The Hindu Business Line : When work spans cultures, time zones

Private space and public space are fundamental anthropological concepts that carry, each within its own realms, checks and balances crucial to social harmony. By extension, some of these spaces, especially in Western and other industrialised countries, have evolved to become sacred while others have remained secular and in the public domain.

In traditional India, the frontiers between the two have always been blurred, with the sacred strongly imbued with the secular. It is not uncommon for Government schools and offices in India to display images of Saraswati, the goddess of learning next to those of leading Indian personalities and politicians. The puja room is very much a part of the house and Indians, for centuries, have artfully managed to navigate the sacred and the secular at home and at work.

Globalisation has radically altered our urban spaces, with electronic enclaves becoming the benchmark of a resurgent India. These mushrooming software cities appear to have cut the umbilical cord with the old, nurturing city to ensure snappier links with new global markets. Almost all of them have an identical layout and architecture and a mode of working that is similar to that of their American counterparts, thereby ensuring that from Chennai to Minnesota everyone is on the same page (well almost).

The homogenisation of our modern workspaces is not without challenges for the young professionals who flock to these centres from across India and the world. They bring with them their cultural traditions and biases, which have to be streamlined to meet the requirements of a modern day workforce. Their work environment — of glass cubicles — is a reflection of seamless workspaces straddling continents. Notions of private and public have less of a hold — the workspace has become virtual.

The virtual workplace

A unique workplace challenge in India today is the virtual space team members are required to contend with and manage. Project teams are virtually working across borders, locations and time zones.

In a cross-cultural training session conducted by Global Adjustments, young participants from the IT industry were asked how many of them ironed their own shirts or for that matter made their own breakfast before leaving for work. There were very few raised hands in the crowd. Most had not suspected that their Western counterparts had these chores to do before leaving for work. Now tell Western trainees about the power cuts their Indian counterparts are sometimes faced with , and watch their reaction. Communication between cultures is not easy because each often ignores the other’s lifestyle. Here are some of the challenges we at Global Adjustments have found professionals having to contend with when interacting with their clients and customers across the globe:

Building relationships ensures better team work, but is difficult from a distance. There are no short cuts to trust. Understanding time zone constraints implies that team members in virtual teams work in different time zones. Simply put, when Atul is fighting fit to confront the day’s work in Gurgaon, Stephen is ready to put it all aside and retire for the day in New Jersey. His capacity to make decisions might be considerably reduced, whereas Atul wants a clear answer.

Privacy or the lack of it in modern offices can be problematic, especially when one is on the telephone. Today’s electronic spaces are not immune to cultural influences. They symbolise the ‘brave new world’ of global business and highlight the cultural mix that marks the modern work environment in India. In the West, technology and certain work patterns are a ‘given’. In India, technology is stirring the pot of cultural transition and it is hoped that what will emerge will be a more confident and inclusive nation.

Lakshmi, a young IT professional working in a technology park in Chennai has recently had a baby. A photo of a smiling, bonny baby boy adorns the glass partition of the cubicle she shares with three other professionals. Sukumaran, her cubicle neighbour is from Thiruvananthapuram. He is a devotee of Guruvayurappa, a little idol of whom he keeps next to the computer. Rejith shares the same cubicle, but his God is none other than Rajnikanth, the demigod of Tamil cinema. A mini poster of the actor’s much talked of film Shivaji is plastered on the glass panel in front of him. The cubicle’s corner slot is occupied by Ajay, a quiet boy from Kolkata. Faint sound bites from the film Laaga Chunari Mein Daag can be heard from his end. A win-win situation emerges if there is mutual respect for each others private likes and a more restrained public display of these preferences.

(The writer is Senior Manager, Cross Cultural Services of Global Adjustments, a company that offers integrated India destination services and cross-cultural education delivered through the portal www.globalindian.com)

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