Managing virtual assistants in different time zones can be a challenge, but with the right strategies for communication and collaboration, you can boost productivity and achieve business success. Learn how to effectively work remotely with your virtual assistants, overcome time zone barriers and make the most out of hiring Virtual Assistants in Different Time Zones.
As overwhelming as it may seem, this is not an insurmountable obstacle. It could be successfully overcome especially if you put conscious action into perspective. Here are some best practices that can be easily incorporated into your day-to-day operations and when learned, can help you better motivate your virtual assistants as well as improve their performance:
Prioritize Use of Effective Communication Tools
Communicating well when your team is in a face-to-face environment is already challenging, but it becomes even more difficult when you add in time zones and different work schedules as you work remotely. Managing virtual assistants in different time zones should not be difficult by utilizing technology. To do this efficiently, choose the appropriate communication tools.
Communicating effectively isn’t supposed to be a problem when you explore the benefits of video conferencing. Through this, organizational communication and collaboration could be improved in real time. Online tools such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and Zoom are essential for synchronous communication–chat, video calls, meetings, conferencing, and collaboration.
You may consider changing meeting times between time zones on a monthly or quarterly basis. This eliminates the virtual assistants constantly making sacrifices to stay connected. Through this, tasks and projects will be on track as virtual assistants work together to meet deadlines without the need for overtime or night shifts. In essence, working smarter and delivering faster without sacrificing quality.
Related article: 2022 Project Management Tools for Virtual Assistants
Maintain Open Lines of Communication
Sometimes you may want to work while catching up with your virtual assistants in your spare time, but you still have a lot to do or vice versa. The solution, asynchronous communication–the ability to communicate with just one click! Keeping a line of communication open is possible with different forms of platforms even if your virtual assistants are a time zone away. One can communicate in such a way that other teams do not have to be present at the same time. Hence, making it easier for virtual assistants to work remotely without the fear of missing important conversations.
1. Email. This will allow your virtual assistant to still work productively without being interrupted even when multiple emails were sent. Your virtual assistant could still focus on other tasks instead of formulating responses right away.
2. Instant Messaging. Slack is an office chat space where you can bring your teams together connecting them across departments in different channels. It also has profile customization features such as location and time zone, which you can check before sending a direct message to someone.
3. Cloud-Based Storage. Google allows you to stay connected with one drive for documents, sheets, slides, calendars, and file sharing. These tools will let you work together and update the same documents in real-time with the ease of not sending emails back and forth, track updates through sheets, edit and collaborate on presentations, schedule meetings to notify the team making sure no one will miss an appointment, and share files using cloud storage at any time on any device. These are just some of the many features you can explore while working remotely in different time zones.
4. Project Management. Trello and Asana are some of the collaboration tools examples to use in organizing team projects and individual tasks working on a specific deadline. This allows you to keep files together where one can easily access and retrieve them anytime.
5. Knowledge Management. It is a platform where you can benefit from its implementation as you give the ability for your virtual assistants to access the right knowledge at the right time through organizing, creating, and sharing collective knowledge within your team. Thus, working with the same information toward the same goal. It is a complete guide that centralizes all of your business’ organizational knowledge.
Clearly Communicate With Virtual Assistants in Different Time Zones
Working in different time zones may create confusion, therefore, it is important to clearly state the deadline including the date and time. The use of PST (Pacific Standard Time), EST (Eastern Standard Time), and BST (British Summer Time) may be essential to avoid such mishaps of messing up with the schedules due to miscommunication. Understanding the difference between one time zone and another can help smooth out scheduling conflicts.
When working with virtual assistants across different time zones, it is helpful to discuss the time zone-related tasks in the workplace, for example, when to schedule meetings, to ensure everyone’s boundaries are respected. To work better together, encourage the team to communicate schedules openly. Consider creating a day-to-day work outline. This may include a shared document of the work schedule highlighting no contact hours or days, thus, including when one has a scheduled vacation or leave. At the same time, your virtual assistants will understand why there may be instances when you can’t work in every time zone every hour. This way, the entire day can be productive with maximum working hours for daily work both for you and your virtual assistants–work becomes more enjoyable and less stressful.
Improve Work-Life Balance with Split Shifts
How can you help your virtual assistants juggle the demands of work against the demands of family and other obligations? Providing support is important for your team to stay engaged if they feel that they are supported both in the workplace and out. Awareness of inclusion can go a long way in keeping team members happy and focused on their work which promotes employee retention.
A flexible or alternative schedule allows employees to commit to both obligations while giving them greater freedom. Be creative in drafting the alternative schedule and consider splitting shifts and workdays to account for time zone differences. Let’s say, splitting the workday into two–synchronous working in the morning and doing the rest remotely in the evening. There are also other options to choose from. Indeed.com has enumerated several alternative work shifts which you can adapt to your standard schedule depending on your business needs. And with careful planning, everything can be accomplished and designed for maximum benefit to each of your virtual assistants.
Related article: What Makes a Good Virtual Team
Stay Involved Without Micromanaging
Tracking team progress and productivity of your virtual assistants is important, especially when working remotely on different time zones. As a business owner, you need some control to ensure that your organization’s goals are met. Yes, you need to be more hands-on but also have to avoid micromanaging. According to Harvard Business School Online, “Research shows micromanagement is among one of the top three reasons employees resign. It kills creativity, breeds mistrust, causes undue stress, and demoralizes your team.” So, how do you balance staying involved without micromanaging? Here are some ways:
1. Talk about the challenges.
Think about the projects you need to accomplish. When do you need them? When is the deadline? Instead of getting stressed over the little details, it is important to communicate about the possible challenges that you might encounter along the way. Come up with solutions and leave room for self-growth.
2. Assign tasks and provide guidance on how to accomplish them.
Properly delegate the tasks to each of your virtual assistants, as they want responsibility. They want accountability because responsibility conveys a greater sense of purpose and success. What skills do you need in order to complete these projects? Share with them your expectations and provide the necessary support and training when you want to set them up for success.
3. Let go of perfectionism and achieve excellence.
An ironic downside of perfectionism is the tendency to set one up for failure. Do not focus too much time on a particular task. You may observe small details but do not live in them. Learn to recognize when goals set are unachievable, instead, embrace failure. Empower your visual assistants and give them the freedom to grow and achieve excellence, most especially if things do not go exactly as planned. Do not worry that they are not quite good enough for the specific task. Keep in mind that they learn best by doing.
Pay Attention to Cultural Norms
Working remotely across multiple time zones, you come across people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Different countries have different holidays and different norms. It is wise to be aware of the cultural norms and traditions of the virtual assistants you are working with. Through this, you may fully understand their working hours preference. To avoid cultural misunderstanding, you may also want to keep a record to make sure you set fair meeting times and that no meetings are set on culture-specific holidays.
Key Takeaways for Managing Virtual Assistants in Different Time Zones
So many factors to consider when collaborating with virtual assistants across different time zones. However, it also depends on whether your team is committed to working together demonstrating empathy, respect, and inclusion. These core components will encourage open communication, build bonds of trust, create a safe space rooted in respect, and allow one to engage despite the differences cultivating a sense of belonging.
Empower your virtual assistants to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to meet the needs of your team. Hence, following the above practices is an opportunity to have a great remote learning experience which will lead to achieving remote success knowing that you are able to hire the best people from anywhere around the globe.
