The other great perk is that you can include people who are not on your internal email servers, like freelancers, contractors, or clients, to be part of certain channels and conversations. It was popular to organize volunteers during election season thanks to this feature. If you have the option, turn it on and at last save yourself from accidentally scheduling a meeting during an inconvenient time. Otherwise, you can always verify the location of the attendees before you send out the planner. Apps like Doodle, allow you to offer multiple times and let people select all that will work for them. Giving people the chance to select times that will work will help give them a little control and improve the meeting’s overall engagement and attendance.
If you are working with people in many regions and time zones, you can record sessions for employees to view later. This is the perfect option if you want to do training or just share recorded messages with larger groups. Even between the east and working remotely in a different time zone west coast of the United States, there is a three-hour time difference. Hosting an 8 AM meeting in New York City, which seems completely appropriate to start your day, would mean someone in Los Angeles needing to be up and ready to go by 5 AM.
Apps and Tools to Help Remote Teams Working Across Time Zones
In this blog, I will talk about a few ways in which you can manage communications with colleagues in different parts of the world, making working across multiple time zones easier. To learn more about key aspects of working with international or remote teams, check out these blog posts on hosting virtual meetings, working with global teammates, and international communication tips. To prevent this common hurdle of working across time zones, organizations can set an official time zone for all team members to reference when scheduling meetings or setting deadlines. With a uniform time zone in place, employees can easily figure out the time difference for their location and plan accordingly.
- When you work with a team working across different time zones, there is a possibility that you may face some issues.
- So, what is the difference between global teams that succeed, and those that don’t?
- If you are open to a global team, make sure your human resources team is aligned because there may be specific requirements if you are employing residents of a foreign country.
- That’s why the last important strategy that works for us as a remote team is to get together in person often.
- Simply enter your team’s current locations, and these calculators will calculate the best times to meet (and even show local holidays being observed).
Consider hosting live meetups whenever feasible to help your scattered staff connect. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at hybrid work schedule, its advantages and disadvantages, the best hybrid work practices, management tips, tools, and beyond. Whether you are meeting after hours or during work time, it’s crucial to be careful about scheduling such events.
How can Teams Manage Working Across Time Zones Most Effectively?
Navigating different time zones requires a certain amount of give-and-take from all parties involved. Set out that expectation early and work hard to ensure that early mornings and late nights are distributed equally between teams. However, with tact, mindfulness, and flexibility, you can build a team that’s diverse, dedicated, and ready to take on global business together. When working with teams in different time zones, it’s also worth considering how you can automate processes to maximize employees’ productivity. Consider which time-consuming background tasks could be suitable for AI to make the most of your international team’s time. An automated program will work 24 hours, allowing workers in all time zones to benefit from its data processing power while focusing on tasks that require a human touch.
Also keep in mind that meetings are sometimes better than offline chat — just use good judgment and always think about alternatives. How to calculate employee hours worked and what are the types of work schedules. Also, you may find it challenging to decline meetings scheduled outside your normal working hours—or to provide other dates for meetings planned outside your working hours. Make a deliberate effort to treat your international partners nicely, especially if you like your company to flourish. Valuing the sacrifices made by other workers creates an efficient and healthy work environment. Trivial mistakes make you look awful in front of your team member while working locally, but the same mistakes cause a 2-day delay when working overseas.
Ways To Build Relationships Across Different Time Zones
While the digital workplace may fully complement all work activities, firms advocating a remote-first work culture suffer the most from a lack of social interaction. Teams with a globally scattered workforce must pay extra attention to understanding and optimizing for cultural differences. Cultural, religious, and ethnic origins significantly influence your employees’ communication patterns, cooperation techniques, and work schedules. Working across different time zones with your team needs a special level of inclusion, empathy, and respect. Following the above tips and practices will help you develop a schedule and a working model that will keep everybody happy and included while valuing the personal needs of each team member.