Working across time zones as a team

What is asynchronous work?

Asynchronous work is work that does not need both people present at the same moment — written updates, recorded demos, reviewed documents. It is the only approach that scales past about four hours of time zone separation.

How much time zone overlap does a team need?

Two to four hours of shared working time is generally enough for the conversations that must be live. Below two hours a team is effectively asynchronous, and should be designed that way deliberately rather than by accident.

What is the maximum workable time zone spread for one team?

About eight hours, beyond which no ordinary working day overlaps. Teams spanning more usually split into two groups with a scheduled handover rather than one group with impossible meetings.

What is a handover?

A handover is a written summary passed between people in different zones so work continues without a meeting: what changed, what is blocked, what is next. It is the fundamental unit of follow-the-sun working.

How do I run a standup across time zones?

Write it rather than hold it. A short written update posted before each person finishes their day is readable by everyone and costs nobody an inconvenient hour.

Should a distributed team have core hours?

Yes, and they should be short — two to three hours everyone is reachable, with the rest of the day each person's own. Long core hours across zones simply force people onto somebody else's schedule.

How do I share my working hours with colleagues in other zones?

Publish them on your calendar rather than describing them in a profile or a message. Hours that scheduling tools can read prevent the meeting; hours written in a bio only help after somebody has already booked one.

What should I do about a colleague who is always online?

Check whether they are working their own hours or yours. Someone in a distant zone who is always reachable during your day is usually working two evenings, and it rarely lasts.

How do I avoid sending messages outside someone's working hours?

Schedule the send for their morning. Most tools support it, and it removes the implicit pressure of a notification arriving at 11pm without anyone having to agree a policy.

Is it acceptable to message someone outside their working hours?

Sending is fine if the expectation is clear that a reply can wait; expecting a reply is not. The trouble is that the two are indistinguishable to the person receiving it, so say which it is.

How do I onboard someone in a different time zone?

Front-load the writing and reserve the live hours for questions. An onboarding that depends on watching someone work takes weeks longer across eight hours of separation.

What is a time zone tax?

The time zone tax is the accumulated cost borne by whoever is always on the awkward end — early calls, late replies, decisions made while asleep. It is invisible in any single meeting and obvious over a quarter.

How do I make sure decisions are not made while half the team sleeps?

Write proposals down with a deadline for objections that spans at least one full working day everywhere. A decision made in a meeting at 3pm in one zone has excluded anyone eight hours away.

Should meeting notes be mandatory for a distributed team?

Yes. A meeting without notes is a decision that only exists for the people who attended, which in a distributed team is a subset by construction.

How do I keep a distributed team's calendar visible?

Share free-busy across the whole team and put each person's zone on their profile. The aim is that anyone scheduling can see the constraint without asking.

What is the best way to record someone's time zone?

Store the IANA zone name, not an offset or a city label typed by hand. Offsets go stale twice a year and typed labels cannot be converted.

How do I handle a team member who travels frequently?

Ask them to update their zone when it changes for more than a few days, and let their calendar carry it. Guessing from their last known location produces meetings at genuinely impossible hours.

Should everyone use UTC internally?

Use UTC for anything written and stored — logs, deadlines, documentation — and local time for anything a person reads in the moment. Asking people to think in UTC works for a while and fails under pressure.

How often should a distributed team meet live?

As rarely as the work allows and as regularly as the relationships need. Weekly is a common floor; daily live meetings across zones usually indicate a process problem rather than a communication one.

What is the hardest part of distributed work?

Not scheduling — it is that nobody notices what they are missing. Informal context travels badly across zones, and the fix is deliberate writing rather than more meetings.

How do I run a workshop across time zones?

Split it into shorter sessions over several days rather than one long block, and put the preparation and the output in writing. A six-hour workshop cannot be attended by someone eight hours away.

Should hiring be restricted by time zone?

Restrict by required overlap rather than by geography, and say the number in the job description. 'Four hours overlap with CET' is honest and searchable; 'Europe preferred' is neither.

How do I include someone who cannot attend a meeting?

Record it, write the decisions, and leave a genuine window for them to object before acting. Sending a recording after the decision is already implemented is information, not inclusion.

What is the right way to schedule a recurring meeting across many zones?

Rotate the time so the same people are not always inconvenienced, and anchor each occurrence to a zone explicitly. A fixed time in one zone is a permanent arrangement about whose evening is worth less.

How do public holidays affect distributed teams?

More than people expect: a team spanning four countries can have a fortnight a year where someone is always off. Subscribing to each country's holiday calendar makes it visible before it becomes a surprise.

What is the best tool for coordinating across time zones?

Whichever one everybody actually reads. The mechanism matters far less than the habit of writing down what was decided and when the next thing happens.

How do I show availability to clients in other countries?

Publish a booking page that renders in their zone and respects your real working hours. It removes an exchange of emails and it never offers a time you did not mean to offer.

How booking pages work →

What should a distributed team write down that a co-located one need not?

Decisions, their reasons, and what happens next. Co-located teams get these by overhearing; distributed teams get them only if somebody types them.