoz

I should also add, the window of opportunity to speak to your colleagues is narrow, an hour or 2 a day.

This means that actioning stuff can be a 24 hour turn around. Ask someone to do something in the morning, wait for the next day to have it done.

RachelPatterson

The UK office is in Manchester and the AU one in Adelaide (I'm from the UK end). We are already working together but can definitely use all the advice on how to make life work more efficiently without people working 24/7

old.sparkles

UK - Adelaide is only 8 1/2 hrs difference at the moment, so if you need to talk then it's easiest early morning UK / late afternoon Adelaide (8am UK is 4.30pm Adelaide which should be easy enough).

If you are working on joint projects, perhaps plan a daily phone call and plan the next 24 hrs, or longer. Hopefully there is nothing urgent that cannot wait 24 hrs from one call to the next, and other than that you have emails for any points that might need extra clarification. Perhaps divvy work up so your not both trying to cover the same ground. Does your company have any guidelines / guidance etc on working on international projects in different timezones?

RachelPatterson

It will do when I've written them! Hence trying to find helpful hints and tips here

Fardell

We work across a lot of time zones; have a look at using something like Calendly to manage timezones and meeting relatively seamlessly

evets

There is no real easy way to work efficiently because of the lack of over lap in the timezones. Email is a pain, due to 1 day return communication.

Depending on your business might be best if you have a twiki/confluence for projects. Things can easily get lost in email threads.

carcajou

Have some colleagues who have done this. My advice is keep your mobile off at night, or have two mobiles, you personal one and your work one, the latter you switch off at night. Sometimes the people in the other office forget about the time difference and ring you at 3:30 AM (and even get huffy on occasion when told no you won't do xyz because it's 3:30 in the morning). If that happens call them back at 3:30 AM their time the next day just to tell them not to worry you are now working on task xyz.

morpeth

Good point, having separate personal and business phones makes sense, often without the time difference issue.