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With that kind of virtual workspace software, you will get the same benefits as if you were sitting in the same room. During a 2020 research, Eric Brynjolfsson estimates that the number of remote workers in the U.S. has quadrupled to nearly 50% of the nation’s workforce. Although many people had already been working remotely, the appearance of COVID-19 played a significant role in this rapid shift. In the context of the upheaval and uncertainty during the last 18 months, it’s more important than ever that companies bring their people together. This allows them to work independently without waiting for approval or help from another colleague in a different time zone.
For example, people in the same room are more likely to talk to each other and forget about the person on the video screen and the person on the speaker phone. Likewise, it’s easier to enter the conversation as a distributed participant using video https://remotemode.net/ than audio only because your visual presence makes it easier to get people’s attention. Multiple time-zones are a great feature of Google Workspace and using UTC as a base removes any confusion from time zone to time zone when booking a meeting.
Timezone Management Tools
For those located in the UK and Ireland, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is extremely easy to use as it’s essentially in our current time zone. These are online whiteboards where you can meet up with your team, create virtual birthday cards, design e-cards, or even just leave a heartfelt message. If you need more ideas on how to make e-cards for colleagues, you can browse through this catalog from Punchbowl. Our tendency as consultants is to align with the rhythm set by our clients. Home and professional boundaries blur, staff work against their natural preferences and sleep patterns get interrupted, impacting performance, straining relationships and raising stress. If you avoid asking many small questions in the chat, unless they are urgent for a project, it will prove to be beneficial for your collaboration with the client.
While the distance is a challenge, remote meetings are crucial for getting on the same page with your colleagues. However, the latter part of the nineteenth century is well known for the explosion of global trading, and the expansion of communication and transport that inevitably came with this. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and the world was changing almost beyond recognition. Because of this, the need eventually arose for a better method of timekeeping. This gave birth to time zones, with the Greenwich Meridian becoming the first, or ‘Prime’, time zone in 1884.
Communication Gap
When you can’t grab a colleague for a coffee and chat, communication becomes even more critical. Slack particularly helps us execute projects seamlessly across three continents, whether communication is synchronous. Our team members can custom set their status too, reminding others where they’re located around the globe. Our remote-first culture at Buyapowa has given us an influx of bright, hungry employees and benefits us commercially. There are loads of great options in the cloud storage field, but we’re going to choose Google Drive as its large free allowance and integration with other Google services is brilliant.
- While the distance is a challenge, remote meetings are crucial for getting on the same page with your colleagues.
- You can then name this time zone so it will have a label when it is added to your Google Calendar.
- Nigel has been called a proposal pioneer in Australia for his work in shaping the professional bid-ding landscape in the region.
- We also go the extra mile to show our remote team that their hard graft is recognised because success shouldn’t just be measured by salary.
Everyone on your team needs to understand when to touch base, which will not be the same time for everyone. Always note what time a meeting is happening with its appropriate time zone, and its corresponding international times and time zones when applicable. It’s advised to try to keep meetings within working hours for everyone, or as close to them as possible. If you do need to schedule meetings outside of working hours, be fair in having them during rotating odd-hours, so the same team members aren’t always working late or waking up early. If handling time zone differences with offshore teams and bridging the culture gap is a challenge, consider adopting agile practices. Using agile methodologies in remote teams boosts team performance, increases project visibility and ensures that everyone is on the same page.
Our Services
Throughout our remote journey, we’ve made incredible discoveries, including how to manage and motivate teams working across multiple time zones, and how to recruit and retain the top talent. Structure your team to fit across time zones, it works incredibly well. Towards the end of your day can be the start of someone else’s, so you can keep productivity high. Plan to Leverage Overlaps & Time ShiftingOverlaps are those periods when people in different TZs are working simultaneously.
- In this article, we examine the tools someone can utilize to work effectively from different time zones.
- However, if there are more than just a couple of you on the call, it may be best to stick to specific times to avoid confusion and/or people missing the call.
- Oktopost is a social media management platform which is specifically oriented to B2B marketing and Social Media B2B.
- That way we dodge any mix-ups and ensure we’re all turning up (virtually) when we should.
- A global people and operations leader shares how work has shifted and its impact on the workplace.
- Rather than like a lot of agencies would have had everyone in Singapore where the agency is based.
Managing multiple teams spread out across the globe is a complex and challenging task. However, by making use of the latest technology, trusting your teams, and staying present, the role not only becomes more manageable, but also more rewarding. However, with a well organised calendar, and a properly structured email inbox, it becomes easier to manage. It’s this effective use of technology that helps to create open channels of communication between you and your teams, allowing key decisions to be made quickly and efficiently, regardless of where you are located. And as our geographic reach has expanded, we have become religious at cherry-picking dynamic team members, who will thrive when collaborating across time zones.
Tech Tip Thursday: Coordinating Google Calendar Meetings With UTC
At the same time, different time zones can complicate how organisations communicate diversity messages that both reach and resonate with all colleagues. Today, you can hire diverse talent from across the globe without worrying about geographical limitations. For example, you can successfully manage your offshore development team in India, Ukraine, or The Philippines, all from the comfort of your local office in London. With key relationships formed and the right structures in place to support you, you can make your working relationships far more efficient. We want to retain our talent, and that’s why we’ve made training and development a crucial part of our radically remote culture. We offer generous training budgets, to help the team upskill, and we encourage staff to identify what coaching would benefit them in regular reviews.
While working as an international team has its challenges here and there, we’ve found it to be more than beneficial — and so have our clients. Our wide range of time zones means we’re always working around the clock, which allows us to deliver fast results with the https://remotemode.net/blog/10-tips-on-working-in-different-time-zones/ quality you’d expect. If you need a Shopify team to improve how your storefront or site functions, get in touch with Full Fat today. We always reply as soon as possible with the information and Shopify help you need, whether it’s morning, afternoon, or night.
