As distant work becomes more common, the likelihood of working with colleagues in several time zones increases. This has been an option since before many individuals began working from home—for instance, between a house office in Latest York and a satellite office in Los Angeles, California.
Nonetheless, today, for a lot of fully distributed teams and corporations with employees positioned elsewhere all over the world, working in multiple time zones has develop into an on a regular basis reality. Corporations likely have much more schedules to juggle, with some employees getting up and logging in for the day, and others simply logging off.
It is easy to only think in regards to the problems that may arise from co-workers in several locations attempting to work together who don’t start and end the work day the identical way. But this asynchronous setup has some benefits aside from disadvantages.
Advantages of working in several time zones
Working across time zones can profit each employees and employersfrom improving work-life balance to expanding the talent pool for brand spanking new employees.
Creates higher boundaries between work and personal life
Pinterest trainer Laura Rike works with a team of distant staff in several time zones and was doing so even before the outbreak of the pandemic. Rike believes that one among the advantages is the structure itself lends itself well to employees setting and maintaining their very own boundaries around your schedule, which is improving job satisfaction.
“We encourage our team to take day without work in real time and switch off notifications Upbaseand provided they meet
deadlines, it doesn’t matter what time they work,” Rike said. “Since a significant slice of our team performs creative tasks, it helps that they will select times that work best for them, once they feel best.”
Independent brand and marketing strategist Janina Maral, who currently works on Eastern Standard Time, has experience working remotely across time zones within the US, in addition to with clients all over the world. She also found that working this fashion could allow for greater flexibility to arrange your day. In response to Maral, the advantage of sticking to your individual 9-to-5 schedule when your organization or client works 9-to-5 is that you will have more uninterrupted work time, free from meetings and text messages Loose Or Teams.
“With regards to working across time zones, I believe everyone in any industry must be flexible – you could should be present outside your regular 9-5 working hours, depending on where you might be and where your clients or customers are positioned. company-based,” Maral said. “Nevertheless it gives you the chance to arrange your day and take a look at it in another way, whether that is slow mornings if you happen to’re working from afternoon to evening, or starting much earlier and freeing up time earlier.”
Higher response to customers
Not only employees can potentially profit from working in several time zones – this solution too enables distributed groups to be more responsive and available when customers need assistance.
“When you will have team members in multiple time zones, it increases the hours you might be available to your entire clients, not only those that live in a unique time zone than your most important office, because you will have team members scheduled and may communicate together with your clients a lot of the hours in a given day,” explained Matt Erhard, managing partner on the recruiting firm Peak Search Groupwhich has multiple offices across Canada.
Access to a wider talent pool
Erhard added that having a world team expands the list of candidates who could potentially join your organizationleading to an overall stronger and more expert team.
“If you only work in a single time zone, potential employees are limited to individuals who also live in that region (or are willing to work those hours in the event that they live elsewhere),” Erhard said.
Challenges of working in several time zones
Along with the advantages of working across time zones, there are also some challenges to think about.
Coordination Meetings
Rike found that the largest challenge for team members working in several time zones was getting everyone to attend company meetings at the identical time. “It isn’t often obligatory, but it surely definitely helps construct morale and keep spirits high when we are able to associate faces with names and Don’t feel so alone in our remote settingsRike said.
“Planning meetings and collaboration sessions generally is a challenge,” Erhard agreed. The managing partner explained that his firm’s teams often need to collaborate across “adjoining” time zones, in addition to internationally, with clients in america and other countries.
“It’s less of a difficulty whenever you work in adjoining time zones, like Summit,” he said. “But for truly international corporations, it could be possible employees whose schedules don’t coincide in any respectwhich might make it difficult for these teams to speak and work together on projects.”
Receiving pings after working hours
You are off duty, but one among your team members abroad just sent you a message with a matter. Receiving a signal after hours – and feeling it undecided whether to reply now or wait until your individual working hours—it is a situation by which Michael Filippo, the corporate’s director of international sales He revealedcommon faces.
One in every of Filippo’s favorites tools that he uses it Respect your team’s time is the “send later” option in each Slack and email. “This, like setting your enterprise hours and turning off notifications outside of those hours, can really assist you to create and maintain a healthy work environment,” he said.
Greater risk of miscommunication
A broad team spanning multiple time zones also includes different regions, which regularly have distinctive cultures, notes Erhard. “This may be a bonus since it broadens perspectives that influence decision-making, but it will probably also result in misunderstandings and difficulties in communication,” he said.
“The straightforward fact of distribution can even cause problems corresponding to slow responses or lack of real-time interaction, which might make things difficult communicate clearly as a team“
April Hoffbauervice chairman of People at Maze, a worldwide and fully distributed technology startup, also flags missed messages or crossed wires as a possible problem with working in several time zones. To handle this challenge, it recommends that when communicating in this fashion, organizations set expected time frames for responses and the variety of communication medium for urgent and non-urgent questions. “There can also be questions sent through a non-public channel that may be answered more quickly in a public thread,” Hoffbauer said.
To avoid incomplete thoughts and limitless second thoughts, Hoffbauer said Maze recommends that questions and requests include as much information as possible, including anticipating the subsequent questions someone might ask to effectively move the matter forward.
Unintended consequences of ineffective communication
Hoffbauer noted that cultural differences must be kept in mind when communicating across time zones, and training in tone and language selection will help increase the possibilities that feelings remain positive and avoid the unintended consequences of ineffective communication.
An unintended consequence could also be a delay in project implementation. “Seting a stage with all stakeholders at the start of the project and setting expectations for response time will help keep everyone on target,” Hoffbauer said.
The VP explained that the Maze team has 120 members in 36 countries, and although all are full-time, the corporate operates across time zones and outdoors of “normal” business hours. So one other way Maze tries Overcome the challenges of working in several time zones it’s about encouragement asynchronous work and having a “results, not hours” policy.
“We explain in our advantages and handbook that we would like our team members to work when and where they’re best, so long as they’re doing their job and communicating effectively with their colleagues,” Hoffbauer said. “At Maze, we’re asynchronous first, which suggests we act as if we are the only people online at any given time. This type of working means we must document rigorously and communicate thoughtfully, prioritizing efficiency and understandability while respecting others’ time.
Teamwork across time zones
While there could also be potential pitfalls for a distant team spread across different time zones, considering and planning for these challenges prematurely and leveraging distant work best practices can be sure that distant team members work well together and respect one another’s time. Corporations, nevertheless, can profit from having employees across the country and all over the world.
To learn more about constructing a distant team, try our Q&A with corporations which have already done it successfully!