Working Across Different Time Zones: Best Practices & Tools

As a remote MSP staffing company, we hire talented people from around the world and allow them to work from anywhere. We are an expat-run and fully remote company with people who have a passion for experiencing life abroad. The Colombia expat hub of Medellin is perfectly aligned with Eastern Standard Time most of the year, save for daylight savings time when it’s one hour behind. If you want https://remotemode.net/ to work remotely in sync with the North American economy, and you want to avoid time zone obstacles, we recommend Latin America. If you need to sync with them 100%, the ideal working hours would have your shift end in the evenings. If you want to interact and work with the whole world, there is pretty much no better time zone than those of Central European Time and Central African Time.

• Typically embraced for its flexibility, remote work has been made possible by mobile devices and cloud-based applications, 451 Research senior analyst Raul Castanon-Martinez said.
• Let me know if there’s anything big or a small hack that you’re doing to make your remote work and life a little better in the comments below.
• These chats are normally only 2-3 people maximum, so more often than not it’s possible to find a time that works for everyone across multiple time zones.
• Successfully working across time zones requires leaning into async practices and remote collaboration tools, as well as building and nurturing relationships across different time zones.
• Teams in traditional office settings sometimes measure productivity by how long each team member spends at their desk.
• You can find more info on how to work for a US company from Mexico here.
• Meanwhile, if you’re not working in the same country as your broader team, “don’t be afraid to ask for meetings that are outside of others’ timezones.”

Teams that work across multiple time zones can’t rely on real-time communication. There’s no room to ask clarifying questions and you don’t have the luxury of reading a person’s facial expressions or tone of voice. The need to be online at specific hours on specific days means people don’t have control over the structure of their workdays, and never-ending meetings can force people to work longer hours to get work done. When it comes to working remotely with teams across different time zones, the most important thing is to be mindful, empathetic, and respectful. The only way it can work is if you keep team meetings to a minimum, record them for those that can’t attend, and make attendance optional.

The Challenges of Working in a Different Time Zone

As someone who’s managed marketing initiatives at companies with remote employees and offices around the world, I’ve seen what successful and unsuccessful international collaboration looks like first hand. As remote work and satellite offices become more common, marketers are discovering that global teams can be incredibly beneficial to a company’s culture and ability to hire diverse talent. In this case, you’ll have to constrain your hiring to specific regions or time zones. It is not a secret that efficient communication is the foundation of success. Communication is essential in any team, but it becomes more important when working with teams in different time zones. Managing teams across different time zones don’t have to be difficult, even though it may look frightening and complicated.

“The big transition with a distributed workforce is going from synchronous to asynchronous collaboration,” they write. “Not only do we not have to be in the same spot to work together, we also don’t have to work at the same time to work together.” After years of working remotely—for companies in India, Canada, Australia, and the U.S.—I’ve learned a lot. Here’s a sneak peek, but keep reading for tips on how to make the most of the pros and overcome the cons that crop up when the world is your office.

Ruby on Rails Developer Job Description (Template + Tips)

After all, having employees working across time zones is the equivalent of offering your organization a 24-hour workplace — with the top talent on the planet. Without the need for overtime or late-night shifts, teams can collaborate to fulfill deadlines. Employees in the one-time zone can hand over half-finished projects to peers in another time zone to finish.

Sticking to inflexible annual planning cycles can introduce significant challenges in the era of rapid technological advancements. Essentially you’re working solely on one initiative in your queue for twenty minutes working remotely in a different time zone straight (no email, no LinkedIn, no Slack especially), and then you give yourself a five-minute break. During those five minutes, I would stretch or get some water before the next 20 minutes set begins.