Working remotely across borders, whether as a digital nomad, freelancer, or remote employee, opens up incredible opportunities. But it also brings unique challenges that many don’t anticipate: cultural differences that can impact everything from how we communicate to what’s considered “normal” workplace behavior.
The Culture Shock No One Talks About
When I was working with Net Registry (which was later acquired by Melbourne IT), I experienced a culture shock that perfectly illustrates this challenge. Every Friday, we were given beer stubs, yes, actual beer vouchers, because Friday was “beer day.” Just one beer, casual and social, right at the workplace.
Coming from a Philippine BPO background, this was completely unexpected. In the Philippines, consuming alcohol at work is typically prohibited, regardless of the day. Our local policies didn’t allow it, but our Australian client not only permitted it, they encouraged it as part of their workplace culture.
This small difference highlighted something bigger: what’s considered professional, appropriate, and even beneficial varies dramatically across cultures.
Why Cultural Fit Matters in Remote Work
When you’re working globally, cultural fit isn’t just about sharing company values. It’s about understanding and adapting to different cultural expectations around work itself.
Communication Styles
Direct vs. Indirect Communication: Some cultures (like Germany or the Netherlands) value direct, explicit feedback. Others (like Japan or the Philippines) prefer indirect communication to maintain harmony. In remote work, this can lead to misunderstandings when a manager from one culture thinks they’re being clear, while a team member from another culture reads between the lines for hidden meaning.
Formality Levels and Titles: How do you address people at work? This varies dramatically across cultures and can create real tension.
In Philippine BPO culture, using “sir” and “ma’am” is deeply ingrained. It’s a sign of respect for anyone in authority or perceived as higher in status. When I worked in tech support and customer service at a BPO, it was actually part of our script: “My name is Jaren. How may I help you? Can I get your name, please?” Once the customer gave their name, we were required to use it repeatedly throughout the call.
If you kept saying “sir” or “ma’am” instead of using the customer’s name, QA would ding you for “not proactively listening” or failing to personalize the interaction. Yet outside of those scripted customer calls, we’d still address supervisors, managers, or anyone senior as “sir” or “ma’am.” Even janitors would address office workers this way if there was a perceived hierarchy.
But here’s where it gets interesting: many Western cultures find this excessive formality uncomfortable. When Western managers tell their Filipino team members “Just call me by my name, drop the ‘sir,'” those colleagues often struggle because it feels disrespectful, even when explicitly asked to be informal.
I remember assisting a U-verse customer once. When I said “sir,” he immediately corrected me: “It’s Greg.” The next sentence, I slipped and said “sir” again. Clearly annoyed, he snapped: “I’m not knighted.”
To him, being called “sir” felt overly formal, stiff, maybe even sarcastic. To me, it was ingrained cultural respect that came out automatically.
I grew up in the Philippines, worked in call centers here, and I’m used to both cultures. Even I prefer people to just use my name without the “sir,” but I understand why the habit is so hard to break. It’s deeply ingrained from childhood: respect means formality, especially toward anyone perceived as higher in status.
Meanwhile, Western managers often prefer first-name basis from day one. The challenge in remote work? You might have Philippine team members calling their Australian manager “Sir John” while he’s repeatedly asking them to just say “John,” and both sides feel like the other isn’t respecting their preferences.
Work-Life Boundaries
The beer Friday example represents a broader philosophy about work-life integration. Australian and some European cultures often see socializing at work (including moderate alcohol consumption) as team-building. Other cultures maintain stricter separation between professional and personal life.
Consider also:
- Lunch breaks: 30-minute desk lunches vs. two-hour meal breaks
- After-hours contact: Some cultures expect 24/7 availability; others have strict no-contact rules after work hours
- Vacation attitudes: Using all your leave days vs. the unspoken expectation to leave days unused
Hiring Practices and Expectations
Cultural differences show up even before you start working:
Interview Styles: Some cultures expect aggressive self-promotion during interviews. Others value humility, and talking too much about your achievements can come across as arrogant.
Resume Expectations: Should you include a photo? Your age? Marital status? In some countries, this information is standard. In others, it’s illegal for employers to request it.
Work Samples vs. Credentials: Some cultures heavily weight formal education and certifications. Others prioritize portfolios and demonstrated skills.
Contract vs. Relationship: In some cultures, the contract is everything. Stick to what’s written. In others, flexibility and relationship-building matter more than what’s on paper.
The Darker Side: When Cultural Differences Turn Toxic
But let me be real about the BPO experience in the Philippines, because it’s not all about charming cultural quirks or interesting differences.
The BPO Dream That Wasn’t
In the early 2000s, BPO work was THE job to have. We’re talking 25,000 pesos monthly. Back then, that competed with managerial positions. You worked nights, sat in an air-conditioned office, and earned what felt like real money. People thought you had it made.
What they didn’t see was what happened on those calls.
You’re doing tech support or customer service, talking to Americans, all walks of life. Most are fine. But when you get someone who’s pissed about their billing, furious about a service outage, already angry at the company, and then they hear your accent or catch a slight issue with your diction? That becomes the trigger.
“You’re a monkey.” “Your name is garlic.” (mocking Filipino names) Racial slurs I won’t repeat here.
And you absorb it. For 8 hours straight.
Now imagine there’s an internet outage. High call volume. Your supervisor hands you a script. You’re expected to handle each call in 7 minutes or less. That’s your metric, your stat that determines if you keep this “good” job. You repeat that same script about the same outage, 80 to 100 times in your shift. Different caller, same anger, same racist comments from some, same 7-minute timer ticking.
That’s the reality of cultural differences that no one talks about: you’re trained to be professional, to use “sir” and “ma’am,” to follow the script, to represent the American company perfectly, while being subjected to abuse specifically because you’re Filipino, because you’re the “outsourced” worker, because your cultural background makes you an easy target for frustrated customers.
The cultural expectation? Absorb it. Stay professional. Hit your metrics. Don’t let it affect your tone. Next call.
This surveillance and metrics obsession isn’t unique to customer service BPOs. Many Philippine VA companies operate the same way, calling themselves “remote work” while implementing time trackers and webcam monitoring. Read more about this distinction in Remote Work Isn’t Just Work From Home.
The English Paradox in Philippine BPOs
Here’s another layer most people don’t understand: Most Filipinos grow up learning English in school. It’s our second language. We can read and understand it perfectly. Our official documents, textbooks, business communications are all in English or Filipino. But speaking it fluently? That’s different.
Many Filipinos mix Taglish (Tagalog-English) in daily conversation because it’s natural and easier. Speaking pure English was often associated with being “rich” or “conyo” (wealthy, Westernized). For the average Filipino, we had the comprehension but not always the confidence to speak English fluently in daily life.
Then BPOs came along and changed that, for better and worse.
BPOs forced thousands of Filipinos to speak English for 8 hours a day, every day. It built confidence and fluency. But it also created a weird social dynamic. Suddenly you had call center agents who’d spent years perfecting their “American accent” for work, and some would slip into that mode outside of work, at McDonald’s, at the mall, complaining to service staff in full English with an American twang.
There were stories (maybe gossip, maybe real, but telling either way) of former call center agents demanding “I want to speak to your manager” in perfect English at local restaurants when their food wasn’t right. It became a stereotype: the BPO worker who forgot how to code-switch, who brought their customer service persona into everyday Filipino interactions where it felt out of place, almost pretentious.
The BPO industry boosted our English confidence and opened global opportunities, but it also created this tension about language, class, and identity that still exists today.
When Hierarchy Kills Relationships
Here’s another painful reality of the sir/ma’am culture in BPOs: how quickly it can poison relationships when someone gets promoted, especially when office politics are involved.
I was in line for promotion, maybe SME (Subject Matter Expert), Team Leader, or trainer. Meanwhile, a newer agent kept asking me for help. My team lead told me to assist him, to train him. So I did my job: I taught him our processes, best practices, troubleshooting hacks, everything. I’d even put customers on hold mid-call to quickly help him with his issues because it was easier to teach him properly than let him struggle.
Our tenure difference? Just a few months. I got regularized first, then he came in and eventually got regularized too.
Then HE got promoted to QA before me. Quality Assurance, the people who listen to your calls and score you. Maybe he knew the right people. Maybe he had connections with the Operations Manager. Who knows how these things actually work in BPOs.
The most insulting part? I went to talk to him casually one day. “Hey man, what’s up? How’s your day?”
His response: “Call me sir.”
Looking back, I think he did that to wipe the slate clean, to get out of owing me anything. And he did owe me. I never intended to cash that in, never did that to anyone. But he wanted that hierarchy barrier up so he wouldn’t have to acknowledge what I’d done for him.
I got promoted a few months later. He couldn’t even look me in the eye after that. I almost confronted him in the parking lot. Good thing someone else beat me to it, probably even more pissed than I was.
That’s the toxic side of this cultural formality. It can instantly erase relationship and camaraderie the moment someone moves up even one tiny step in the org chart through politics or connections. It turns mentorship into subservience, and collaboration into hierarchy enforcement. The culture gives people permission to forget who helped them get there, to hide behind titles when they don’t want to face what they owe.
The Digital Nomad Dimension
For digital nomads, these challenges multiply. You might be:
- A Philippine citizen
- Working for an Australian company
- While living in Portugal
- Managing a team in India
Each layer adds cultural complexity. You’re not just bridging your culture and your employer’s culture. You’re navigating the local culture where you’re living, which affects everything from your work hours (timezone considerations) to your internet reliability to local attitudes about working from cafes.
Understanding these distinctions between remote workers, freelancers, and digital nomads is crucial. For more on how these classifications differ, check out The Realities of Remote Work: 10 Things You Must Know.
Practical Strategies for Cultural Navigation
These strategies work across all types of remote arrangements, whether you’re a full-time remote employee, freelancer, or digital nomad navigating multiple cultures simultaneously.
1. Ask Questions Early
Don’t assume. When starting with a new client or company, ask about:
- Communication preferences (Slack? Email? How quickly should you respond?)
- Meeting etiquette (cameras on or off? punctuality expectations?)
- Work hour expectations (core hours? flexible scheduling?)
- Social norms (team building activities? optional or expected?)
2. Observe Before Diving In
Watch how others on the team operate before establishing your own patterns. Notice:
- How do people sign off messages?
- Do they share personal information or keep things strictly professional?
- What’s the response time norm for different communication channels?
3. Embrace Explicit Communication
In cross-cultural remote work, over-communication is better than under-communication. Don’t rely on context that might not translate:
- State intentions clearly: “I’m signing off now” rather than just going offline
- Confirm understanding: “Just to make sure I understood correctly…”
- Document decisions: Recap meetings in writing so everyone’s on the same page
4. Build Cultural Bridges
Share your cultural context when relevant: “In my previous company in the Philippines, we did this differently. How does your team usually handle this?”
This not only helps you learn but educates others about your perspective.
5. Flex, But Know Your Boundaries
Cultural adaptation is important, but you don’t need to abandon your values or accept abuse. If something makes you genuinely uncomfortable (not just unfamiliar), it’s okay to respectfully decline or find middle ground. And you should never be expected to absorb racist abuse as part of “professionalism.”
For Employers and Team Leaders
If you’re managing global or remote teams:
Create explicit guidelines: Don’t assume cultural norms are universal. Document your expectations around communication, meetings, feedback, and work hours.
Provide cultural context: When introducing a practice (like beer Fridays), explain the “why” behind it and make it genuinely optional, not just technically optional.
Encourage cultural sharing: Create spaces for team members to share their backgrounds and work cultures. This builds empathy and understanding.
Be flexible: One-size-fits-all policies often fit no one well. Where possible, allow for cultural adaptation within team standards. Understanding and adapting to cultural differences is part of building leverage in global teams. Learn more about becoming indispensable in Mastering Remote Work Leverage.
Protect your team from abuse: If your team faces customer-facing racist abuse, don’t just tell them to “stay professional.” Create escalation paths, support systems, and make it clear that abuse is never acceptable.
The Bottom Line
Cultural differences in remote work aren’t obstacles to overcome. They’re realities to navigate. The most successful remote workers and global teams aren’t those who try to force everyone into one cultural mold. They’re the ones who build bridges, ask questions, and approach differences with curiosity rather than judgment.
Whether it’s beer Fridays, communication styles, or hiring practices, these differences reflect deeper values and traditions. Understanding them makes you not just a better remote worker, but a more effective global citizen.
But let’s also be real: some “cultural differences” are just toxic workplace practices dressed up as culture. Absorbing racist abuse isn’t cultural adaptation. It’s exploitation. Office politics that reward connections over competence isn’t cultural hierarchy. It’s broken systems. Know the difference.
What cultural differences have surprised you in your remote work journey? Share your experiences in the comments below.
Working across cultures? Remember: different isn’t wrong, it’s just different. But abuse is abuse in any culture. Stay curious, communicate clearly, protect your boundaries, and keep building those bridges.
WFH Survival Architect • Licensed Procrastination Consultant
Former BPO survivor turned remote work architect. Spent years absorbing “sir/ma’am” culture and racist customer calls at 2 AM so you don’t have to. Now I help people navigate the actual reality of working globally, minus the corporate BS. Built RemoteWorkHaven.net for remote workers who are tired of toxic “hustle culture” advice and want systems that actually work across borders and time zones.
No productivity theater. Just how your brain actually works.
