Article
7 min read
Author
Gabriele Culot
Published
August 16, 2023
Last Update
July 08, 2024
Table of Contents
Challenges of globally distributed teams
Common mistakes when working with teams in different time zones
1. Respect work-life boundaries
2. Establish communication and collaboration guidelines
3. Embrace asynchronous communication
4. Ensure time zone fairness
5. Prioritize overlap time
6. Establish team agreements from onboarding
7. Encourage participation
8. Visualize time zones
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The pandemic shifted the world of work to become increasingly remote, and it's showing no sign of slowing down. Embracing remote work and global collaboration is essential for modern businesses that want to grow. However, working with teams in different time zones comes with its own set of challenges.
Without experience, the ability to successfully work with a global team in different formats and complex ways can be intimidating. Luckily, our step-by-step guide is here to help you navigate these challenges.
Our team at Deel has a lot of direct experience with remote work and international teams, and we’ve transformed our expertise into a series of tips and steps to help managers succeed with their remote teams and improve global collaboration.
The world of work has fundamentally changed. We live in a digitally connected world, where remote working and hybrid teams are now part of everyday life in many businesses. Distributing the workforce and having international teams offers numerous benefits, including greater diversity of thoughts and ideas, increased and variety of skillsets, multiple language capabilities, and the possibility of more efficient working hours by capitalizing on different time zones.
—Matt Monette,
UK&I Country Lead, Deel
Do you find the complexities of leading a dispersed team overwhelming? You’re not alone, the experience of leading a remote team can be tough when not approached properly from the get-go.
The following challenges are common among new remote managers facing the uncertainty of remote work. If you recognize your experience in any of these, don’t worry, we have solutions for you.
To overcome these challenges, many leaders resort to traditional management techniques that may be well-established when managing in-office employees but don’t always work remotely.
Common bad practices for remote management (and their potential negative effects) include:
Once these challenges and common mistakes are recognized, addressing these obstacles with innovative solutions becomes easier.
If you want to leverage the benefits of a distributed team, you need to acknowledge each team member’s needs, preferences, and situations. A flexible management style helps you maximize employee potential.
People produce their best work at different times of the day, and working across time zones adds even more hours to the overall team’s work day. This should be seen as an opportunity rather than a challenge.
Encourage employees to share their preferred workday structure in the following ways:
Creating a culture of permanent availability leads to burnout. A distributed team can cover long hours and always appear online. However, while this may work for the team as a whole, an “always-on” mindset should not apply to individual team members. Instead, you should encourage a healthy work-life balance, contributing to positive mental health.
Establish best practices by implementing the following:
If clear boundaries are the foundation for a team’s operations, then effective and scalable collaboration is the framework through which success is achieved.
Establish communication and collaboration guidelines in the following ways:
If you’re used to real-time communication, moving to asynchronous communication can be unsettling. However, shifting assumptions and processes is essential for global teams to thrive and deliver outstanding results.
Mastering async communication offers increased flexibility, improved focus, better global collaboration, and inclusive participation as you allow remote employees to complete their work in their own time. It also makes space for autonomy, reduces pressure, and improves work-life balance for global teams.
Consider the following tips to optimize asynchronous communication:
In distributed teams, some members may be disadvantaged due to time differences. As a leader, you should implement measures to ensure no team members are subject to unnecessary pressure or unfair expectations.
Consider the following tips to implement and run an async team successfully:
We should never forget how powerful remote work is. Where you can work affects your life, where you live, and the possibilities for yourself and your family.
—Chloe Roux,
Director of Global Community, Deel
Depending on your team members' location, the overlap time may range from a couple of hours to several more. Use this overlapping time for collaborative activities and allow team members to work at their own productive pace during the rest of the day.
Some practical ways to prioritize overlap time include:
Even when your distributed team works well asynchronously, it’s essential to establish clear processes and ensure mutual understanding to scale. As teams constantly change and evolve, time-zone-related agreements should be communicated from the beginning of the onboarding phase.
Keep the following tips in mind when drafting team agreements for remote workers:
Although team members may thrive working asynchronously, it’s important to foster a culture of collaboration and participation. When employees are engaged, their passion and commitment reflect productivity, innovation, and positive company culture.
Managing a successful distributed team means ensuring that team members are engaged with one another and their work. This can be achieved in the following ways:
With remote work, you don’t have everyone in the office around you. You don’t have people walking the floors and looking at what people are doing, and the emphasis on production data is greater than ever. It also helps recognize people that are working really hard, but they’re not particularly vocal, and they need to be recognized. And that is what’s going to give longevity to remote work: Recognizing those people.
—Dan Westgarth,
Chief Operating Officer, Deel
As a manager, it’s beneficial to visualize your team’s activities across time zones to clarify overlap times and identify the best moments of the day for collaboration and virtual meetings.
As a leader branching out into remote work, you may encounter a few new challenges when managing distributed teams. Keeping time zone differences front of mind when creating processes and systems will go a long way to ensure collaboration, communication, and productivity.
The potential of global teams lies in their ability to collaborate in a remote work environment. By being mindful of different schedules, using automation tools, and prioritizing communication as the most important thing, you can foster a productivity, progress, and teamwork culture.
At Deel, we offer a wealth of knowledge and tools that empower remote managers to manage their teams successfully. Explore Deel Engage tools and discover the power of collaboration and connectivity in the remote work environment.
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