Understanding the Cultural Diversity of Your Offshore Team to Make a Connect

Almost 99.9% of businessmen are frightened to trust Offshored companies. It is human nature to fear experiencing new things. Probably that’s why we fear building new relationships with people from other cultures. But then, how are you supposed to build trust when you are so frightened?

• First, understanding that “offshoring is no rocket science” will help you calm your fears.
• Second, your offshoring team is also humans. (They might have some similar worries too).

In reality, we don’t fear people; we fear ‘Cultural Diversity and the inability to cope with it. Plus, we fear trusting people sitting in the other corner of the world; we fear our inability to build a trustworthy connection.

Together it makes a deadly combination, which pushes you to be more doubtful about offshoring a team.

However, you might be limiting your possibilities and opportunities to grow by letting these doubts fear you.

This learning session will help you grow out of all such fears, build a stronger bond with the offshoring team, and manage it all while understanding cultural diversity. So, without further ado, let’s get started! Exploring the Cultural Diversity of Your Offshored Team

You might have heard ‘culturally diverse’ interchangeably with the term ‘multiculturalism.’ Wikipedia defines it as, “Cultural diversity is the quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to monoculture, the global monoculture, or a homogenization of cultures, akin to cultural evolution. The term cultural diversity can also refer to having different cultures respect each other’s differences. Moreover, it is often used to mention the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region or in the world as a whole. It refers to the inclusion of different cultural perspectives in an organization or society.”

It is challenging to trust new people in the beginning. However, with the constant communication, their tone of voice and body language (over video meets) might help gain confidence with time. For that, you (as a remote employer) need to put in efforts to build better relationships and understanding with them.

👉🏻 Note: Always remember that you both share different cultures and the space. So, give them enough time to understand you and vice versa. After all, it takes time to build good relationships and trust.

Of course, you want to make it happen (but being patient is the key) in this case. Also, shift your focus to these points:

1. Invest Efforts and Time in Building Stronger Bond

A weak bond between you and your offshoring team can ruin productivity in the long run. Hence, it is essential to invest time and effort in building stronger bonds. But how does that happen?

With more frequent communication — either audio or video interaction- it is possible to know them and their culture better. Invest more time in team-building activities, which is an effective way to improve work relationships. Basically, it has to start with ‘a warm-up’ followed by team activities and then constant communication.

But we don’t recommend being super serious all the time. That might help you complete tasks on time, but building relationships has to be given priority. And, that happens when you kick in some fun factor in your interaction. *Don’t be too serious*

Simply put, a balance of being serious when needed and being chilled at times will help you build a stronger bond with your offshoring partner.

2. Be Accessible, Don’t Disappear

Many fail to build a reliable connection with offshoring partners. And, the reason is disappearing when you should have been actively communicating with them. We get the fact that they are responsible for handling it all (and they might be doing it well). But, remember they belong to different cultures, and there is a lot for you to learn, a lot to understand about them.

The worst you can do to ruin your relationship with the offshoring team is Disappear. Building a connection will not happen overnight, just like Rome was not built in a day. It takes efforts from both sides. It takes time to make a bond and maintain it. So, the best you can do is be ACCESSIBLE!

Also, it is not about being physically present all the time. Even a message or greeting would help them feel your presence.

Why not allocate meetings more often? Your relationship being long distant, it is critical to connect virtually once in a while. Invest time in:

• Getting daily updates
• Track and monitor their work regularly
• Allocate meetings more often
• Share your schedule with your teams
• Encourage regular communication

3. The Key is ‘Show Interest in Understanding Their Culture’

You have invested in communicating with them, and you have had enough meetings to interact with them. Does it make sense to still understand their culture?

Just imagine working with two employees — one who often talks to you about your culture, language, and what happens in your country. And, the other who just does his work and never takes an interest in finding a common point between you two.

Well, of course, everyone loves talking about their culture. And, it always interests people to talk about something in common with the other person. Simply put, it makes them feel connected and happy.

Getting a sense of their culture helps build a stronger connection. When you work with your partner, you remain entirely in immersion — you understand their culture, how the differences in culture work, and everything in between.

This makes them feel that you are genuinely interested in building a good long-term relationship with them. Nothing temporary, just fulfilling the purpose to get work done. Understanding their culture will help:

• Create better relationships
• Establish much-needed trust factor
• Understand how and why they behave the particular way
• Predict their behavior better

It is simple, the better you get to know them, the better for your business. Conclusion

The offshoring trend is sloping upwards with time. Eventually, businesses will have to adapt to this growing culture to fulfill their business needs for accessing diverse talent across the globe.

Don’t let your doubts keep you from scaling up your business. Overcome these fears in the right way. And, with these steps, you can genuinely do that. As we said, talking solves almost all concerns, doubts, and problems — it is time you speak to an offshoring expert who is proficient in explaining all about offshoring to you.

• You will be able to make a better decision for your offshoring teams
• Learn to build a better connection with your team
• Understand their culture better
• And, basically, learn everything that will solve all your offshoring-related concerns.

Your custom offshoring EXPERT is just a click away! Originally Posted at Your Team In India. Click here to read more.