Working Across Time Zones: Best Practices and Tools

Despite the obvious challenges, including the problem of scheduling meetings across time zones with extreme time differences, the benefits still largely outweigh the limitations — at least from a business perspective. And companies can leverage the benefits of having workers across the nation—and the world. Asynchronous communication should be the norm for remote teams, especially those with personnel in multiple time zones. Meetings can be set up according to each manager’s personal time zone, leaving everyone scrambling to come up with their own time zone. Having an official time zone means everyone will set and communicate deadlines and meetings using the same time zone, regardless of their location.

If a meeting is necessary, make attendance optional so you’re not asking teammates to stay up late to get up early. If it’s recurring and unavoidable (and it often will be), try to schedule meeting times so that the burden is shared across the team rather than by the same people each week. working remotely in a different time zone Even the most introverted remote workers need social interaction, humans just aren’t designed for solitude. In this article, we will share some tips for managing time zones when working globally. When we meet someone new, we frequently think they are in the same time zone as ourselves.

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To help your distributed workforce connect, consider facilitating live meetups when possible. Some of the best practice examples suggest encouraging employees to craft their own shared experiences in company team chat apps. The most popular company channels in team chat apps usually include those public, #random channels, or some more specific channels that gather people who share the same interests (e.g. #books, #gaming, #memes). Ideally, these virtual spaces would inspire teams to add to the informal chat thread, regardless of the time they logged in. For one, organizations should consider setting and respecting their team’s time zone boundaries.

• Probably one of the most talked-about challenges of working in different time zones is the effort it takes to schedule meetings.
• Notion, Confluence, and even Google Drive can all be used to document best practices and processes on an internal wiki.
• This distraction-free concentration pushes your cognitive abilities to their limit and creates new value, improves skills, and is hard to replicate in our world of instant satisfaction.
• If so, then you know the challenges in staying on the same page that come with working remotely.
• Meetings can be set up according to each manager’s personal time zone, leaving everyone scrambling to come up with their own time zone.
• This means that the company is in a better position to acquire a diverse workforce that is tailor-made for the organization and also has employees with vast experience.

Enforcing and executing assigned tasks where there isn’t proper effective communication can be a daunting experience. In such situations, time and resources which could have been allocated somewhere else are usually wasted on trying to get the job done. “Scheduling meetings and collaboration sessions can be challenging,” Erhard agreed.

Working Across Time Zones Can Be Tough. Here’s How To Do It Right.

Death rates are currently stable, though they tend to lag slightly behind hospitalizations. Thankfully this isn’t a big issue, but as our team grows, it will become a challenge. More clearly communicating goals and aligning team members will be the way that we try to address this challenge. Second, hiring individuals who are willing to be flexible when necessary to coordinate with team members and get work done.

Typically, we try to be mindful of what time it is for others when we use synchronous communication like video or Slack. This keeps us from asking a teammate to dive into a brand-new project if they’re just about to jump off for their evening, for example. This visual time zone converter makes calculating the time difference between two locations simple. With our platform of pre-configured talent acquisition and talent management solutions, maximize the potential of your company’s greatest asset—your people. There are ways to combat the difficulties of working across time zones that can be adopted as part of constructing a good working culture as a developer. Below we will take a closer look at the pros and cons of working across time zones and possible ways a company can mitigate the limitations that come with this kind of organizational structure.

Challenges of Managing Time Zones Efficiently Collaborating Across Different Geographical Locations

They help keep everyone on the same page and ensure that work is organized and progressing smoothly. Companies can consider implementing split shifts or workdays that cater to different time zones. This allows team members to have overlapping hours of work, fostering collaboration and connection. Different cultures may have varying expectations and norms when it comes to work hours and communication. Being aware of and respectful towards these cultural differences can foster better collaboration and understanding among team members.

• It is also possible to include meeting location options like a physical address, phone number, or Zoom link.
• Meeting windows may be narrow, and there may be inconsistent collaboration and communication due to time differences.
• Consider using communication tools that support different time zones and can convert time zones automatically.
• In such situations, time and resources which could have been allocated somewhere else are usually wasted on trying to get the job done.
• When working with a distributed team, it’s important to understand the differences between sync and async communication, and the extreme importance of asynchronous communication.
• Staff – particularly very good ones – will always want to move on to new challenges, but focusing on retention strategies means the best people are more likely to remain happy and engaged.

Here, I have some tips that will help you collaborate effectively and resolve your time zone challenges. Moreover, companies should rethink the overall effectiveness of each meeting. It’s a good practice to schedule the meetings only for the exchange of information that can’t be communicated over a team chat app, a document, an email, or a memo. Sure, a team brainstorming session is most effective over a video conference, however, a general weekly update doesn’t necessarily require a 5 a.m. That, perhaps, is the greatest reason that it’s tough to add remote work—and especially a time shift—to teams with years of experience working together in an office. It’s absolutely possible to do great work with a dispersed team, but you must plan work accordingly.