The software can follow the speaker to make it easier to follow along with a conversation. Other cultures avoid direct eye contact during a discussion, while some insist on using formal language. By doing all of that, you are setting the ground for a clear communication flow, which will leave no room for speculation. To do it efficiently, you must pick and set up the proper communication channel like MS Teams or Slack and identify what type of information should be disclosed and when.
It will help if you switch meeting times weekly and make them more convenient for people worldwide to prevent burnout in one employee. Perhaps you can have two different meetings on one day at two different times so everybody can get a chance to participate. Using this type of tool makes handling projects in various time zones simpler because each team member has access to the system from anywhere around the globe.
Get Your Asynchronous Communication On Point
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. Probably one of the most talked-about challenges of working in different time zones is the effort it takes to schedule meetings. If teams don’t experience https://remotemode.net/ any overlap in work hours, there’s bound to be some time wasted as one team is waiting for the instructions or the input from another one, working at a later time. And, as team communication is directly correlated to productive collaboration, it can lead to unnecessary delays, missed messages, and an overall drop in productivity. Although it can get challenging at times to manage a geographically dispersed team, there are still many more benefits to the approach.
- Different perspectives and broad ideas can move the company’s vision forward and scale up the business by a considerable margin.
- An enormous amount of effort is needed to overcome this particular downside of global remote work.
- Take a look at the agenda and prep anything that you are responsible for.
- Teams that thrive working across time zones have clearly defined roles that fit the model of asynchronous work.
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. It’s possible to hire people around the globe and still have your whole team working 9-to-5 at your office’s time zone—after all, plenty of people work night shifts—but it’s not optimal. It may be a case of trial and error, but it’s worthwhile if it leads to the right tool for your team. Consider establishing a rule that unless everyone in your team can be together in the same room, every meeting should be held through video calls to ensure fairness and clarity. Not only do you have more distributed access between teams, but you also benefit from the diversity of different voices.
Collaborating Across Different Time Zones? Easy Peasy.
The vertical lines at sea represent “ideal” time zones, each measuring 15 degrees longitude. (Read more about military time.) On land, time zone boundaries are distorted by political and geographical factors, so it can look like a country or area lies in working remotely in a different time zone the wrong time zone. For example, New Zealand’s two main islands have the same local time, but the South Island geographically extends into a different “ideal” time zone. Visuals can help a lot when people are trying to understand the time differences.
- Break things up into chunks that can be worked on individually, find time to sync back up on what’s been done, and make sure each person on the team can self-direct their work.
- The post outlines how to build an effective time zone agnostic team as a company leader, people manager, colleague, and as a geographically remote person.
- People even tested out the possibility of working from a foreign country or becoming more of a digital nomad.
This wouldn’t need to be a daily task, but maybe just pick one day and everyone enter it so there is a visual the whole team can use until they get the hang of it. When working within different time zones, it is very important to be mindful of your teammates’ time zone. You should avoid scheduling meetings during the times that you know everyone will not be awake, but this isn’t always possible if you work with people across multiple continents. If you do need to schedule something during off-hours, check first to make sure it is okay. Speaking of connection among teammates, working across time zones makes it almost impossible to keep the team spirit and social engagement up.
An Engineer’s Guide to Working Across Time Zones
To overcome this substantial obstacle, it’s important to utilize technology to its fullest potential. This might mean using instant messaging platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams to stay in touch throughout the day or scheduling regular check-ins to ensure that everyone is on the same page. It’s also important to be proactive in your communication, asking questions and seeking clarification when necessary. Although many time zones have descriptive names used by people in them, they are least ambiguously identified by their relationship to UTC (Universal Time, Co-ordinated).