When people work remotely and are situated in different continents, they require a good working knowledge of Time Zones. This means that coordinating working schedules, keeping everyone on the same page as well as meeting certain deadlines can be difficult, especially when the team members are from different parts of the world. But as this blog argues, with the right approaches and the right technology solutions in place, it is indeed possible to work in a completely integrated manner irrespective of where the employees are located.
In this blog, I will give insightful advice and explore the ways of how to maintain effective time coordination while working remotely in different time zones. If you are a new user of international remote work or if you are looking for ways to enhance your ability on this, this guide will be useful in helping you deal with time zone. The overall management and communication of your global team will be optimized through the tools and solutions provided about communication, scheduling, documentation, and many other aspects.
When members of the team are in different time zones, several activities that are naturally important are: Communication and Scheduling. Mismanagement of time zone results to inconvenience, misalignments, delay in projects, amongst other inconveniences to the employees. On the other hand, if the time zone issue is considered thoroughly and all the members are aware of the decision made, it helps in avoiding confusion in the later stages of the project. It also establishes better rapport between the members.
This is especially so when working across several time zones, as the following challenges illustrate.
This means that there are definite challenges as people have to work in a team with members located in different time zones. Some key difficulties include:
- Avoiding scheduling during peak working hours so that everyone can attend during convenient hours for them.
- Making sure you are available to work at that particular time of the day to fix issues as they arise
- Mainly, it is important to stay abreast to which part of the day colleagues are present in
- Staying on the same page if schedules change due to time difference
- Inability to perform operations while waiting for results and prompts
All these challenges, therefore, can be averagely well dealt with if there is adequate preparation and conscious attempt at doing so. The rest of this guide will give specific recommendations on what to do.
Some brief background information about time zones is relevant before proceeding with the management solutions. It is therefore advisable to have some prerequisite knowledge on the major ideas that will help you in directing your plan and conduct accordingly.
Standard time zones are arranged along the geographic longitude in a manner that divide the globe into 24 hour-wide segments of 15 degrees each. Each time zone is one hour behind the time zone that is next to it. Time zones can be understood in relation with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) which is the main standard that the world uses to synchronize its clocks.
The first of these is to note that when it is midday Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, it is also midday in the UTC + 0 time zone which is Greenwich Mean Time or GMT. Those that are in the eastern or the western hemisphere usually have a time difference of 1 hour from 0 UTC time zone. For example, New York is in the Eastern time zone and it is 5 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, thus if it is noon UTC, it would be 7 in the morning in New York.
The effects of the geographical shift, which translate into working time zones and their consequences for remote work.
Given their 1 hour increments, time zones heavily impact collaboration logistics on distributed teams:
- One of the biggest challenges of implementing a system that has staff working at different time zones is that it becomes hard to coordinate working hours.
- In the reduced workday, there are fewer hours to be able to interact in real-time.
- Deadlines and handoff expectations vary depending on the employees, particularly in the wake of one’s time zone.
It is essential to consider these variations and prevent possible misalignments that stem from setting up inconsistent expectations.
Daylight Saving Time
Daylight saving time (DST) refers to the act of moving most clocks one hour ahead during warmer months to extend the hours of daylight in the evening. The majority of the places observe DST with set regulations, although the rules may differ depending on the country, adding to the confusion when working across time zones.
If you are scheduling your meetings or reviewing deadlines, ensure that you are mindful of the DST in your colleagues’ regions. This can be worsened by the DST since the time difference between two places can either be an extra hour or one less than what is normally expected. This especially when it comes to work hand offs and timely delivery of work.
With the basic notions regarding time zones established, we can now proceed to the practical strategies as to how to avoid confusion and make the work going on across the time zones as smooth as possible.
Tools that will help to convert time zones are especially useful to understand how many of your working hours you are going to be able to spend online with your team. When locations are entered, these tools display a side by side comparison of the grid involving time zones. So, it is clearly shown that the best times for a meeting, a call or any kind of alignment can be easily determined at a glance.
I discovered that some time zone converters are World Time Buddy and The Time Zone Converter. Utilize them to set norms regarding working hours that capture the employees that operate in different time zones.
However, the concept of setting a Standard Work Schedule has to be methodically introduced in order to achieve positive results. Ideally, employees who are part of remote teams that span across continents should be always in a position to know when their colleagues are available. To make it easier, the company should set a standard work time that will control geographic time zones to avoid confusion in expectations.
For instance if you are working in a team half of which is based in Asia and the other half in Europe identify a core working time that is 6 hours that both sides can agree on as a working time. Beyond that, other expectations such as real-time communication expectations may be less.
Always ensure that the availability schedule of the team members is shared and documented for easy reference. There are time conversion tools that can help with this.
Hence, even when everyone is on the same page about which employee is working how many hours, communication can be challenging when teams are located across time zones. Clear written and oral guidelines can assist people in achieving a common vision, since a lack of clear understanding is often at the root of misunderstandings.
First, you must remember that if the collaboration is new, then it is important to over-communicate. Do not think that a particular piece of information has been sufficiently discussed enough to be understood by the other party after the first time. Subsequent discussions with the recaps of the meeting, the action plan, and further steps through e-mails or using a project management tool – Asana.
When communicating deadlines, make it clear from which time zone you are writing, to avoid misunderstanding. And do not forget that the tone is rather easy to misinterpret in written media, especially if the members of the group are from different countries, so it is crucial to use only the phrases that will not cause misunderstandings.
Applications like Slack and Microsoft Teams help in having a cohesion of communication between individuals in different teams with the help of features like group messaging. One thing to always keep in mind is that there will always be time differences – this means that when you’re available, be sure to reply to your partner as soon as you can. At the same time, never mind when your partner takes time to get back to you.
Scheduling for meetings that will require some attendees to be online at different time zones may be difficult. However, there is a way of making this common practice easier, and that is through the use of tools such as Doodle and the meeting schedulers that are already integrated into Google Calendar.
Using these tools, you put in the various locations of the attendees, as well as your own schedule. There will also be times when the scheduler will be used to identify best meeting times, taking into account the working hours in each time zone. A few of these tools can show holidays in various regions and other options, like daylight saving time, which might also affect the schedules.
When extending calendar invites, it should be culturally sensitive to specify the time zone to eliminate confusion. You should also decide whether the scheduled meeting time is convenient for all participants or during working hours only, thus enabling people to adjust to the time.
However, having set working hours can be quite advantageous, the concept of firm hours remains somewhat challenging across the international teams. Thinking under this context is that flexibility in working hours is essential in meeting the needs of different time zones, especially when there is need to meet a certain deadline.
However, there are also positive effects that can be observed even if they do not directly relate to time zone management. According to research on workforce flexibility, employees who work remotely have a better-quality work life and better productivity when they are allowed to choose their working hours.
In the flex hour arrangements, create core times during which actual synchronous collaborative work can still occur, which is made possible by time zone conversion tools. Besides that, the employees are free to swap shifts or work during their preferred time provided they meet the deliverables required from them.
Since one of the key flex hour enablers involves easy sharing of files, a communication tool such as Slack enhances flex hour performance. All handoffs are coordinated so that a shift in time does not affect quality and alignment in case of last-minute change.
Apart from the time conversion, calendar, and messaging tools discussed above, there are several applications that may help facilitate cross-global cooperation.
Solid calendar tools are mandatory for planning and tracking working time and their correlation with different time zones. For easy comparison, services such as Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook have the feature to display all the time zones together.
Ensure that you use calendar tools that employ different colors for time zones in order to further enhance distinction of the available event scheduling time schedules. Another aspect of notification and reminder customization is that it assists in maintaining focus of all staff members prior to the due date.
For the instant view of the rest of the time zones, world clock applications are especially fitting for on-demand time checking. In contrast to the complicated conversion tools, these basic applications allow users to search for time in certain countries or cities only.
Some world clock apps that are available include; Worldtime Buddy, Clocks, and others come with weather, currency, and other tools that enable efficiency in business activities during collaborations across the world.
Tools such as Asana, Trello, and Jira not only assist with the assignment and coordination of tasks, but also have features that display team members’ availability. By indicating an online and offline presence of its members, you can determine presumably the best time for interaction.
The use of project management tools also provides an insight into other tasks that are due at different times across different time zones. These messages can also be scheduled according to the working hours of a particular region, if needs be.
By connecting apps through automation tools like Zapier and IFTTT, you can build helpful time zone management workflows:By connecting apps through automation tools like Zapier and IFTTT, you can build helpful time zone management workflows:
- Schedule meeting times to be automatically changed in calendar invitations according to the time zone of the recipient
- Get notified on daylight saving time changes in the areas that apply the policy
- If you have any upcoming deadlines, make sure that they reflect the corresponding time zone of the core contributors.
Automations reduce the need for several time-consuming processes, while your team is working across different countries and zones.
Aside from having the right tools, certain practices set distributed teams up for fruitful cross-cultural collaboration:
When working in the international context, people feel different as a result of cultural disparities and variations in interaction. Be responsible for creating an egalitarian climate and make an effort to know about coworkers’ cultures.
Avoid assuming what is proper and improper, question everything, and search for similarities. Different cultural events may be celebrated and this has an implication on the working calendar of other employees.
In summary, be patient, empathetic and non-judgmental when interacting with the chosen subjects. If one got it right, a diversity of perspective and experience results to better work output.
Fix meetings must be kept in check especially when working with teams that are from different time zones. Since people are not in the same physical space to discuss tasks and interactions daily as they would be in an office environment, it is important to maintain regular communication through other forms.
Incorporate brief, regular catch-up communications that have no purpose other than to stay in sync and avoid long periods without contact. If there are any expected delays because of working across time zones, it is advisable to be as open as possible and always double up on everything that changes once priorities have been altered.
It is crucial to document extensively since members may be communicating at different times of the day or night due to time zone differences. In decisions made during calls, ensure to take serious records and also ensure that meeting minutes are posted in areas that can be accessed easily.
Documents such as Confluence, Notion and Google Doc consolidate significant information through which the entire team in the project can easily access information. Encourage all regions to share their current status to foster transparency patterns within the organization.
When scheduling meetings to connect with team members around the globe, also think about avoiding the following burnout. Another challenge of working remotely is that most teams work across time zones and are often connected 24/7, therefore the need for establishing boundaries.
Do not use work time and stretch your working hours only because a person from another country is available online. Likewise, the same should be done when they log off while you continue making your work progress. Explain how to become a good role model, for instance when turning off the notifications during non-working hours.
Here work-life balance can be maintained deliberately so that the global teams do not fall prey to such fatigue and can work effectively in a sustainable manner.
Proper time management of the working hours is the key to the high productivity and efficiency of the remote teams, regardless of the geography. By use of proper scheduling techniques, availability, time and communication, then it is possible to work across the world. Adherence to the tips, tools and practices captured above shall bring a positive change to coordination among the global partners.
What have you found your own experience of working across time difference to be like? Feel free to add anything you or your teams have learned or anything that has proven successful in your distributed environment on our Instagram post.
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