9 Lessons Learned By Working Remote In A Different Time Zone

Beyond that, you can have a flexible team meeting schedule for different members based on their requirements. You can have one window of overlapping times where it is possible for most of the employees to sync with each other.

There are many advantages to having a partially or fully delocalized team. However, managing a successful team spread over different time zones requires proper planning and a sound strategy. If you’re working with a remote team, it might be even easier to give the time of the meeting in Coordinated Universal Time or UTC. Then, everyone who is attending the meeting will convert to their own time zone. I wouldn’t trade the ability to locate my office anywhere in the world, I think it’s just the coolest part of the technological age.

Working Across Time Zones: Pros, Cons, And Best Practices

They’ll also get notified if they’re reaching out to you outside of office hours, which can be helpful if you don’t care for your phone buzzing in the middle of the night. You can do this on the web by clicking on your profile picture , then choosing Edit profile. If you’re on mobile, select You, View profile, then Edit profile. Both Google Calendar and Apple Calendar let you assign time zones when you create new events. Tap the corresponding entry on your phone or the web, and the time of the events in your calendar will automatically adapt to whatever time zone you’re in.

• Setting some clear ground rules might chafe at first, but will act as a safeguard over time.
• 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.
• During those five minutes, I would stretch or get some water before the next 20 minutes set begins.

A time shift, though, forces you to show what you’ve actually accomplished, since few others were there to see if you were logged in all day. This is another important time management app that is extremely beneficial and can help immensely with the productivity of the team members in a remote environment. This app essentially harvests time that the developers spend on over 70 apps as well as services which include Slack, Github, Zendesk, and Teambook. This tool enables the tracking of time for any specific project task, or a specific client. So when you have to manage a team of remote developers, this application is the perfect fit for not only tracking but also managing the working hours of developers from around the world. It can be used by the teams as well as solo programmers for tracking the working hours and boosting the productivity of the enterprise-based functions.

1 The Best Way To Work With A Global Team

It grinds my gears when I’m in the work groove, my battery flashes red at 5%, and I look up and see all the seats near outlets are gone. With the time on my calendar, strategy demanded that I don’t ignore and deprioritize it for more “quick-wins.” It validates the legitimacy of doing work that doesn’t always have an output. Time is precious, especially when the lines from work and home are blurred. If the meeting owner doesn’t set the meeting up to be as effective as possible, then maybe the meeting can be better executed over email. If a teammate requests feedback from me, I record myself and my screen to save time typing long, convoluted paragraphs. Plus, that enables my team members to see what I’m referring to directly and takes the guesswork out. We’ll email you 1-3 times per week—and never share your information.

• And unfortunately, there’s little wiggle room unless you’re looking to meet outside of traditional business hours.
• When managing remote team members, the most important thing to keep in mind is to provide an inclusive experience for all.
• The shift to remote work and the rise of outsourcing have made globally distributed teams a reality.

Remember that when your clients or colleagues end for the day, you’ll essentially be communicating asynchronously. To do this effectively across time zones, you must be in tune with their current time and their schedules. Need the best tips for working with clients in different time zones all over the world? See how to overcome challenges of communicating across time zones, and working with dispersed teams while working remotely or freelancing. We often assume when we’re talking to someone new that they’re in the same time zone as us. When scheduling a meeting or call with remote team members, make sure to ask them what time zone they are in so that you can account for any time difference with their local time when you schedule. The most important thing to do when working remotely is to grow comfortable communicating asynchronously whenever possible.

Limited Opportunities For Employee Effort Recognition

Recognition is not always easy because we may rarely, if ever, see our team while they work—which makes the recognition even more meaningful. A shared missionstatement, an accessible company or team handbook, and a yearly roadmap. These agreed-upon goals remind team members they are contributing with others for an outcome and group purpose that benefits everyone together, even when separated. Always include a specific time and the time zone when you request a response from team members.

• Anytime your employees want to message each other, they just have to click “View Profile” to see what time it is where their recipient lives.
• Odds are, a great teammate will get back to you when they begin working the next day.
• The most important thing to do when working remotely is to grow comfortable communicating asynchronously whenever possible.
• Adjusting office hours has its benefits, too—one can avoid peak traffic hour, sleep in, or knock off early to pick up kids.

You’ll have early birds, night owls, and employees who fall somewhere in between. You may also have team members who like working split shifts, where they work part of the morning, take time off to run errands or pick up their kids from school, then continue working at night. For those used to working from the same time zone or physical space, considering the other person’s needs might not be a habitual way of working. For example, if someone has trouble accessing a file, they can ping you and you can fix it right away. For example, if a Boston-based marketing manager gives a California-based blogger a deadline for „9 a.m. Monday,“ it might be hard to determine whether the deadline was for 9 a.m.

Remember Attendees Can Be In A Different Time Zone

To successfully utilize key principles of asynchronous communication to their advantage, distributed teams need to prioritize efficient, written communication. 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.

When the team physically works together in the same space and time zone, they are also able to coordinate work hours around sleep and meal times. Time zone differences created a need for hand-off and documentation for the other team.

Are Video Game Remakes Worth It? Does This Trend Need To Die?

Teams are expanding not only in size and demand, but also across geographic area. Depending on how far apart team members are located, there could be several time zones to consider when scheduling, planning, and meeting together. In today’s global and remote-first world, managers should adjust how they think about productivity.

According to a Gallup Study, the number of remote workers has been steadily increasing for the last twenty years, especially so in the last five. Working remotely requires discipline, but remote workers report a host of benefits.

I had transitioned from working full-time to freelancing when Dan and I set off for our remote work trip around the world to explore how we could use travel to build this website together. This is when you have to speak up and make sure your schedule is “seen” by everyone involved. If your team or freelance client is planning a meeting and proposes a time, make sure to express your opinion on https://remotemode.net/ the timing for the meeting. Use this guide to make you convey your message clearly with remote communication. The Daylight Savings Time framework was proposed by Benjamin Franklin during his stay in Paris and is concerned with accelerating the standard time within the region or zone by one hour to extend daylight time. As the saying goes in the United States, „Spring forward. Fall back.“

If you’re on the east coast, most major European cities are anywhere from five to seven hours ahead, operating on Greenwich Mean Time . This can be a bit trickier to plan than a meeting with a two-hour time zone difference, as for the most part, east coasters will have to budget their mornings for meetings with European team members. If you’re trying to schedule working across time zones a meeting with colleagues in Africa, remember that they also use GMT, as do parts of the middle east, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Yemen, and Iran. Next, have employees from each office set their working hours, which makes it clear to employees in other locations if they’re attempting to schedule a meeting outside the predetermined office hours.

What Types Of Teams Are Likely To Work Across Time Zones?

Here’s how to mindfully do it with tips and best practices for distributed engineering teams. When she is not researching the most productive collaboration techniques, she can usually be found trying out the latest team chat and collaboration tools and apps.

Delay Sending Your Messages

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. You can either check out your team using a detailed user view or a grouped users view depending on your requirements. The app provides a timeline format view of the employee working hours so you can check out how their times overlap with each other. This app makes it easier for managers to find the most suitable time for scheduling meetings where most of the remote developers can be available to participate. You can filter the different groups, slack channels, find specific members via search functionality, and get access to an optimized view for the most efficient form of visualization .

Leverage Tools To Help With Time Zone Management

It makes scheduling meetings difficult, but we can also hand off work to keep the wheels turning 24/7. Jon Russell, a Bangkok-based reporter for TechCrunch, says remote work is what enables their site to run a 24-hour newsroom. „When it comes to online publishing, being in different places isn’t so strange,“ says Russell. Aside from the few weeks every year when we’re all together at our company retreats, there’s always someone at Zapier awake and working. Time zone coverage is just something that’s automatically possible with distributed teams. Update with transparency.During daily check-ins or weekly meetings, transparent updates create team safety and understanding. Saying that you are having a stressful day or that you are distracted about something happening in your life can provide an easy signal to your team that it is okay to be human.