For Western organisations

This runs two ways

Your offshore team is being trained to work the way you expect. Almost nobody is training your managers to be worked with.

Work Global advises Western organisations in Australia, the UK, the US and Europe on the half of offshore delivery that sits on your side of the line: how your managers delegate, brief, review and read signals across distance, and the systems that make clarity, reliability and proactivity the default rather than the exception.

Start a Conversation See where it breaks
Where offshore delivery actually breaks

Not on the process work. On the judgement work.

Where a standard operating procedure exists, whether that is a documented process, a defined output or a checkable result, offshore delivery is usually fine. The SOP carries the context, and the work either matches it or it doesn't.

The trouble starts the moment work steps outside the SOP: a task with no precedent, an exception that has to be judged, a client email that needs an answer today, a first draft of something that has never been drafted before. That work depends on context, discretion and initiative. Those are three things a process document cannot transmit, and three things most offshore operating models never explicitly hand over.

It compounds where the work is delegated with real discretion, where management responsibility is moving offshore, and where review is light, because nobody is checking every output line by line, and nor should they have to. In that gap, decisions get made on assumptions, problems surface late, and both sides conclude the other is the problem.

The risk map

The higher the discretion, the thinner the system

Type of workHow it failsWhat we install
Outside the SOPThe task is done as literally described, not as intended; assumptions go unstated because asking looks like weaknessBriefing standards that state intent, constraints and the decision the work feeds
Delegated discretionJudgement calls are made silently, or escalated so late that the option set has closedExplicit decision rights and escalation thresholds: decide, flag, or stop
Management work moving offshoreAn offshore lead holds the responsibility but not the authority, the context or the air coverDelegation ladders, authority statements, and manager coaching on both sides
Limited reviewNobody sees the work until the client does; risk is invisible until it is expensiveProportionate review gates, sampling and a one-screen update standard
Client-facing workUpdates read as effort reports rather than answers; the client feels out of the loopBottom-line-up-front writing standards and an overnight handover rhythm

Most organisations respond to these failures by adding more process. That works on process work and makes discretionary work worse. The alternative is to make the expectations explicit and trainable on both sides of the relationship.

Their side

What offshore teams are never told

  • That Western managers read clarity, reliability and proactivity as proxies for competence
  • That a problem raised early is credit, not blame
  • That "any updates?" is a signal they have already lost confidence
  • That silence over a weekend reads as risk, not diligence
  • That questions asked before starting are cheaper than rework, and are welcome
Your side

What Western managers get wrong

  • Briefing the task and withholding the intent, then judging the interpretation
  • Delegating discretion without ever saying where it ends
  • Reading politeness or agreement as understanding
  • Treating "no news" as good news across a twelve-hour gap
  • Giving feedback so indirectly that it is heard as approval
  • Assuming an offshore lead can hold accountability they were never given authority for
What we do

Four things, in this order

01 · Diagnose

Delivery risk review

We map your offshore work by how much discretion it carries and how thinly it is reviewed, read a sample of real briefs, updates and escalations, and interview managers on both sides. You get a written assessment of where trust is failing, why, and what it is costing.

02 · Train your managers

Managing across distance

A working session for the people who brief, delegate and review offshore work: how to hand over intent as well as task, how to set the edges of discretion, how to ask questions that surface risk, and how to give feedback that lands across cultures. Practical, worked on your own live examples.

03 · Build the system

Operating standards

We draft the artefacts the model was missing: a briefing template for non-SOP work, decision rights and escalation thresholds, a one-screen update standard, an overnight handover rhythm, proportionate review gates, and onboarding that teaches both sides the same expectations.

04 · Reinforce

Both sides, same language

Your offshore team can be taken through the Trust Filter programs, either the Accelerator or an institutional cohort, while your managers work from the same framework. One vocabulary, used in both directions, is what makes the change hold.

Formats

Scaled to the decision you are trying to make

EngagementBest for
Executive briefing (90 minutes, online)Leadership teams deciding whether offshore friction is a capability problem or a systems problem
Delivery risk review (2–3 weeks)Organisations that know something is wrong but cannot yet name it
Manager workshop (half or full day)The managers, leads and PMs who brief and review offshore work day to day
Operating design sprintStanding up, restructuring or expanding an offshore function, including a captive or GCC
Paired programManager training here plus Accelerator or institutional training offshore, run together

Engagements are contracted with Work Global Pty Ltd, an Australian company, and invoiced in Australian dollars unless we agree otherwise. Australian clients are charged GST at 10%; clients outside Australia and India are invoiced GST-free as an export of services.

Michael Symons
Who delivers it

Michael Symons

Author of Passing the Global Test, and an Australian General Manager who has built and led teams across Australia, India and the Philippines. His background spans commercial law and investment analysis, including roles at UBS and KPMG, and he holds a PhD in Law from the University of Melbourne.

He has sat on both sides of this relationship: the manager waiting for an update, and the person accountable for the team sending it.

How it works

Four steps, no obligation

  1. 1  Send us a short note on your offshore footprint and what is not working
  2. 2  We respond within 1–2 business days with a view and a suggested starting point
  3. 3  A 45-minute conversation to test whether we are the right fit
  4. 4  A written proposal with scope, cost and what changes
Enquire

Tell us where your systems aren't working

No pitch deck, no obligation. The goal is to work out whether the friction you are seeing is a capability problem, a systems problem, or a bit of both.

Prefer email? Write to team@workglobal.org.

We respond within 1–2 business days.