Working across timezones?
Working with a remote & diverse team with team members spread across the whole globe also means working across multiple different time zones. That can cause some challenges, especially when it comes to coordinating everyone’s diaries for meetings and catch-ups.
Working with a remote & diverse team with team members spread across the whole globe also means working across multiple different time zones. That can cause some challenges, especially when it comes to coordinating everyone’s diaries for meetings and catch-ups.
But every problem has a solution. The only challenge is to find it or find a way to work around it. This is what we will be discussing in today’s blog.
World without borders
Probably the best possible phrase to describe how the global workforce has changed in the past few years but mostly throughout Covid. People are working absolutely borderless and from wherever they like. No longer does their country, place of birth or time zone have anything to do with it.
Coordinating with people from locations all over the globe can be a challenge but also doesn’t have to be. Everything always comes down to an open, honest & trustworthy company culture, zero micromanagement, and willingness to be a bit flexible.
So what can employers, managers or even the teams themselves do, to make their global collaboration as seamless as possible while still meeting deadlines, achieving targets, and meeting the work-life balance of each team member? A few things. Let’s have a look.
Multiple time zones? Multiple solutions Let’s get straight into those promised tips.
Tip no.1: Set working/ collab hours
Imagine a totally real situation, where you (based in Europe) and a colleague in the US or even Australia are collaborating on a project together. Not everything is possible to sort out via Teams, Zoom or Slack messages and emails and there will be times when you’ll need to meet “in person”. Set it up for a time, when you know, you are both going to be overlapping in your time zones to discuss what you need to discuss. Even if it is just a 2-3 hour window in a day. Still way better than not meeting at all. Sometimes even just a quick 15-minute call is often all it takes to sort an issue or discuss something than an all-day email exchange or endless chats on Teams or Slack.
The rest of the day, employees can work during whichever hours make the most sense or are the most convenient for them. This option can also be applied to days of the week (i.e. a three-hour overlap on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays or whichever combination suits everyone in the team best.
A perfect example of this would be a collaboration with a US based team split across both the eastern and western coasts. For us, who are based in the CET timezone, there is already a time overlap at 2 PM CET when we can catch up with colleagues on the US east coast and from 4 PM even those located on the west coast. And there is another little hidden benefit in that too. That any tasks the US colleagues need help or advice with are often solved when they even wake up. Now that is definitely a nice benefit, isn’t it?
Tip no.2: Set yourself a cutoff hour
There is nothing worse than hearing your work emails or teams' Slack/ Teams channel beep all evening when you are no longer officially online only because your colleagues in different time zones are only starting their day. Yep, happens to all of us. Out of guilt that someone may desperately need you, you continue checking them and even start replying. Bad idea, let me tell you. Just because someone is in a different time zone doesn't mean they should be expecting a response from you located on the opposite side of the world.
The best thing you can do to stay sane and set clear boundaries for your teammates is to display your working hours into your email signature and team's communication channel. Also don’t be afraid to say no to a meeting invite that is way outside of your working hours & help make it clear that you don’t work 24/7. The same of course goes for respecting this for other teammates too.
Tip no. 3: Communicate clearly
We cannot stress this enough. We would even dare to say that when it comes to the remote style of work, better to overcommunicate than under-communicate. Always, always include time zones and dates when talking about & setting meetings. Do not ever assume that the other person knows what you are talking about. You’d also be very popular if you propose meeting times in the other person’s time zone so they don’t have to do the conversion. Simple but a nice gesture.
When working across time zones, it’s important to be even more communicative about needs and asks than in an office. Start by making it incredibly clear if something is urgent or a “nice to have when there’s time”. When asking something or for something or setting a deadline, take into account your colleague’s time zone and make sure your request is reasonable not only for you but for all others and their time zones involved.
All in all, be human, be accommodating, speak & write clearly and use simple words & phrases for all with a language barrier. And if you follow all of this, you can’t go wrong.
