5 Tips to Handle Time Zone Differences with Offshore Teams

Modern globalization has brought with it many incredible benefits — access to new cultures and markets, innovative technologies, and higher standards of living. However, one benefit that has become increasingly popular in recent times is the opportunity to work with distributed teams.

Today, you can hire diverse talent from across the globe without worrying about geographical limitations. For example, you can successfully manage your offshore development team in India, Ukraine, or The Philippines, all from the comfort of your local office in London. That’s the level of flexibility that distributed teams bring.

While the advantages of offshoring far outweigh the cons, one factor that is often a challenge for businesses is the time zone difference. If not managed strategically, collaboration with teams across different time zones can affect employee productivity and dampen their spirits.

As experts in building the best offshore development teams for our partners, we’ve learned a few tips and tricks along the way to handle time zone differences with offshore teams. If you work with a distributed workforce, then here are five strategies that you can start implementing right away!

1. Practice smart hiring

The people you hire have a massive impact on how you handle time zone differences with offshore teams.

Let’s say you have a local development team in New York and an offshore team in Ukraine that takes care of Quality Assurance. If your remote team cannot work under minimal supervision and needs your help every step of the way, then the average time to complete testing automatically increases. And with a time difference of roughly seven hours, this means trouble. That’s why it’s important to hire reliable and skilled software developers who are self-motivated and can manage their time efficiently.

At The Scalers, the engineers we hire for our partners aren’t just technically vetted. They go through a 7-step recruitment process where their communication skills, ability to work independently, organization skills, aptitude, and problem-solving ability is assessed. We also ensure that they are 100% aligned, onboard, and instilled with your company DNA. Only the top 1% of engineers make the cut with us — individuals who are more than capable of working in a distributed environment across different time zones.

2. Build an asynchronous communication strategy

Video conferencing and voice calls are great ways to interact and work with your team. However, if you want to handle time zone differences with offshore teams, then you need to embrace asynchronous communication — a practice that will help you be mindful of your employees’ work hours, time zones, and work engagements.

Simply put, asynchronous communication is communication that doesn’t happen in real-time. Informational or instructional videos, project management tools, reference guides, emails, and intranets are some of the commonly used asynchronous tools.

Establishing an asynchronous communication strategy allows your offshore team to set their own schedules, absorb and act on information on their own time, and reduces expectations of an immediate response to non-urgent tasks. It’s a tried-and-tested approach to efficiently collaborate with your team, irrespective of their location or time zone.

Read the full article at: https://thescalers.com/5-tips-to-handle-time-zone-differences-with-offshore-teams/