Hiring from across the globe means you get the best talent to work for you at a reasonable salary. It’s a win for your business.
Until something as pesky as time zones interfere. How do you connect with your teams in Honolulu, Helsinki, and Hong Kong together?
You know that simply assigning tasks to remote employees and expecting them to carry it out is a faux pas. Building relationships require interacting and engaging with people.
But why do you consider the different time zones a problem? Is it because the traditional 9-to-5 working hours don’t line up?
Perhaps the root problem is the notion that the “correct work hours” are 9 am to 5 pm. Turns out it’s not.
While the 24-hour circadian rhythm is the same for every human being, the ultradian cycle varies. The ultradian rhythm denotes the times when we are most productive. It has little relevance with the 9-to-5 work hours.
The other inhibiting time zone issue is the so-called work/life balance. Again, there is no one way to achieve it. Some might prefer the afternoon off to coach their son’s football team. Others may need to finish work early to volunteer.
Employees—remote and local—are increasingly seeking flexible work hours. And none more so than the power players – the millennials. So don’t fall into the claptrap of the 9-to-5 when hiring globally or scheduling work.
Solving the supposed problem of the different time zones really comes down to two things. First, being open with your employees as to what they can expect in terms of work hours. And second, having contingencies to communicate under all circumstances.
Setting the right expectations
Experienced remote workers are well-versed in the time constraints of this kind of work. Even though they seek flexibility, they expect to follow official schedules.
That being said, it is really up to you to clarify what those expectations are from the get-go.
This involves defining for your business and for your (remote and local) employees a few important times and communication practices:
Set home base hours – Defined “office hours” can be a guiding north star that will help distributed teams determine their loci in terms of when to expect the most interactions, assignments, responses.
Availability online – Whether it’s most or few of the home-base hours, set clear expectations as to when remote employees need to be available online.
Overlap hours –Use tools like Every Time Zone to determine the optimal hours to reach your entire team at the same time.
Meetings –Pre-defining daily or weekly meeting times (whether your business follows remote agile or not) will help clarify your needs to remote/local employees.
Move conversations online – The only way to keep your remote teams in the loop is if they become part of the office conversations, which need to shift online. This may be the biggest way that local employees have to adapt to remote teams.
Keeping track of conversations – Moving conversations online will allow you to refer to them in the future. A tool like Hive will keep track and let you access online chats, cloud documents, emails all at once.
Written communication – Clarity in written communication is as important as keeping track of what is being said. Therefore, record video chats and keep the minutes of all meetings online.
Water cooler moments and hangouts – Social hangouts are indispensable for remote teams to get to know each other and spark fresh ideas. And pre-defined times work best to get the entire team together.
Etiquettes and best practices – From when to reply to all in emails to when it’s better to use private chats – create best practices that will standardize internal written communications.
Communication under all circumstances
That really ought to be the motto for any team, anywhere. But it’s exigent for distributed teams. Keeping in touch despite differences in time zones means embracing two types of communications: synchronous and asynchronous.
Synchronous communications
Having your distributed team available during your official work hours may seem excessive, but only if you get hung up on the 9-to-5 paradigm.
If regular brainstorming, problem-solving, and discussions are integral to your business, having a distributed team that can work at the same time as the local team will make all the difference.
And if you’re unsure whether you can even put together a remote team that will be willing to work those hours, rely on experts to get you what you want. DistantJob, for instance, specializes in hiring remote workers who are willing to keep the North American work hours.
From Skype and Zoom to Stride and Sqwiggle, there are innumerable tools that will facilitate synchronous communications with your remote employees.
Asynchronous communications
If your business requires employees to carry out tasks on their own after an initial discussion, then there might be little need for distributed teams to work at the same time.
The two major benefits associated with remote work – flexibility and “working round the clock” –warrant putting into place a watertight asynchronous communication system.
Hive can help you capture all the facets of your online work – track changes, enable collaborations, re-adjust to-do lists – and help you stay in touch with your remote teams.
Despite the expected flexibility, establish some ground rules about when a reply is expected from your remote employees. Such as, a query marked urgent has a response time of six hours.
There is a third type of communication, of course: face-to-face. Fully distributed companies like Buffer meet twice a year to catch up with all employees and harness their relationships into increased productivity.
Be it flexible work or finding employees who can keep your official work hours – time zones matter little when it comes to utilizing the skills of top talents in the most productive way. As long as you clarify your expectations, have a fail-safe onboarding process, and leverage the right tools, you can overcome any curve different time zones throw your way.
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