And that’s nice—we all need human interaction, and it’s great that you can still get that without being in the same room. “They worked the night shift while my team in Redmond worked days,” Berkun says. “If I planned well, we’d find magic in going to bed frustrated by a missing puzzle piece, and waking to find it in our inbox. It was like having a friend in the future.”
- 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.
- Like most states in the US, Tennessee observes daylight saving time, which means that the time zone changes twice a year.
- But the Central Time Zone six hours behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC-6), while the Eastern Time Zone five hours behind (UTC-5).
- However, when done right, remote work can actually enhance your team’s collaboration and the overall level of communication.
The difficulties of managing different time zones, language barriers, and cultural differences can be frustrating. Plus, you need to understand the differences between synchronous and asynchronous communication, and when to use each. To ensure smooth sailing for everyone, IT and customer service teams must be able to collaborate seamlessly across shifts and time zones. Teams distributed across the globe are scheduled so that there is always someone on the clock to provide support. Being part of a global team comes with a host of advantages—from learning from each other’s culture to numerous cross-learning opportunities. However, having colleagues in all time zones makes it difficult to keep track of the time and create boundaries.
What time is it in Tennessee?
“I’d quite happily sacrifice staying a little later or getting up a little earlier to avoid the stresses of a morning commute in rush hour traffic.” Clocks and symbols (daylight saving – winter) are updated in real time as the time changes in different US time zones. While it may seem overkill to hire a person solely dedicated to this, it’s a mistake to think that you can https://remotemode.net/ simply take what was working in the office. Or in overlapping time zones, and copy and paste it onto a truly distributed team. 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 has been especially true in 2020 as offices adapt to ever-changing work conditions and expectations. Take advantage of cloud-based solutions that empower teams to collaborate, communicate, and track work effectively, no matter where they are. Remote working isn’t automatically a freer way to work—it can be just as stressful as any 9-to-5 job. Teach your remote team to be flexible about time, though, and everyone’s lives will be easier. Plus, you’ll be able to hire the best people from anywhere around the globe.
Don’t zone out on time zones: Tips and tricks for success
Plus, each department has a weekly video call to map out that week’s work, and every Thursday we’ll have an all-hands call in order to get everyone together. Planning meetings across time zones might sound so painful that you’d rather just never have meetings—but don’t do that either. This strategy makes your projects asynchronous, which remote developer Mutahhir Ali Hayat suggests is the best way to make remote development work out.
- Maintain records of schedules, work plans, and work completed, along with notes, data, and other documentation for your teams to refer to.
- Each of those live in Async—an in-house tool that gives everyone a set place to write anything they need to share with the entire team and forces us to “work in public.”
- The best way to keep things going well is to be occupied and busy only 80-90% of your working hours so that you have enough time to plan, think, organize and breathe.
- Understanding DST’s implications and navigating its changes are essential for maintaining smooth operations and ensuring consistency in communication and scheduling.
- The main project management tools include Trello, Basecamp, and Asana, which keep track of what everyone is working on as it progresses through the pipeline.
Everyone can look through these at their leisure, take notes, and return to your instructions or ask questions afterward. No one should feel compelled to be alert when working across working remotely in a different time zone time zones constantly. Employees who do not establish clear work boundaries risk burning out, which negatively impacts the entire team’s productivity, creativity, and collaboration.
How to Lead Remote Meetings with Focus and Intention
For example, Lucidchart helps teams visualize their data and map their processes in one shareable space. Easily customize templates, import data, and collaborate with team members in real time. These touchpoints should all be documented and recorded in a single source of truth for the customer service team to reference. This documentation improves the customer experience by ensuring a seamless handoff and increases trust and collaboration among your remote workers.
The actual time difference between co-workers is a significant barrier to effective real-time communication. If remote employees don’t have overlap in work hours, there can be a lag between a question being asked and answered. Asynchronous communication should be the norm for remote teams working across time zones, especially those with personnel in multiple time zones.
It might work out great for you, if you like to work nontraditional hours anyway. Software engineer Kevin Furbish found this to be true about his remote team at Intuit. “Many of us tend to work crazy hours, which mitigates being in different time zones.” “Any remote worker knows you have to be flexible, so I feel time zone differences don’t impact your remote work life too much,” says Zapier’s Smith.
Leave a reply