As a basis, you can take a certain time zone, to which all employees will adjust. At certain times, audio-video communication will be required, e.g. meetings, conferences, and other instances requiring a quick decision. Before scheduling tasks, take into account colleagues’ time zones and working hours. Different time zone implies different cultures, diverse skill sets, and more importantly a wide generation of fresh new perspectives from across the globe. If the companies that ventured into this kind of setup are able to embrace it and use it to their advantage, growth is, therefore, a possibility. However, there is a need for a clear-cut balance between the challenges and the advantages that come with having employees that work across different time zones.
How to avoid distractions while working from home
There is mounting evidence that chronic circadian rhythm disruption leads to several serious diseases, as well as depression and mood disorders. However, a buzzkill new study has just reported health problems with a later clock time of sunset as well, and it’s not just breast cancer. Microsoft recently added workspaces to the Edge browser environment, allowing teams to collaborate within the same tabs. In this guide, we’ll talk about what Edge workspaces are and how you can use… Is it possible to work earlier hours before the team or is it more generally accepted to work the same hours as the rest of the team? Or would it depend on the team lead and be decided by a case by case basis?
Consider the Recipient’s Local Work Hours
Beyond that, remote employees can also experience isolation as there’s no in-person interaction or activities like team lunches and happy hours. This is especially true if you’re the lone team member in a different time zone. If you’re an online business selling products, for example, your reach is worldwide. You will need people ready to answer customer service calls 24 hours per day. Working with clients and customers in different time zones is challenging. Unless you have experience in national and international business, thinking in terms of time zones, cultures, and non-standard work hours will take time to deal with and get used to.
cons of a distributed team
- You can use any time planner that makes it easy to schedule communication and relationships.
- These countries offer a range of benefits for digital nomads, including convenient location, affordable cost of living, and welcoming cultures.
- Each of those live in Async—an in-house tool that gives everyone a set place to write anything they need to share with the entire team and forces us to “work in public.”
If you’re working with customers in California and you’re in the Eastern time zone, be kind and don’t schedule anything until at least early afternoon unless they prefer early morning meetings. On the other hand, if you have a client in London, schedule things for early morning your time since they’re 5 hours ahead. It’s easy to fire off text messages without thinking about somebody who is sleeping that has their phone sitting next to them on their nightstand. Teams in traditional office settings sometimes measure productivity by how long each team member spends at their desk.
Increased Focus and Productivity
Pan Fang’s team analyzed the Outlook and Skype records of the Fortune 100 firm’s scheduled calls and meetings, unscheduled calls, instant message chats and email messages. Its employees were based on every continent except Antarctica, including numerous jurisdictions that don’t adopt daylight saving time, such as India, Argentina and Malaysia. Microsoft Teams offers its services to a wide range of audiences internationally. With its extensive network, there will be instances where some people need to adjust their time zones.
I’ve also found that using tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams can be a game-changer for remote teams. You can easily see who’s online, share updates in real-time, and even schedule meetings to accommodate different time zones. Implementing strategies for overcoming time zone differences can bring a variety of benefits to remote teams. Improved communication, increased productivity, and enhanced team collaboration are just a few of the advantages of effective time zone management. Overcoming time zone differences in remote teams can be challenging, but with the right strategies in place, teams can build trust and cohesion across different time zones.
More in Life Skills
It’s absolutely possible to do great work with a dispersed team, but you must plan work accordingly. 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. “A remote work environment should encourage performance—not presence,” says entrepreneur Neil Patel.
There are a variety of tools available that can help remote teams manage time zone differences more effectively. Tools such as World Time Buddy, Slack, and Google Calendar allow team members to easily schedule meetings, convert time zones, and set reminders for important deadlines. By leveraging these tools, teams can streamline communication and collaboration across different time zones.
A time zone is a region of the Earth that has the same standard time. The world is divided into 24 time zones, each typically spanning 15 degrees of longitude, corresponding to one hour of the Earth’s 24-hour day. These time zones are based on the position of the sun and the rotation of the Earth. Although team members may thrive working asynchronously, it’s important to foster a culture of collaboration and participation. When employees are engaged, their passion and commitment reflect productivity, innovation, and positive company culture. Depending on your team members’ location, the overlap time may range from a couple of hours to several more.
- The ability to hand off work is a productivity benefit, but it’s also motivator since you know you must accomplish tasks so you can hand them off to co-workers at day’s end.
- Remote working isn’t automatically a freer way to work—it can be just as stressful as any 9-to-5 job.
- “Many of us tend to work crazy hours, which mitigates being in different time zones.”
- Yo, one strategy I find super helpful for dealing with time zone diffs is setting up fixed overlapping hours.
- Being in a different time zone can limit access to local resources that can enhance productivity.
- The Couchsurfing team has a similar schedule to make sure everyone’s connected.
Even though you may think that this depends just on your own sleeping habits, another crucial factor is your time zone.
Use Your PhoneSometimes the most useful features of your phone are tucked away and easy to forget about. If you have clients in multiple localities around the world, put each of them into the world clock on your phone until the time zone differences become automatic. Google Calendar looks basic at first glance, but it’s packed with features that make it great for remote teams—or really any team. You can set your own time zone, and save the time zones you work with most to have an easy way to switch living and working in different time zones between them. Always remember the time difference when communicating, scheduling meetings. Timezone.io – an application automatically calculates the time of employees from different parts of the globe.
Therefore, any amount of time difference can be used as an advantage for distributed teams, considering it gives employees time to work undistracted. The team analyzed the Outlook and Skype records of the Fortune 100 firm’s scheduled calls and meetings, unscheduled calls, instant message chats and email messages. Its employees were based on every continent except Antarctica, including numerous jurisdictions that don’t adopt daylight saving time such as India, Argentina and Malaysia.
The research found that a one-hour increase in temporal distance — that is, when daylight saving time occurred in one jurisdiction but not another — reduced synchronous communication by 11%. Differences in working time are called “temporal distance,” and they limit the hours in which synchronous communication can take place. It is common to waste a lot of time waiting for confirmation when booking appointments or meetings with remote team members..A time zone difference makes it even more difficult to get a real-time response. You will likely not hear from the other parties until the next business day if they live on the other side of the world.
Overall, the key to overcoming time zone differences in remote teams is to be proactive about communication and empathetic towards team members in different time zones. By being flexible and understanding, you can create a more inclusive and collaborative work environment. A common mistake that remote teams make is not taking time zone differences into account when assigning tasks and deadlines.
