Page 276 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

258 Dubai & Co.

TABLE 9.1
Misaligned Workweeks

Market Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
UAE
Qatar
Bahrain
Saudi
Arabia
Kuwait
Oman
US/EU
Asia

midday prayer itself is about an hour long and there is no religious
prohibition against working at other times during the day, Friday
has evolved into a customary day off for religious, family, and social
activity. 32 Historically, the weekend for the GCC countries was
Thursday and Friday, but half the states have switched to Friday
and Saturday for easier coordination with global markets. At the
time of this writing, Kuwait was considering making the shift, too. 33
If the change goes through, only Saudi Arabia and Oman will be left
on the Thursday-Friday schedule.
The complications arising from these staggered schedules are
significant. One challenge they create is that of finding times in
which to make conference calls and meetings that don’t conflict
with somebody’s day off. As is evident from Table 9.1, there are
only three days—Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday—when
Western and all GCC markets are open. This creates a coordination
window of only 60 percent of the week. The coordination challenge
is made even greater by the significant time difference between the
GCC and other major business cities. Table 9.2 below summarizes
the time difference during standard time (not daylight savings
time), when the gap is greatest.
Four of the Gulf states are three hours ahead of Greenwich
mean time; the UAE and Oman are four hours ahead. During day-
light savings time in the United States and the UK, the gaps are