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10 Tips for Dealing with a Remote Team and Different Time Zones

The dissemination of information comes in several forms and a good communication format can make a tremendous difference in an organization, especially working with teams across different time zones. Making use of communication platforms like Slack and Discord can be an effective way to always keep the team in the loop.

While it may seem strange to let people work at all times of the day, you’re already going to be doing that indirectly by https://remotemode.net/ working across time zones. A great way to introduce a more async, documentation culture is to build an employee handbook.

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Aside from calendars, it also just takes more effort to stay connected with the team in general. This is especially true the smaller your team is as it may be more uncommon for members to be in the same time zone.

It is therefore a good practice for a company to inform their employees prior to hiring that they will be required to work overlapping hours to ensure the company runs smoothly. It also prepares the team mentally and helps them to divide, manage their workload effectively knowing time overlap is a requirement to keep the company moving forward. Finding the right time to schedule meetings is the most common challenging part when having a team working in different time zones. It is a rather difficult task to find the right time to set up a meeting where the entire team can attend. To make this work, a lot of compromises and sacrifices have to be made by each team member in order to scale up the company. In this article, we’ll tackle the biggest struggles for those who have freelance jobs online, or any professional who has been freelancing remotely for years.

Pro: You can work with the most talented people

Getting used to higher autonomy and async communication can be challenging, but there are more and more companies doing it–and doing it well. Check out our post on 100+ fully remote companies for more examples.

  • This leads to a better run company, less stress, and higher quality work.
  • Asana/Trello When teams are looking to collaborate, Trello and Asana are great project management tools.
  • To learn more about tools and software that can help global and remote teams, check out this helpful list.
  • VISUALIZE TIME ZONES. There is a great app called timezone.io, which visually shows on one screen where all of your teammates are in the world and their time zone.
  • Teams employing a globally distributed workforce should pay special attention to learning and optimizing for different cultural specifics.
  • Pinpoint and resolve your organization’s culture challenges with the latest research and expert guidance.

For asynchronous collaboration to work, teams need clear processes and guidelines on hand at all times to get a clear direction and understanding of priorities, boundaries, and goals. With the limited opportunities for verbal communication and even virtual meetings across time zones, distributed teams need to rely on written working across time zones and video records to obtain all the information. Additionally, team members can create a shared document with their work schedules highlighting no-contact hours to ensure clear boundaries are being set and respected. Studies have shown that companies that have shifted to remote work culture have increased productivity.

Looking for a remote job or to hire remote employees?

Number six, record your meetings for the people that can be there. Despite the very obvious benefits of having diverse remote teams and colleagues, most companies are still trying to figure out how to work successfully across different timezones. Here are some tips for remote employees and remote companies on how to make meeting across time zones work a little bit more effectively. At Culture Amp, we have offices in San Francisco, New York, and London with our headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, and remote employees across the world. On Fridays in the US, the Melbourne team is already gone for the weekend, and on Mondays in Australia, our US folks are still wrapping up their Sunday dinners. Here are a few tools we use to stay connected and some tips on what we’ve learned about operating and having meetings as a distributed organization. To successfully utilize key principles of asynchronous communication to their advantage, distributed teams need to prioritize efficient, written communication.

  • An enormous amount of effort is needed to overcome this particular downside of global remote work.
  • If you’re based in your office headquarters, Kelly says you should “remember that your counterparts in most international offices are accustomed to working odd shifts all the time.”
  • Expecting your teammates to be “always-on” doesn’t create the best culture and might make them feel disrespected.
  • More surprisingly, only 2% of the respondents operate in a single timezone.
  • The social disconnect can breed various productivity and personal obstacles that could wreak havoc on your organization over time.

Sometimes, scheduling a meeting at a time that works for all timezones is easier said than done. For example, if you’re based in the U.S. and have teams in Asia and California, finding a time that fits into everyone’s schedules and usual work hours can be tricky. When your global teammates feel like their schedule is respected, they might feel happier at their job, less stressed, or have an easier time tuning out of work communication outside of their main work hours. Ultimately, these things will help boost job retention, productivity, and your team’s overall performance. As a hardworking employee located farther away from your company’s office, you might find feel pressure to say yes to every meeting you’re invited to. Additionally, you might also find it hard to say no to meetings — or suggest other times — for meetings scheduled outside of your regular working hours.

Greenwich Mean Time

So even though there’s a great distance between each other, the time zones are actually very close by. DOUBLE CHECK TIMES.We all make mistakes, so find a way to get your time zones right. There are many tools for this, including timezoneconverter.com. ORGANIZE YOUR TEAM WELL.Instead of going from east to west, try organizing your teams from north to south. Even though there’s a great distance between each other, the time zones are generally closer. Real-time collaborating sometimes isn’t as productive as we like to think it is.

working across multiple time zones

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