Remote work is providing companies new opportunities to access huge talent pools all across the globe. With the increasing remote culture, many companies have jobs and employees scattered all across the world. It can be a great advantage for businesses that provide global products and need 24 hours support for their customers.
No doubt a remote team can help in boosting productivity of a business, but it comes with some challenges especially when it comes to management because everyone is working across different time zones. It means that some employees are getting up in the morning while others are closing their workday.
In this article we will have a closer look at the benefits and challenges of working across time zones and potential ways a business can mitigate the limitation that come in this type of organizational structure:
Benefits Of Working Across Time Zones
Working across time brings numerous unique advantages for businesses looking to get onto diverse talent pools, boost innovation and meet the needs of global customers. Lets have a look at these benefits:
i. Global Talent Acquisition
If your business has a remote jobs first work culture, it means you have access to a large pool of talents and skillset. It means that your company is in a better position to hire a workforce that perfectly matches the need for the organization. As the location is no longer a constraint, you can build cross-functional teams for your business. It helps in sharing niche expertise which may be found elsewhere. Getting access to global talent also helps in faster hiring and retention of top performers.
ii. Company Diversity
If you have a team that works across time zones, it can be very beneficial especially when you want to provide good customer service. Your customers can get an immediate response without any language barrier or cultural differences. With the diverse work experience of every team member, your company will have the ability to build world class products and ultimately improve productivity and financial metrics of your business.
iii. High Productivity
According to different studies, companies that adapted remote work culture have enhanced productivity. With the help of advanced and virtual communication every individual stays updated and well informed about the projects they are working on and also knows about the changes that they need to make when developing products.
It is a great investment to have teams across time zones for any company. With a diverse team your company will have different perceptive and broad ideas to move the company’s vision forward and also scale up by a considerable margin. Although it may look like a bed of roses, it is actually not. There are several challenges that come with having a remote team.
iv. Improved Responsiveness To Customers
It is not only beneficial for employees to work across the time zones, but this arrangement also allows distributed teams to be more responsive and available to assist customers whenever needed.
With the team members across the globe you can expand the hours you are available for all of your customers and not only for those who live in the same time zone of your main office. Since you have team members across the globe, they will be able to communicate with customers for an increased percentage of hours every day.
V. Flexibility And Autonomy
Working across time zones is highly beneficial for employees as it provides them the flexibility to manage schedules. With the ability to work from anywhere they will be able to balance their professional and personal life in a better way. Moreover, autonomy helps to build trust within teams.
Challenges Of Working Across Time Zones
Along with the benefits of working across time zones there are several challenges that you must consider:
1. Communication Challenges
To have a remote team functioning in a smooth manner, a clear communication strategy is essential. It can be very challenging to put your team in one place if they are located all over the world, they talk different languages and have different cultural experiences. The assignment of carrying out the duties couldn’t be more invigorating when the communication is done effectively. In such situations time and resources are usually wasted while trying to get the job done. It will also affect discussions and decision making.
2. Scheduling Conflicts
The most common challenging part of working across the time zone is schedule meetings because your employees are present in different time zones. It is difficult to find a meeting time when all the team members can attend. To make it possible, a lot of sacrifices and compromises have to be made by every team member. But it is necessary to scale up the company so you must do it while respecting the personal time of your employees.
3. Slow Collaboration
Working in a remote team working across different time zones can imply a lot of formidable tasks and inconveniences. One challenge among others is the fact communication between the members of the team takes time which in result can extend the whole project process and product launch.
When team members are spread across different time zones, it can take longer to get responses to questions, feedback, or approvals. This delay can cause stopping points, particularly in the cases of when a meeting decision cannot be made the same day that it is agreed upon and must be put one day ahead.
Scheduling meetings that accommodate everyone’s availability can also be difficult, which in the end, results in inefficiency. To solve these problems, groups often apply semi-synchronous communication tools, articulate documentation, and well-structured work solutions to get the project through.
4. Isolation
One significant drawback of working remotely is that it may make one feel isolated from the rest of the team. This type of working environment lacks social and human interaction during working hours which is required to enhance their productive working mood.
5. Risk Of Burnout
Managing projects with teams across different time zones may lead to extended working hours. The need for coordination during overlapping office hours can be exhausting for employees. It may increase fatigue and disturb the health and personal life of your employees.
Overcome The Challenges Of Working Across Time Zones
There are several ways to overcome the difficulties of working across time zones which can help you in building a good working culture:
i. Flexibility
Flexibility is simply equal to adaptation. If you want to improve the efficiency and productivity of your company, adaptation will be the key to unlock that potential. Here the question may arise that how can you ensure that the work environment is flexible for all the employees across all the team members.
In order to do so you must integrate a working system in your company which is clear for every team member to understand what is needed from them when it comes to meet up, collaborations and cross functional brainstorming sessions.
Moreover, it is better to inform employees prior to hiring that they might need to work overlapping hours to run business smoothly. It also prepares team members mentally and helps them to manage their time effectively knowing that overlap is a requirement of their job to keep the company moving forward.
ii. Effective Communication
Information sharing can be done in various ways and a good communication format can cause a significant impact on efficiency and productivity of an organization with teams working across time zones. You can use advanced communication tools like Zoom or slack to keep your team in a loop.
These platforms allow you to send meeting alerts and communicate with team members on future events. Team members in different time zones can easily communicate with each other and know each other’s working hours and availability. Overall it is essential to clearly convey this information and if there are language barriers you must make team members according to their language.
iii. Work Life Balance
With the increasing demand of remote working or a workforce across time zones,Tracking remote Employes and maintaining a healthy work-life balance has become increasingly challenging. The lack of clear boundaries between work and personal life often leads to added pressure and burnout. It is because most of the time there is no separation between these two. Some employees need to work during midnight hours which impact their sleeping patterns and if not managed properly it will result in motivation and brain drain.
iv. Collaboration Tools
Now that remote work ratio is increasing, there are many tools that are available to help teams which are working across time zones:
V. Google Calendar
It is a very useful tool and is easy to use when it comes to time management and it helps in accurately synchronizing time zones for meetings.
vi. Asana/ Trello
When it comes to collaboration, Trello and Asana are great management tools. They help team members working across time zones collaborate efficiently and track projects easily.
vii. Google Meet/ Zoom
Google Meet It is highly essential to hold meetings for teams working across time zones because it is very important to keep everyone informed about project progress and company updates. Using Google meet or zoom is a good idea as it brings everyone from different time zones together.
viii. Calendly
This tool is highly useful for scheduling meetings for teams across different time zones. It seamlessly integrates with emails and helps in booking calls.
Final Words - Working-Across-Time-Zones Challenges
Flexibility is a big advantage of working across multiple time zones, as you can hire people from different parts of the world, the productivity of the teams and the global support of the customers are also greatly increased. However, it also involves problems like communication difficulties, scheduling conflicts, and burnout. For businesses to face these obstacles and overcome them, they need to bring in play skills and tools that enable their workforce to communicate efficiently from anywhere and have the flexibility to work varying hours. Through the creation of an environment that is both productive and stress-free for employees, firms would be able to realize the full potential of a global and remote workforce while at the same time minimizing the associated difficulties.
FAQs - Working-Across-Time-Zones Challenges
Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams are some of the many useful communication tools that companies can use to keep their employees in touch. Setting out definite guidelines for asynchronous and synchronous communication, and taping the meetings for the possibility of future playback may enhance collaboration in a more effective manner.
Flexibility enables employees to manage their work-life balance and be less stressed and more productive as a result. It also allows businesses to adapt to employees’ time zones and personal schedules while keeping high levels of the performance.
The use of the scheduling tools such as Google Calendar, Calendly, and World Time Buddy can make the process of arranging meetings very efficient. Alongside this, the companies should adapt to the flexibility or reduce the redundant meetings and thereby accept the personal time of the employees as a priority for them.
The use of the scheduling tools such as Google Calendar, Calendly, and World Time Buddy can make the process of arranging meetings very efficient. Alongside this, the companies should adapt to the flexibility or reduce the redundant meetings and thereby accept the personal time of the employees as a priority for them.
Using both asynchronous and synchronous communication, use of collaboration tools and demanding clear availability will allow the companies to balance these kinds of communication and thus the successful time management across the time zones by the remote team will be assured.
