Tip: Organize overlapping times for communicating in different time zones. (Remote teams and meetings)
Timezones can kill communication in a remote team if you are not careful. If members of your team work in different time zones (which isn’t very uncommon), then make sure that you have an overlapping time period where everyone is planning on working and you can organize your virtual meetings during these overlapping times. If you manage teams on the east and west coast you might have a “morning” meeting at 11 am, when the last of year team starts to work at 8 am their time.
However this might not be enough. Depending on the type of work you are doing you may want to consider only hiring people in the same timezone or where the time is only 3 hours apart (For instance, across the United States). Working more than 3 time zones apart can get pretty hectic and cause gaps in communication.
Working across time zones increases the need for clear consistent communication. As a manager you might not even be awake when the first problem your team runs into happens. Or you could be taking your significant other out to dinner (with your phone off) and not realize there is a problem. Your teams need to understand that while they are harder to reach, so will you also be.
