Furthermore, it reduces barriers to asking questions, getting help, and taking risks. Requiring that your teammates are always available does not create a good company culture and might hurt morale. You can avoid this by minimizing your messaging after hours and being patient if you don’t get an immediate answer. It is likely that a truly great teammate will contact you when they start to work the next day. In short, make sure you take everyone’s time zone into account when setting meeting times. In order to avoid inconveniencing the same people repeatedly, you may want to rotate the start time.
Stay Awake (If You Can)
- Be sure that your entire team is able to find times that work for all of them.
- Working remotely means setting your own hours and working from home or another location.
- With a split schedule, you can be more available for meetings with colleagues in different time zones without ignoring your local team.
- If you are working with someone in the US, you will have the benefit of getting a head start on your day.
- Often, team members end up waking up early or staying late just to join in, which can lead to frustration and exhaustion.
A shared team calendar might be helpful as everyone can see each other’s availability. However, from a business standpoint, it is hard to argue against operating across multiple time zones. One advantage is that you can draw on a broader and more diverse pool of talent and skills. Due to the advantages remote work brings both companies and employees, its popularity is rising faster than ever before.
On iOS, choose Do Not Disturb from Settings, and if you haven an Android device, pick Sound and vibration, then Do Not Disturb from Settings. Google Calendar lets you set a secondary time zone, though only through its web interface. Click the cog icon (top right), then Settings, and Secondary time zone.
Increase Remote Work Productivity: The Complete Guide in 7 Steps
In this day and age, offices seem to have no barriers, so you may have colleagues or clients living in different time zones. This is great (and almost magical—thank you, internet!), but it can also lead to headaches when it comes to staying in touch or when projects and deadlines are involved. When working across time zones, plan your work around hours that align with your own schedule and any team overlap time. Asynchronous tools like email and project management software keep things moving even when others are offline.
At GroWrk, we specialize in IT equipment management for globally distributed teams. Confused about how best to handle time zone differences while working living and working in different time zones remotely? We’re here to help you learn how to navigate the various time zones and cultural differences that you’ll encounter as a digital nomad, remote worker or entrepreneur. When working within different time zones, it is very important to be mindful of your teammates’ time zone.
When you meet frequently with the same people, take time to understand when they work remotely. This is easy for teams that work with people across two or three time zones that are all next to each other. However, it becomes more complicated when working with a global workforce (people who work on opposite sides of the world). For example, if someone works in Australia while another is located in the United States, it may be difficult to attend a meeting at the same time unless the Aussie gets up pretty early in the morning.
- You can work at opposite times from the rest of your team, and still join in on all the office banter.
- To maintain a healthy work-life balance, you should make sure to establish clear boundaries and always prioritize self-care.
- By the time your clients wake up, you will have finished most of your work and still have three hours left to sync up with them.
- Another key strategy to maintain a healthy work-life balance when working in a different time zone is to plan ahead.
- Microsoft Teams shows everyone’s local time, making it easier to coordinate across different zones.
Set clear boundaries
TimeandDate.com’s World Clock Meeting Planner won’t win any design awards, but it makes time shift scheduling straightforward. You pick the cities where everyone lives, and the date for your meeting, and it’ll show in green, yellow, and red the times that are best, not too bad, and terrible for everyone. This strategy makes your projects asynchronous, which remote developer Mutahhir Ali Hayat suggests is the best way to make remote development work out. Embrace the challenge and take advantage of the opportunities that remote work has to offer, and you’ll be well on your way to building a successful career that spans the globe. All these async communications tactics reduce pressure and help create a more relaxed work environment, making it easier for everyone to balance their professional and personal lives.
Use remote work tools like World Time Buddy or Every Time Zone to help you visualize and plan your day accordingly. Over the years, though, I’ve developed a few tips and tricks that have helped me navigate the complexities of working across different time zones. And today, I’m excited to share these tips with you, and I hope this will help you succeed in facing this popular concern among aspiring remote workers and digital nomads.
The fact that people can work with flexibility and autonomy doesn’t mean that projects will be easier or that due dates will be met automatically. But, how do you push a project forward when your direct manager is in Australia and you live in the United States? Cultural diversity means people with different origins, different upbringing, traditions and ways of life. These differences more often than not translate directly into different ways to approach and solve problems at work. The weekly goals meeting is a good chance to give your colleagues time and room to think about the work beforehand and come up with solutions or alternatives.
Let’s examine how companies can benefit from a globally distributed workforce. To deepen our understanding of how to tackle time zone challenges in remote work, we reached out to specialists in the field who shared valuable insights and strategies.. As teams navigate the complexities of time zones, several additional considerations can affect performance and collaboration. Take time to grab virtual coffees with your teammates one-on-one or in small groups, and schedule online game nights for the entire team.
By doing this, employees can quickly determine the time difference between their location and their office. It is equally important for managers to schedule meetings within their teams’ working hours. Be sure that your entire team is able to find times that work for all of them. Make sure you don’t let your dispersed team members hop on a call at 7 am just because it’s convenient for you. When working remotely you might feel pressured to attend meetings at all times of the day.
