How do I deal with offshore team who does not respond to my messages as they should or maybe it is not an issue in the first place?

Question

I went through this question but the accepted answer did not adequately answer my question. Primarily it puts blame on the OP to be more considerate to the offshore team. It also assumes the OP is expecting a real time response but that is not the case in my scenario.

Background

I manage a team off offshore support specialist. From time to time, we add/replace new members who need training and proper access to tools. We have to follow up on new team member to make sure they are progressing smoothly. I manage the whole team from onshore (though I am not their 'official' manager), we do have a team lead who is supposed to manage things offshore. There is 11-hour time difference.

Problems arises esp when onboarding new team members. Instead of team lead doing everything, I have to follow up on every single aspect of things or things will not move smoothly (Typical situation I guess) if I don't. Also, usually, I send them emails about various updates but most of the time they do not respond to it or acknowledge it. This kind of lessens the effectiveness of my emails. We have 11-hour time difference, and I am not asking response in my local time here. But I do want a response when they have closed their shift, they should respond to my emails (I believe). This is the big difference in the question I referenced earlier where the answer is assuming a real time response from the team whereas I am not.

The issue is if I do not ask for updates, no body give me updates even if days have passed. And even when I ask for updates, even then I have to remind repeatedly for them to give me updates about issues/actionable items/progress. This impedes work first of all and second, I think it show lack of respect and an unprofessional behavior where do they do not seem to understand the importance of an issue.

Yesterday, I sent an email to the new team member asking him if his issue was resolved (I personally followed up on his issue and got it resolved through support analyst). I copied Team lead on that email so he is aware of it and makes sure that he updates me but no one responded to me next morning. I then sent the team lead another reminder, "Is there any update on the issue", because I have to update the support team so they can close the ticket after I confirm that it is resolved. Only after that, the new person replied to me and confirmed that his issue is resolved and has proper access now. But there was no excuse that why he did not update me on time (remember I had to reach twice for a simple update).

Question

My question here are:

1. Is this an issue in the first place, that the team do not respond to my emails as they should? I had marked this email with high priority to make sure they take is seriously.

2. Does Team Lead have any responsibility of making sure that the concerned team member responds to my email? At least that is my expectations here.

3. Should I call a meeting with Team Lead to understand what the issues are and why thing need my repeated poking in order to get them resolved/closed.

This is not a onetime issue but recurring issue so posting here for help and guidance.

Possible underlying factors for such behavior

Some underlying factors that could be contributing factors are as follows:

1. Maybe Team is not trained on how to respond to emails?
2. I am not their 'official' manager which could be a contributing factor? I do not review them annually although I should. Someone else reviews them from offshore.
3. They may not be checking their emails (but I am sure Team Lead does though).
4. There is an issue with my communication. If so, how do I improve myself?

Kindly help :)

Answer 1

It sounds like your offshore team lead isn't doing their job to your satisfaction.

Make it clear to the team lead what you want, and when you want it. If they prove to be incapable of getting the job done, get rid of them and hire someone who can.

It's a manager's job to hold folks on their team accountable.

But if your onshore/offshore managerial setup means you actually have no authority in this matter, then you need to work through whoever does.

Answer 2

It's hard to give advice without seeing the interactions, but my guess from what you've said is the team aren't aware of what you need and the urgency behind it. There could also be a culture where their lead should respond, not them.

I've worked with a lot of offshore teams and solo developers. I'm the kind of person who'll go directly to whoever I need to. For some teams, that works great, but for others that's a big no-no. It's mostly been my colleagues in India where I need to ask a question to their manager/lead (even saying "Can you ask X..."), because the corporate or societal culture means I cannot skip the hierarchy. And I've never been a manager.

If you're a manager/lead, you could very well be insulting your colleague overseas by skipping them and going direct. If there's a lead offshore overseeing people, it's their job to oversee people. The team might also feel intimidated - "Why is the big senior person talking directly to me and not going through the hierarchy? Am I about to be fired?!"

I'd recommend reading The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business by Erin Meyer. Part of working with and managing overseas colleagues is accepting they don't have the same corporate or societal cultures that we do, and learning to identify the differences will go a long way towards improving the situation. You may not get what you want, but you'll learn how to work with this culture.

Answer 3

This isn't your problem to solve. It's a normal issue with many solid solutions, none of which should be your responsibility, so pass it up the hierarchy.

Solutions vary, one I have found to be very robust is some companies have one person whose main job is to facilitate communications and follow up between disparate offices. It's their task to make sure information is flowing and tasks are being done. They don't need to be skilled at the tasks, just make sure people are getting answers in reasonable timeframes and watching all communication traffic.

If it's your job to facilitate communications and you run in to problems like no answers or unreasonable timeframes. You just cc in the hierarchy. It won't take long before their managers are on their case about why it's not being resolved. Normally you cc in the hierarchy to start with as a standard practice. This puts the responsibility on them to manage their staff. You're just there to facilitate and highlight communication problems, not to resolve them.

Answer 4

If you don't have hiring/firing/evaluation authority, you may be a team leader but are not a manager. And if the actual manager isn't willing to back you up and tell folks they need to work better with you, and you can't convince them that keeping you in the loop will make their work better, you're a young codfish: scrod.