Time differences and time management aside, working with remote teams can also be complicated because of cultural differences. Even the closest countries, like the United States and Canada for instance, have subtle cultural differences that can cause communication problems or misunderstandings in the workplace. So, when you work with an even more culturally-diverse team, it’s even more important to understand how to get the most out of working with your remote teammates by communicating effectively and respecting cultural differences.
Understand Cultural Differences
Things like humor and sarcasm vary greatly across cultures, so something that might be culturally appropriate to say and easily understood by others from your same society (or a similar one) may come across completely differently to someone from a different culture. For example, it might not be common to make jokes or be sarcastic in a business setting in say, China, so be mindful of your words when speaking to remote team members on the other side of the world to avoid causing any misunderstandings.
Another thing to be mindful of when communicating with culturally-diverse remote teams is the history of where they come from, how it may have affected them, and how their view of that history may differ from yours. I’ll explain what I mean using a real-world example from a personal experience I had while working in an office job in Medellin, Colombia for U.S.-based company.
At some point during my stint there, they sent down an individual from the U.S. to lead some sort of personal development workshop, of which I don’t remember many details other than this: at some point the guy starts making Pablo Escobar jokes. To a room full of Colombians. In Medellin, Colombia.
If you know anything about the history of Colombia, and especially the history of Medellin, then you can imagine how uncomfortable this was for everyone in the room. Pablo Escobar was a very real individual who directly and indirectly caused a lot of very real violence for decades in both Medellin and Colombia as a whole. Though he may be a romanticized, larger-than-life character when portrayed to Netflix viewers in North America, there’s no way to know how that very real history may have affected any one of the Colombian individuals in that room.
Don’t be that guy making Escobar jokes to a room full of Colombians he just met.
Use a Neutral Tone to Communicate
For remote teams, communicating in the right tone via tools like chat and email is hard enough as it is. Throw in cultural differences and it becomes even more tricky to get your point across exactly as you mean it. This is why it’s especially important to focus on using a neutral tone when communicating with remote team members from different cultures.
Criticism is another thing that, like humor and sarcasm, can be taken differently by people from different parts of the world. When you need to give feedback on someone’s work, focus on providing neutral constructive criticism. This often means saying “I” instead of “you” to make it clear that you’re providing your personal opinion, rather than mounting an attack on someone else’s work.
Another way to keep your tone neutral, especially when leaving comments on someone’s work, is to never use all caps. In your mind you might be emphasizing a certain point, but to someone else you might come across as unnecessarily aggressive and rude. It’s a small thing, but it goes a long way towards professional communication with remote team members that you may have never met in real life and want to forge a good relationship with.
Communicate with Straightforward Vocabulary
Another key to communicating successfully with remote teams is to keep your vocabulary simple. Especially avoid buzzwords and corporate jargon that someone who speaks a different first language won’t understand.
If there’s a particular word or phrase that you love to use or is important for the industry you work in, then by all means teach it to everyone, but try to keep your day-to-day communications on the simpler side. Here’s an exaggerated example of a sentence that someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language or at a native level absolutely won’t understand:
We need to downsize our best-in-class marketing program so we can achieve synergy with our holistic thought-leadership initiatives. Let’s circle back on this tomorrow and come up with some innovative solutions!
Respect National and International Holidays
If you’re from North America, you definitely don’t expect to work on Christmas or New Year’s Eve, so why would you expect someone from China to work on Chinese New Year, or someone from India to work on Holi? Though there will often be some overlapping holidays that span across different cultures, it’s important to respect that many countries have their own religious celebrations or unique cultural holidays that you may have never heard of. Respect these holidays and let remote teams located in different countries take some of their special days off without a fuss.
In order to keep track of the holidays for your remote team, it’s helpful to make a shared company calendar that has the national holidays for each country where a team member is based. I recommend using Google Calendar to create a shared holiday calendar to which each team member can add the days they won’t be working. This way, the rest of the team can plan ahead so projects and workflows don’t get too disrupted by someone’s absence.
Arrange a Team Trip If Possible
This one isn’t always realistic, since you might not have the budget for it. However, if you can make it happen, then plan a team getaway during which your multicultural team members can meet in person, get to know one another, and learn about each other’s cultures.
You could choose a neutral location where none of your team works, so everyone can experience something new together, or you could pick one of the countries where some of your remote team members are based and fly everyone out there to see where that part of the team works from.
The trip doesn’t have to be a total vacation on the beach, either. You could make it into a working vacation and get everyone together to collaborate on projects. Either way, a trip like this is sure to help your culturally-diverse team connect and communicate more effectively.
Learn Another Language
Though English is the international language of business and technology, there is no better way to connect with someone from another culture than by speaking their language. It doesn’t matter if you communicate with a common language like English for the majority of your business needs, you can still improve collaboration with multicultural teammates and show that you care about making a human connection with them by making an effort to learn some of their language.