An Engineer’s Guide to Working Across Time Zones

I could edit all day and send the edits back to the client in my afternoon, just as they got back up and were starting to write again. To maintain my moniker of a part-time world traveler, I spent winter 2016 in Europe, living in Berlin for all of November. I lived through my birthday and the U.S. presidential election in the German capital. This article will explore an alternative to the 9-5 schedule, namely, the DuPont shift schedule. We will highlight how it works, its pros and cons, and ways to implement it.

• This can leave employees feeling their work is being overlooked, and potentially affect their career advancement as it doesn’t allow enough insight into their effort and contribution.
• At Buffer, we meet somewhere in the world once a year for a weeklong company retreat.
• Remote companies that embrace multiple time zones must rely on asynchronous communication.
• It was further refined and expanded as fears of nuclear attack grew in the 1950s and 60s.
• Working while traveling can be the ultimate dream, but there’s also the potential for a lot of problems.

Following the above tips and practices will help you develop a schedule and a working model that will keep everybody happy and included while valuing the personal needs of each team member. It will help if you switch meeting times weekly and make them more convenient for people worldwide to prevent burnout in one employee. Perhaps you can have two different meetings on one day at two different working remotely in a different time zone times so everybody can get a chance to participate. That could be fostered through social meetings thanks to video chat and conference calls. Consider milestones successfully met, celebrations of team birthdays, and weekly virtual water-cooler conversations. I know personally, I sometimes like to get stuck in at various points in my day for focused work without too many distractions.

How to Work Across Time Zones as a Remote Team: Best Practices

When working across time zones, it is important to set fair meeting times. A fourth technique for working across different time zones and schedules is to set boundaries and expectations for yourself and your contacts. You should define your availability, workload, and goals for each project and contact. You should also communicate your limits, preferences, and concerns to your contacts.

• Social relationships with colleagues not only combats isolation, but it decreases barriers to asking questions, getting help, and taking risks that are crucial to growth.
• When working on a report, for example, globally distributed teammates won’t necessarily have the opportunity to ping a coworker and get the missing info right away.
• Effectively navigating remote work across time zones, remote teams can transform the world into a virtual office where borders vanish, and collaboration knows no limits.
• Working in an office (or with the same work hours) is filled with impromptu moments that break up your day, many of which are unwanted distractions.
• Everyone can look through these at their leisure, take notes, and return to your instructions or ask questions afterward.

This respect is so key to maintaining work-life balance across time zones, and making sure that everyone is communicating in a productive way. Therefore, it’s reasonable to switch meeting schedules every month or quarter. This ensures that no single team is forced to make constant sacrifices to stay linked. It may also cause everyone to plan a meeting across time zones when they’re the ones working unusual hours. After all, having employees working in different 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.

What’s your team up to?

And with 94% of employees reporting that they’d stay longer at a company if it invested in their careers, providing virtual mentoring opportunities can also be beneficial. Although it can get challenging at times to manage a geographically dispersed team, there are still many more benefits to the approach. And this is particularly why we’re seeing a consistent increase in the number of companies employing globally. Let’s break down all the benefits of working across time zones to get a better understanding of the trend. It’s tough to keep the collaboration and team spirit high with one team leaving the virtual office just as another is starting their workday.