Collaborating across countries, cultures and time zones
In the modern, global 2009 world of business, government, education, and
enterprise of any kind, outsourcing and International co-working,
collaboration, and cooperation are essential, emerging every-day realities.
collaboration, and cooperation are essential, emerging every-day realities.
Companies outsource work to other countries in distant parts of the world.
They market internationally. Other countries have different cultures, and
they celebrate different events, and have very different statutory holiday
schedules.
One of the implications seldom properly considered is scheduling. The
planning/scheduling impacts of a simple thing like holidays can be huge.
Just as a simple example, consider an American company that outsources
work to organizations in China and Pakistan and has a substantial amount
of sales in Canada. All of the organizations and stakeholders involved in
this global trading arrangement, if they need to work together and
collaborate, need to think of the impact of the calendar on scheduling.
Phone calls, meetings... any events that involve co-working in real time
need to be carefully planned with due consideration for holidays.
To illustrate the impact, we created a holiday "mashup" for the countries
involved in our hypothetical global trading arrangement - USA, Canada,
Pakistan, China - http://bit.ly/2YNWM7
The example is from 2008, but you'll get the idea. Although no country in
our example has more than 10 statutory holidays, there were 31 different
schedule alert days in 2008... days on which one or more of the employee
populations are on holiday... they have statutory time off and are most
probably not available for a meeting or a phone call.
Collaborative, coordinated events involving ALL the partners weren't
possible on 31 different days of 2008. And to complicate things further,
the events don't always happen on the same dates every year. The countries
use different calendars - some solar; some lunar. 2009 will not be the same
as 2008. It's complicated... Just when you have it figured out, it changes
again.
Enter STE's Multicultural calendar. Now in its 17th edition, the calendar
features over 550 events from different religions, cultures, countries
around the world. The calendar helps organizations, teams, and work groups
plan more effectively, quickly and proactively whenever there is a need to
consider, collaborate, and co-work across countries and cultures.
The calendar is available in various formats -- paper wall/desk calendars;
downloads for Palm/Blackberry / Outlook; electronic Intranet/Extranet
calendars.
For more information or for a demo intranet calendar, visit:
Also visit our blog and our twitter page:
Eric Snyder
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