How to Manage a Team Working in Different Time Zones

When it is midday in the United States, it’s already the end of the working day in Europe and Africa, and is night in the Asian continent. This difference can limit the communication between your staff members, which can have knock-on effects on your project. Your business must address this problem, but it is nothing that cannot be overcome easily. Here are some tips.

Synchronous and Asynchronous Comms

For a team to perform optimally, and drive results, it is imperative to ensure that every team member is on the same page. This means that even if every employee is working on different parts of a project, ideally there should be some time of the day when everyone is online. Being online together for a few hours will help everyone put forth their ideas, discuss projects, and overcome problems collectively. 

As a leader or team manager, you can encourage your employees to be flexible instead of implementing rigid working hours. The time for meetings can be decided or managed through a team poll or discussion. Some people prefer to work during the day while others like to dedicate time during the night, so you are sure to come up with something that works for all the members of the team. 

Of course, even if you’re not able to be online at the same time, it doesn’t mean your remote team is doomed. There are several asynchronous communication tools available that allow you to assign tasks, manage progress, and provide feedback. So, even if you are offline, your team member can look at the comments and revise or redo a task that may need revision or some additions. 

Task-based work

If you are employing people from different areas to work from home, you should focus on giving them tasks to fulfill within a respective deadline, rather than enforcing a specific number of working hours each day or week. You should train your workers to have an efficient task-oriented mindset, which gives them more freedom to manage their own working hours whilst still completing their tasks for you. 

Weekly Meetings and Updates

Keeping everyone up to date is the key to a successful remote team. This can be managed through an online collaborative tool like Slack. Every team lead should be assigned to manage an outline, create milestones, and provide schedules. The calendar can be updated weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly. 

Another habit that allows the employees to work successfully together while being in different time zones is one-on-one meetings and team meetups. Motivate everyone to participate actively and ask one another relevant questions. Encourage them to clear any confusion during that time so no delays occur because of differences in time zones or unavailability of another employee to provide guidance. 

Communication between the staff and leader is of utmost importance for a successful remote working model. If you do not want time zones to interfere with your progress, you must obtain daily updates about work from your employees. 

After getting these updates, you should maintain track of the daily progress and how smoothly the workers are performing their tasks. These updates will also help you determine your team’s strength and efficiency and enable you to identify if any improvements are required.  

Remarks

Hiring talented employees from other time zones is not going to give maximum benefit to you unless you use strategies to overcome any barriers caused by time zones. 

If you have recently employed people from other places, you might be a bit confused about handing out tasks to them and explaining deadlines. Don't let that discourage you at all. Simply follow the tips we have outlined above and witness the great improvements for yourself. Once you conquer time zones by employing smart, innovative ideas, your team is going to reach greater heights within a shorter time. 

At Nerdcloud, we are dedicated to helping you develop an efficient workflow. Now is not the time to get intimidated by the difference in time zones.  It's important to realize its strength and use it to your maximum advantage. 

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