How to manage a remote team across multiple time zones

But remote teams can fall into the “I’m online, so I’m being productive” trap, too. 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. Now this leads me into my next tip, which is really start thinking in multiple time zones. If you’re working with a global team, it’s good to heighten your awareness of what time it is for people in different parts of the world that you’re working with. For instance, I work with Gretchen every single day and I start the work with her at 6 p.m.

Like Argentina, the time zone in Chile is also 2 hours ahead of EST. While your employees may not be working at exactly the same hours, there’s enough time zone overlap to facilitate collaboration on projects. Based on all of the benefits mentioned above, it’s easy to see how working in similar or overlapping time zones results in higher team productivity. When you hire workers based on time zone overlap, it’s also important to consider the work culture in the respective country. In that case, you might have a shorter time zone overlap. In this case you have to be very cautious when hiring your remote team members.

The Pros and Cons of Working Across Time Zones

During those five minutes, I would stretch or get some water before the next 20 minutes set begins. The moment I want to wrap up communication and get back to work, I just slowly start to lift my headphones, smile, nod, and turn my head back to my screen. Set up guidelines, tech, and communication expectations with your team. With time and practice, I became better at noticing those feelings creeping up and found ways to engage myself and my energy elsewhere. It surprised me when I felt shameful for asking questions in meetings.

I live in California and the company is based in Hawaii, so there’s a 3 hour time difference, and the platform is set to HST. One thing to keep in mind about how to overcome time zone differences is to be transparent about where you’re located , but moreover, your working hours. Now speaking of meetings, if we work with global teams, not everybody can make every single meeting.

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Provide these working across time zones to your employees so they can use them effectively. As a result, you’ll be able to close any cultural communication gaps, which will lead to a more respectful and productive work environment. In short, make sure you take everyone’s time zone into account when setting meeting times. What if there isn’t a way to make meeting times fair for everyone? In order to avoid inconveniencing the same people repeatedly, you may want to rotate the start time.

And it may get everyone to start thinking twice about holding meetings when they’re the one clocking in odd hours. Asynchronous communication should be standard for remote teams, especially those with employees in different time zones. Once you and your team establish timezones boundaries and preferred work hours, respect them. This means that if you need something from a global teammate, you determine how urgent the task is before sending it.

Be transparent about where you’re located

You may have to move other things around or request your employees to be available during off-hours or work hours. While your workforce may compromise if it’s a one-time thing, you can’t expect them to show up regularly in meetings that are set in times that are too inconvenient for them. Unless 24-hour operability is a necessity for your organization, it’s best to stick with hiring workers from countries with time zone overlaps. Time zone overlap means that two or more time zones intersect each other.

• All these factors help you determine how much of an overlap there is between both time zones.
• Similarly, everytimezone.com will show you them same thing in graph format.
• Working during one chunk of the day caters to your timezone, followed by another shift that caters to another team’s timezone, is often called a split shift.
• Your availability can be emailed to meeting attendees once you’ve made your preferences.
• By setting a clear expectation that communication won’t happen in real-time, you can take the pressure of people in different time zones to be “on-call”.
• Take note of the hours of overlap in working hours between the locations, making the most of it, but also adjusting work hours if the overlap needs to be bigger.
• They know what they’re doing and write great guides on how to get the most out of remote work.