They’re also huge advocates of remote and asynchronous work and recognized early that when implemented effectively, remote collaboration is the key to innovation in the competitive software development landscape. This leads to a better run company, less stress, and higher quality work. Not to mention that if all time zones are covered, then the company can serve its customers 24/7 without the need for late-night shifts. Diverse teams made up of remote team members from around the world, especially in management positions, escape local echo chambers and build truly world-class products.
It’s always important for managers to keep in touch with their teams, but this is especially true when workers are spread across the country or globally. For employees, remote work can result in boosted productivity, a healthier work-life balance, and significant cost savings. Research firm Global Workplace Analytics estimates that workers save between $600 and $6,000 per year by working from home at least half of the time.
My 9 Lessons Learned for Remote Success from Across Time Zones
My brain likes to convert the wrong direction when I’m dealing with just an hour or two. That smartphone in your pocket is good for so much more than Candy Crush, selfies, and Instagram. I’m certainly guilty of spending way too long scrolling through feeds and panging with wanderlust, but it’s time to put that phone to a better use. 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. I’m an Engineering Lead for Privacy and Compliance teams in InfraSec and I joined HubSpot in January, 2017.
While it may seem overkill to hire a person solely dedicated to this, it’s a mistake to think that you can 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.
Productivity boost
Remember that to make this way of working successful, you will need a healthy mix of flexibility, understanding, and an agile approach. Most managers frequently mix micromanagement with necessary follow-ups. Because supervisors cannot see remote workers, they cannot contact them every hour or so for updates. Too much messaging or calling your team members can cause unnecessary stress, inhibit productivity, and eventually lead to a hostile work atmosphere. Managers should instead give their workers some leeway when it comes to setting work schedules or deadlines, as long as they deliver high-quality results.
- “Comfort is the journey to enlightenment and outcomes.” – Said me after 2-weeks of sitting on the worst chairs for extended lengths of time.
- This is easy for teams that work with people across two or three time zones that are all next to each other.
- Certain etiquette should also be followed in terms of communication while working across time zones.
- Let’s get a closer look at what working across time zones entails and how you can adopt better strategies to accommodate the demands of a globally distributed team.
- Most modern persistence frameworks like Hibernate/Spring Data are configurable to make them aware of the time zone of the Database that they going to communicate with.
- As a manager, it’s beneficial to visualize your team’s activities across time zones to clarify overlap times and identify the best moments of the day for collaboration and virtual meetings.
Ultimately, these things will help boost job retention, productivity, and your team’s overall performance. Even after having an initial conversation, you should also speak up if you’re having issues attending many meetings in multiple timezones. Likewise, you should also encourage colleagues to communicate when they’re running into timezone blockers. working remotely in a different time zone These discussions will better help your team learn how to strategize and identify respectful or empathetic solutions to timezone-related challenges. When international collaboration is done poorly, you might run into frustration from colleagues, all sorts of misalignment, and a sense of personal and professional disconnection across teams.
