Videoconferencing allows participants to see each other’s facial expressions and body language, creating a more personal and engaging communication experience. It can help reduce feelings of loneliness and enhance the sense of connection among team members. Respecting teammates’ designated work hours promotes job retention, productivity, and overall performance.

• Despite all of the benefits of building a great remote global team, you will still need to figure out how to manage employees working across different time zones.
• Getting pinged after hours—and feeling the uncertainty of whether you should respond now or wait until your own working hours—is a situation that Michael Filippo, Head of International Sales at Revelo, commonly faces.
• For asynchronous collaboration to work, teams need clear processes and guidelines on hand at all times to get a clear direction and understanding of priorities, boundaries, and goals.
• If teams don’t experience 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.
• Clients can receive immediate feedback without any language barriers or cultural differences.

Even still, odds are you’ll be working with someone who’s not online at the same time as you. The ability to hand off work is a productivity benefit, but it’s also motivator since you know you must accomplish tasks so working remotely in a different time zone you can hand them off to co-workers at day’s end. “It puts a little pressure on you to get your work done,” says TechCrunch’s Russell. “They worked the night shift while my team in Redmond worked days,” Berkun says.

Productivity Boost

To work effectively with a remote team, you’ll need to put in the effort and build strong relationships across time zones. These industries often require global collaboration and support, necessitating teams spread across different regions. Team members should update their time zones in their profiles or settings to ensure accurate scheduling and coordination. It is also recommended to deactivate notifications during off-hours to maintain work-life balance and avoid unnecessary interruptions. Encourage team members to communicate openly about their availability and preferred work hours.

When you don’t need to consider time zones, you can attract and hire the best talent regardless of location. This is a massive benefit, even if you are located in a hub like San Francisco or New York, chances are the best person for the job doesn’t live within commuting distance of your office. In this article, you’ll learn about the benefits and challenges of working across time zones, as well as the best practices you need to follow.

The Best Way to Work with a Global Team

If it’s something critical (and that’s a relative term) then we just call the team member or page/text the whole team. Once these challenges and common mistakes are recognized, addressing these obstacles with innovative solutions becomes easier. Your availability can be emailed to meeting attendees once you’ve made your preferences. By clicking on a time, they can reserve it, and Calendar will add it to your calendar and email the meeting attendees. Real-time information and context shouldn’t be limited to one-off videos and screen captures. Notion, Confluence, and even Google Drive can all be used to document best practices and processes on an internal wiki.

Trello, Basecamp, and Asana are project management tools that keep track of what everyone is working on as it progresses through the pipeline. Any team looking to boost remote cooperation while working should invest in one. We find that the timeanddate.com service is beneficial for checking our clients’ time zones ‘ proper way of time. It’s essential to schedule the right time in both timezones for a skype call because you can miss it.

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To include and respect employees from all time zones, schedule virtual meetings at a time that works for everyone. Additionally, recording calls can be beneficial for those who couldn’t attend, ensuring that important discussions and decisions are captured. To accommodate international teams, consider implementing split shifts or workdays that cater to different time zones. This allows team members to work during their designated hours, promoting job retention, productivity, and overall performance. In addition to confounding my brain, time zones also provide some fun and interesting challenges when it comes to how we all work together at Buffer as a fully remote, distributed team.

“My team had hit the natural limits of space and time on planet earth,” Berkun says. “A remote work environment should encourage performance—not presence,” says entrepreneur Neil Patel. Then, you won’t have to worry about time off and how many hours people are working. Some of us do our best work late at night, while others prefer to get up early and spend the late afternoons away from the desk. And while some metropolitan areas offer certain lifestyle perks, other big-city issues—like high costs-of-living—will drive potential employees away. Our job listing template includes everything you need to know about the role, including key responsibilities, minimum and preferred qualifications, and benefits of working for our company.

More diverse and inclusive workplace

However, working with teams in different time zones comes with its own set of challenges. The most important thing to do when working remotely is to grow comfortable communicating asynchronously whenever possible. Even though your whole team may be in different major cities or different countries, with geographic and time zone differences separating you—with effective async communication, none of that matters. It allows organizations to leverage diverse perspectives and skills for better outcomes. Being specific about dates and times when discussing deadlines and meetings with peers helps avoid misunderstandings due to time zone differences.

Remote collaboration is difficult and productivity can halt if digital tools fail. Read our guide on remote collaboration to learn how to overcome these challenges. Diverse teams made up of remote team members from around the world, especially in management positions, escape local echo chambers and build truly world-class products. By embracing different time zones, you can build a more diverse and inclusive workplace. Research from McKinsey found that ethnically and racially diverse companies outperform their less diverse peers by 36% when it comes to financial metrics. Companies have the luxury of leaning into shared experiences and physical venues when developing a culture in an office-based workplace.