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You’ll be surprised how many meetings aren’t needed if you do this. Remind remote team members that social interaction doesn’t have to come from co-workers or consider offering a co-working space stipend as a remote employee benefit. Remote collaboration is difficult and productivity can halt if digital tools fail. Read our guide on remote collaboration to learn how to overcome these challenges.
These moments will help tie your team together, making it easier to collaborate productively when remote. Asynchronous communication requires people to write clear, complete, yet concise messages. People should have everything they need to get started on a task or request ASAP. As we discussed in our guide on asynchronous communication in remote working environments, asynchronous communication happens “out of sync,” or not at the same time.
Leverage tools to help with time zone management
Companies employing smaller internationally distributed teams are more likely to have staff members experience feelings of isolation and being left working across time zones out from the company culture and general social interactions. Moreover, a lack of communication across teams carries another set of risks.
- New hires meet with people across the company to learn about our different teams.
- Google Calendar lets you set a secondary time zone, though only through its web interface.
- However, the advantages are not restricted to internal activities.
- Trying to get multiple people across various time zones on the same page for a meeting can be tricky, but World Time Buddy can help.
- Some of the best practice examples suggest encouraging employees to craft their own shared experiences in company team chat apps.
Before a meeting, make sure you have an agenda, and ANY supporting material is send along with the agenda. Typically we liked to send a reminder email a few hours before a meeting to ask people if they had any questions on the material. Nowadays we use Clearword’s Pre-Meeting pages for scheduling, planning, sharing files and preparing collaboratively. For those expectations, and this meeting discipline to work, you will need to establish a clear communication process which gives everyone visibility into the goals and set tasks, and their progress.
Organize virtual socializing for your team
Once companies open the options for flexible work locations, it’s important to set clear expectations. Are you expecting team members are able to travel to the office multiple times each year? By setting clear expectations, you won’t be faced with unwelcome surprises in the future. That way, they’ll be able to keep the project moving along once they’re back online, or have enough information to know a face-to-face meeting is needed.
How do you communicate during time change?
- Communicate the Reasons—Openly and Honestly.
- Communicate the Changes From the Top Down.
- Explain How the Change Will Affect Them.
- Detail the General Change Process.
- Get Specific about What They Need to Do.
This communication method can make everyone take a step back before pinging their co-workers, and also put extra thought into their written communication to account for the gap between responses. When working within different time zones, it is very important to be mindful of your teammates’ time zone.
