We talk to expats who find that working in two time zones can often mean working longer hours and offer some tips on how to keep a better work/life balance.

People never remember what time zone you're in

Ebele Okobi-Harris is a one-woman expatriate show in Europe for Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit research group. Okobi-Harris, 30, is Catalyst's only expatriate employee and works out of Amsterdam, juggling business trips, lunch meetings, conference calls, and other scheduling challenges to promote her organisation to prospective clients.

With a six-hour time difference between Catalyst's New York headquarters and Amsterdam - and a nine-hour difference between its regional office in San Jose, California - the senior associate often works into the night so she can talk with her colleagues. Often, she's exhausted.

Determined to craft a schedule that better fit her expatriate lifestyle, Okobi-Harris settled on a unique plan: on Mondays and Fridays, she works from noon to 8:30 pm. On other work days, she toils from 9 am to noon, takes a break, starts again at 5 pm and stays until late in the evening.

"People never remember what time zone you're in," says Okobi-Harris. "I decided that I was going to make up my own schedule. I wanted to be available to our European clients and have meetings in Europe but didn't want to be in a position where I missed the [US] West Coast."

Lives Out of Balance

Working abroad brings its own unique challenges, ranging from learning a new language to navigating a new work environment, city and culture. Companies may prepare expatriate employees for these issues through pre-screenings, cross-cultural training programs or by pairing them with mentors who have worked abroad. But employers often fail to flag the lack of work-life balance that afflicts many expatriates in today's global economy.

"An international assignment is no honeymoon," says Scott Sullivan, a senior vice president at GMAC Global Relocation Services, an Oak Brook, Ill., firm that assists corporations with relocation. "You need to be hearty, and you need to know going into your assignment that it's going to be a big time commitment."

Expatriates may work longer hours abroad than in the US because, like Okobi-Harris, they have to communicate with headquarters on a regular basis - and that means getting up early, staying up late or talking shop on weekends.

Foreign offices may be more thinly staffed than US branches, so expatriates may have travel commitments on top of their regular duties. Cultural issues play a role, too. If, for example, the workweek in a foreign country lasts six days, an expatriate may be expected to keep those hours.

Clearly, expats feel the strain. When Cendant Mobility, a relocation-consulting concern owned by Cendant Corp., surveyed 548 expatriates, 57.9 percent said less contact with friends had diminished their quality of life while 51.7 percent lamented the lack of contact with family.

Keeping Saudi Time

For John Rason, relocating to Saudi Arabia for UK telecommunications company Cable & Wireless Group PLC in the early 1990s meant shifting his working hours to Saturday through Wednesday, because Friday is a holy day there and in other Middle Eastern countries.

Suddenly, his working hours were "a lot longer than in London" and his weekends (now officially Thursday and Friday, although he also worked many Thursday mornings) weren't sacrosanct.

Phone calls from his London office would come in even when he was playing tennis on one of those days off. To solve the problem, Rason proposed having an alternating schedule for conference calls - one week, he'd work on his weekend day (Thursday), and the next, his colleagues in London would work on theirs (Saturday).

To gain free time, work out your new schedule with superiors back home, he advises. "Make sure that they clearly understand that nobody minds being phoned if it's something critical," he counsels. But "don't assume that we're going to work seven days a week for the sake of it, when there's no need to do so."

Social Functions Can Be Work

A requirement to socialise with clients and co-workers is another factor complicating expats' work-life balance. In many countries, building close personal relationships is key to doing business.

That means overseas employees are expected to spend so-called free time socialising with clients or work colleagues. In Japan, for example, employees often eat meals together, while in continental Europe, long client lunches are normal. However, the home office may not recognise that these aren't carefree social events, but rather, extended meetings.

Some expatriates also fail to take enough time off because they believe they should be working harder to justify their overseas pay packages. "As an expatriate, I knew I was costing more money (to the firm) and I was there for a reason, and therefore, I felt more responsibility on myself to be working hard," says Rason.

Updated September 2005

[Copyright Expatica 2005]

Subject:  Employment, Time Zones