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This way, while the meeting may be inconvenient for some occasionally, it will demonstrate that everyone is willing to try and accommodate all employees. Because you won’t be as available to overseas employees, it is important that you are clear about what you expect. You’re off-duty, but one of your team members in another country just messaged you with a question. Erhard added that having an international team broadens the candidates who could potentially join your company, which translates to an overall stronger and more skilled team. 80% of employees said they would choose a job that had flexible work options over another job without those options. The HR pros at ExtensisHR are here to help optimize your ever-growing workforce – contact us today to get started.
This way, your team operates in a relay, which can accelerate your output and ability to solve problems. Remote work, or better referred to as a flexible work arrangement, is part of our new normal. A 2021 study found that 70% of companies surveyed planned to adopt a hybrid work model, and 80% of employees said they would choose a job that had flexible work options over another job without those options. Moreover, many employees have felt more productive, happier, and less stressed working remotely.
Working Across Multiple Time Zones: Tools and Strategies That Help Connect
Plus, you can add the correct time to your calendar in just a click, if you’d like. Here are some popular ways to use Slack with app automation tool Zapier to automatically share activity in your channels so everyone knows what’s going on. When you’re working in a distributed fashion, learning to be an effective async communicator is going to be the biggest factor in your success. Helping others obviously helps the receiver, yet did you know there are many benefits for the giver?
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. I know personally, I sometimes like to get stuck in at various points in my day for focused work without too many distractions. Scheduled synchronous communication like planned video calls/syncups allow me to better mentally prepare.
Unintended Consequences of Ineffective Communication
In a worst case scenario, that means they might not feel they’re giving their full attention to work or their personal life. Get a better understanding of mental health working remotely in a different time zone issues affecting remote workers in our article on the subject. We saw how working remotely across various time zones can be both rewarding and challenging.
The difference is, it may be easier for managers to see when someone has been at their desk for hours. One of those stressors comes from the flexible line between personal time and work time. While flexibility and asynchronous work is a good thing, sometimes a worker might feel like their job should take precedence over personal time. They may work extra hours or check work email during time off because they happen to be online.
What Is People Ops?
Prepare your materials, agenda, and objectives for any meetings or calls in advance, and share them with the relevant parties. Be flexible and respectful of the time differences, and try to find a mutually convenient time slot for your interactions. If possible, rotate the meeting times so that everyone gets a fair share of convenient and inconvenient hours. Furthermore, managers need to be specific with time zones when setting up schedules for meetings, deadlines, or any project discussion. That assists your remote team in other areas of the world to adjust the outlined time zone with theirs. Managers who do not clarify their expected time because of time zone boundaries will have problems on their hands.
- In these tools, we can log what we’ve done, what we’re doing or questions and comments we have and know that other team members can read and comment later on their own schedule.
- Finally, you’ll want to adopt the habit of scheduling team meetings at optimal times for everyone.
- There is a false perception that remote workers are lazy, taking every opportunity to slack off because nobody is watching.
- Having the right kind of gear empowers remote employees to actively participate in the conversation—to literally be seen and heard.
- However, it becomes more complicated when working with a global workforce (people who work on opposite sides of the world).
When scheduling a meeting or call with remote team members, make sure to ask them what time zone they are in so that you can account for any time difference with their local time when you schedule. It’s not all 9-5 anymore with remote teams, with some works preferring to wake up in the early morning to get a head start before the day begins, and others starting late but working in the evening. When you meet frequently with the same people, take time to understand when they work remotely.
Without the right strategy in place, a dispersed workforce can result in reduced collaboration, employee burnout, increased compliance risk, and more. The following best practices will help SMB employers navigate these challenges and reap all the benefits of remote work. There are more time zone tools at TimeandDate.com, too, so be sure to check it out if you want to find local times around the world for your event, convert times for any location, and more.
