Making use of communication platforms like Slack and Discord can be an effective way to always keep the team in the loop. Constant communication on future events, reminders to join certain meetings can be done on these platforms. Team members working in different time zones are also able to communicate with each other, getting to know each other’s times and their productive hours as well. Overall such information has to be as clear as it can be and if there is a language barrier, grouping team members according to their languages can be a good tactical move. It is therefore important to note that communication is the backbone of every organization, even more important to companies that have employees that work across time zones. It saves time, money, and resources are allocated effectively and put into efficient use.
Set clear boundaries
To prevent confusion, always specify the time zone when scheduling an email or meeting. For example, if you’re sending an email to a colleague in another time zone, scheduling the email to arrive during their morning hours (e.g., 9 AM their time) can ensure it’s received at an optimal time. Many modern email platforms and scheduling tools offer time zone awareness as a built-in feature. For example, Gmail, Outlook, and other email providers offer the ability to set the time zone when composing an email or scheduling a message for later delivery. This structured process ensures that new team members can integrate smoothly into distributed teams, even across different time zones.
Understanding My Time Zone: A Guide to Time Zones and Their Impact on Daily Life
- For example, familiarity with Western work culture often helps new team members integrate more smoothly .
- Finding success in a remote job isn’t just about improving your remote work skills.
- Rather than working the same number of hours consecutively, split your shift into two.
- Implementing strategies for overcoming time zone differences can bring a variety of benefits to remote teams.
That might mean you can move to a city where it’s easier to start a family, or extend your “vacation” to a few months on the beach each year. You might even find time to visit some of the incredible cities on Nomad List while still contributing your all to your team. You might find that there’s no perfect time for your team, but at least you’ll find options that aren’t excruciating. Plus, you can add the correct time to your calendar in just a click, if you’d like.
Utilize Project Management Tools
- When you work with people in different time zones, it’s important to set expectations around your availability.
- Let’s say that you live and work in London and your colleagues in Shanghai.
- With tools for role transparency, learning and development, and performance management, your people will be aligned toward a shared goal and business success.
Political, cultural, geographic, and economic reasons meant most countries fiddled with the ideal. With a small investment of your time, you can not only help your own business, you can help a person or people around the world by providing a job and steady income. Companies often solve time zone issues by outsourcing to countries around the world. Call centers, manufacturing, software development, and administrative tasks can happen anywhere in the world now. Especially for small business owners, foreign outsourcing might feel a little scary—how will you know if they’re working and doing a good job? Give your customers a sense of comfort by communicating as constantly as appropriate.
When working on a report, for example, globally distributed teammates won’t necessarily have the opportunity to ping a coworker and get the missing info right away. This is why it’s paramount to keep detailed written records of all the processes and projects. Make sure to always assess each document, guide, or message for clarity. Also, ensure every person involved has the right admin access to avoid late-night calls, hold-ups, and rescheduling. 🎓 To learn more about the pros and cons of asynchronous communication for remote teams, be sure to check out our in-depth guide on the blog. Asynchronous communication has emerged as a preferred method for organizations operating across time zones.
Schedule Skype living and working in different time zones or Facetime calls every once in a while, to keep the human element involved. Don’t be annoyingly present but be easily reachable during normal business hours—and after hours, actually. For an even simpler way to see what time it is around the world, check out Every Time Zone. It shows the current time in your own city, along with others in popular time zones around the world. Then, if you want another easy way to know what time it is everywhere your team’s located, you can turn on the World clock in the Calendar Labs settings.
Adapt Your Work Schedule
This way, you will not lose productivity time while waiting for additional information or confirmation from employees. The main problems and difficulties will arise with the communication order determination, especially when one team has already started or has completed tasks and the second one has just begun. To clear up this predicament, there are ways to eliminate the time difference, which will increase communication efficiency. One of the most overlooked strategies to maintain a healthy work-life balance when working in a different time zone is to take regular breaks.
You will have set a time zone for a scheduled meeting in Microsoft Teams once the steps have been completed. Microsoft Teams will then proceed to adjust your scheduled meeting to the time zone you have set within the program. No additional changes need to be made once the steps above have been completed. You can use some of the in-depth points we have shown above to complete the steps without issues. If you need more help scheduling a Microsoft Teams meeting for a different time zone, you can use the in-depth guide to help. The in-depth guide includes screenshots that will allow you to navigate through the Microsoft Teams UI so you can schedule a meeting for a different time zone.
In order for the company to be effective and at the same time productive, adaptation will be the key to unlocking that potential. The question will be how then do we ensure that the work environment is flexible enough for all team members across all time zones? 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. Collaborating in a remote team spanning across different time zones can be a huge challenge. Most teams experience delays in communication hindering the progress or deployment of a product.
Individual characteristics like gender and cultural context may lead to disparities in productivity and engagement. For example, women are less likely to communicate outside of business hours than men are, possibly because of the added responsibility that many women assume in home life. Employees based in jurisdictions with stricter limits on working hours are also less likely to communicate outside of working hours. And if a firm’s management places a premium on synchronous forms of communication, these differences could lead to disparities in pay and career advancement emerging over time.
To address these questions, the research team analyzed communications data from more than 12,000 employees at a Fortune 100 multinational firm with operations around the globe. Published in the journal Organization Science, the research found that employees do something called “time shifting” to counteract the effect of temporal distance. This involves employees choosing to engage in work tasks or communications to accommodate varying schedules or to meet urgent demands of the job. Take time to grab virtual coffees with your teammates one-on-one or in small groups, and schedule online game nights for the entire team. Consider providing a dial-in option for events like a holiday party or quarterly social if your team is partially remote. It’s even possible to take your Meeting Owl to happy hour if you wish.
Evaluate available space and room usage
However, it is well worth taking the time to have fun as well as talk about work. Requiring that your teammates are always available does not create a good company culture and might hurt morale. You can avoid this by minimizing your messaging after hours and being patient if you don’t get an immediate answer. It is likely that a truly great teammate will contact you when they start to work the next day.
Boost your energy in the morning before work
Whether you prefer grocery shopping, gym workouts, or other errands, performing these tasks during quieter hours can save time and enhance your overall experience. Additionally, having a unique schedule allows families or individuals with non-traditional needs to fully utilize their time. Remote work has surged in popularity, particularly following global events that have prompted companies to adopt flexible working arrangements.
How can you manage your schedule, your communication, your productivity, and your well-being when you are working across multiple time zones? Here are some strategies to help you achieve a healthy work-life balance when working abroad. Having a team that works across time zones can be advantageous especially when it comes to providing good customer service. Clients can receive immediate feedback without any language barriers or cultural differences. Since everyone has diverse work experience, the company has the ability to build world class products that can boost productivity and financial metrics according to the research done by Mckinsey.
Now every time you suspect the other side of the world is busy celebrating, you can open your calendar and check if that’s the case, or if there’s some people you need to nag. This is a free and simple tool for macOS (other platforms “coming soon”) where you can see a list of people, their locations and current time where they are. You can import your team’s contact list directly from Slack to There, or you can add people and locations (like team headquarters) individually. If you have an iPhone, tap on World Clock, and then the plus button; if you have an Android phone, tap on the globe icon and search for the city you’re interested in.
