Episode 50. 4 Tips to Manage Timezone Differences in Your Virtual Team
Staff Researcher: Evelyn Gilliard
MANAGING DIFFERENT TIMEZONES CAN BE CHALLENGING
Congratulations, CEO! You did it! You’ve built your dream team and cannot wait to get started and delegating tasks so you can spend your days in your zone of genius! But wait! Your new dream team is spread across different time zones; how will you manage a schedule for Zoom Meetings and check-ins that works for everyone?
Does this sound familiar? If it does, then stick around for a minute because today, I will go over 4 tips that will help you better manage your teams in different time zones.
Tip # 1: Use asynchronous and synchronous communications with your team members daily.
Asynchronous means “not happening at the same time” 1 so “asynchronous communication happens when information can be exchanged independent of time. It doesn’t require the team member’s immediate attention, allowing them to respond to the message at their convenience through email, text messaging, or videos”. 2 If you can, a great option is creating videos for your team to explain resources or check-ins that they can then watch leisurely.
Synchronous is the antonym of asynchronous and means “happening at the same time.” 3 “Synchronous communication happens when messages can only be exchanged in real-time. It requires that the transmitter and receiver are present at the same time and space.” 4 It is best used for an urgent matter that needs to be discussed or requires dialogue, then Zoom or Google Meets would be your best bet for this. It would also help if you create containers with your team. A container? Yes, a container. Simply put, a container means that you have established either a weekly or biweekly schedule with your team for synchronous check-ins. This will ensure that team members will not be able to say they are “unavailable” as this is a recurring meeting that they know to prioritize continuously.
Tip # 2: Have overlap.
If you have team members in different time zones with a significant difference, then you want to ensure that there’s some time of overlap between the two for any scheduled meetings so everyone can attend. Geographic distance and lack of overlapping work hours may impose coordination burdens on team members 5 and specifically on you as the leader. For example, suppose you have a team member in New York City and another in London. In that case, you want to hold any synchronous communications during times when they both have working hours that overlap and schedule most of your Zoom meetings during this time. London is ahead of New York by 5 hours, so if you wanted a meeting between regular business hours 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM, you would only get 3 hours of overlap to hold any meetings for both locations. If it was between 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM in New York, which would make it 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM in London. But let’s be honest, when working in a remote virtual team, we all know there are some late nights and early mornings as it is not a traditional job in most cases.
London - GMT (Five Hours Ahead)
New York - EST
Normal Work Day: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Normal Work Day: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Overlap: 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Overlap: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Tip # 3: Stay flexible!
As we mentioned, working in a remote virtual team could call for some early or late meetings to accommodate everyone’s schedule, so it’s important to stay flexible to any time changes. Things happen, and that’s perfectly okay. Maybe some of your team members are parents and need to go pick up their children from daycare or school, so meetings during 2:00 - 3:00 PM are not ideal for them but are best earlier in the day when they can focus solely on your company.
Tip # 4: Time Zones Accessible.
Ensure your entire team has access to seeing everyone’s time zone on the performance management software you use. Doing this will allow your team to see who is available and who is not easily. “Time-related challenges arise partly from the geographical distances meaning that the team members are typically working in different time zones without overlapping work hours and, consequently, the different time zones hamper simultaneous work.” 6
BRING IT ALL TOGETHER
The four tips for managing time zone differences are: asynchronous and synchronous communications with your team members daily (set up the container), having an overlap of times, staying flexible to time changes or early and late meetings, and access to your team’s time zones. Now that you know how to manage your team’s time zone differences, you are ready to make your dream team’s global cyberspace reality as you focus on what matters to your company.
