In fact, by 2022, Gartner predicts that 75% of businesses with diverse frontline decision-makers will exceed their financial targets. That’s why the last important strategy that works for us as a remote team is to get together in person often. At Buffer, we meet somewhere in the world once a year for a weeklong company retreat. We’ll work together throughout the week and enjoy some bonding time with fun group activities, too. When you’re not in the same place with your teammates and you don’t have set work hours, one thing that becomes really important is frequent, clear communication.

Make sure you are utilizing the best tools available, and work with your teams to determine the most efficient methods to continue moving forward as a cohesive team. If a phone call or video conference is necessary, try rotating the schedules so everyone gets a turn to take calls late-night or off-hours. Some people might have to be available for an 11 PM call once a month, but it’s way easier to be onboard for working remotely in a different time zone that if they know that everyone will take a turn with the weird hours. With the many collaboration tools we are listing below, you should be able to drastically cut down on the number of calls that are required to get the work done. Just make sure to be thoughtful and rotate the timeslots as much as possible. Technology has continued to shape and develop the way we do just about everything in our daily lives.

How teams can best manage working across time zones

Managers should instead give their workers some leeway when it comes to setting work schedules or deadlines, as long as they deliver high-quality results. When we meet someone new, we frequently think they are in the same time zone as ourselves. When scheduling a conference or call with remote team members, ask them what time zone they are in so that you can account for any time difference with their local time. A complete https://remotemode.net/ remote organisation cannot rely on many of these shared experiences and physical venues to help create our culture as a totally distributed organisation. It is necessary to create a culture that prioritises your values and requires every team member to understand and uphold them. A remote team’s culture is conveyed in what you think (your values) and demonstrated in how you behave every day (your actions).

When you can’t rely on synchronous communication, you need to be able to continue working when help could be a day or two away. Working in a global team spread across time zones means embracing a remote-first, not a remote-friendly, culture. You can’t just be aware of time zones, you need to construct a company where time zones are at the core of every internal operation. This is probably the most obvious challenge of working across multiple time zones, and rightfully so. It can get overwhelming trying to set up a time that works for the entire team.

Hire a Head of Remote

Fortunately, that flexibility can be easily accomplished through collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox, etc. Using this type of tool makes handling projects in various time zones simpler because each team member has access to the system from anywhere around the globe. To be productive and efficient when working across time zones, you should be respectful, organized, and adaptable. We have put a lit of our best pointers and practices to help you get through your intercontinental workday by working remotely in different time zones. A global meeting’s ideal time will invariably change depending on the exact time zones involved. EST (10 a.m. and noon PST) is an excellent sweet spot if you’re just working with multiple time zones in the US.