Lessons from Building a Global Remote Team: Time Zone Flexibility

At ZenBusiness, we’ve spent years learning how to make remote work succeed across time zones and cultures. Sometimes we did well; other times, we failed miserably.

One example still stands out. In a recent team survey, someone with a strong overall sentiment score (a 4 out of 5) said they’d give us a perfect score—if only they could pick up their kids from daycare. A recurring meeting, scheduled without regard for their time zone, made it impossible.

That feedback was a wake-up call. For a distributed team, there’s no excuse for preventing a parent from picking up their children. It showed us how much further we had to go in managing time-zone differences. So we got more intentional about our policies.

What we learned: working across regions forces us to be deliberate about communication, respectful of boundaries, and committed to building a culture where everyone can thrive—at work and at home.

Flexibility Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Remote work gives people freedom to balance family, health, and focus time. But flexibility only works when it’s intentional. We learned early on that people sometimes struggle to advocate for the hours they need. The best way to fix this is to make flexibility part of the culture—not a perk.

Encourage people to block time for school pickups, workouts, or errands, and normalize it by leading with transparency. Leaders (everyone really) need to show the behaviors themselves and advocate for others who need the help.

Regarding trust in teams, this phrase has always stayed with me: “If you treat people like adults, they’ll act like adults. Treat people like children, they’ll act like children.” When culture reinforces trust, flexibility is supported, accountability is upheld — and that freedom fuels productivity.

Balance Flexibility with Accountability

Flexibility can go off the rails when the individuals are not holding themselves and others accountable for transparency and followthrough.

We trust people to choose a workday that fits their life and overlaps with the core window and we also expect results. When we push hard to hit goals, we work hard and for longer hours, and we also make time for recovery.

If someone needs to shift hours, all it takes is a quick heads-up. Communicate often and clearly in all appropriate channels, wikis, statuses etc... own it!

The balance of flexibility and accountability makes the system sustainable. Trust the team, and be accountable for transparency—that combination creates both freedom and dependability.

Teams must hold themselves and their peers accountable to upholding both ends of the deal.

Find a Core Window of Overlap

Collaboration requires shared time, but no one should be stuck in 5 a.m. calls or midnight meetings as a rule. We anchor synchronous work to a core window—10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Central Time—which gives teams across the Americas enough overlap without burning anyone out.

For Europe, Africa or Asia, we rotate meetings and rely on asynchronous input so no one is excluded or always burdened. These teams sometimes prefer to adjust their hours to have more overlap with our core hours, and we try not to expect it.

We avoid recurring meetings outside the work hours but exceptions are made. In those exceptions, we try to be fair about alternating the pain for participants. Usually though, async communications are enough to get the job done. The further away the team member, the more async the communications become.

It is worth noting that countries have varying laws that we need to comply with. In those cases, its even easier to support the regional flexibility - because employer expectations are controlled by law.

Default to Asynchronous Communication

Not everything has to happen live. Slack, Confluence, Google Calendar, GitHub, and Jira let us hand off work cleanly across time zones. We make urgent vs. non-urgent clear so people can manage time with confidence. This prevents the “always on” trap.

Async is the default. Live time is reserved for when it truly matters: Relationship building or hashing out hard problems or disagreements. Furthermore, if you are working outside of normal hours, you can use scheduling to Slack messages during team working hours,

Make Transparency Non-Negotiable

Flexibility only works when others know what to expect. We ask people to block calendars for personal commitments, mark breaks, and update statuses when stepping away. Over-communication is necessary: update calendars, mark Slack status, and message the team. If done well, coordination becomes easier, and frustration fades. They key is not to judge - accept the need for flexibility and grant it to each other - and expect accountability from each other regardless of timezone or work hours.

Treat It as a Work in Progress

The biggest lesson: remote work across time zones is never “done.” What works today may not tomorrow. Some practices represent the ideal we’re aiming for, not perfection. Staying open to feedback and iteration keeps the culture healthy.

As our practices evolve, it’s essential to capture and document them. Writing down expectations in a shared internal document helps turn trial-and-error into shared knowledge, and gives new team members a clear starting point. Documentation also creates a baseline we can revisit and refine as the culture matures, ensuring our flexibility doesn’t drift into ambiguity.

More than ever, I am convinced that remote teams need to document their expectations in writing. There are many great examples of this like GitLab and BaseCamp. We're not there yet, but working on it.

How do we know its working?

We implemented an automatic monthly sentiment score survey with write in comments. We'll continue to monitor that progress (maybe another post can talk about this) to continue to learn where we are falling short. We'll use this as our metric of success.

In Summary, Our Policy, What's worked for us

• Remote-first: Flexibility for family, health, and focus while leveraging global talent.
• Core collaboration hours: 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Central Time for Americas overlap.
• Global accommodations: Rotate meeting times if in person is required; otherwise gather async input.
• Async by default: Slack threads, Confluence, GitHub, Jira; urgent vs. non-urgent is explicit.
• Use and Respect Statuses: We use calendar and slack statuses to show and respect availability.
• Clear escalation strategy: If something is urgent, we'll call you (not slack or email).
• Flexible schedules: Small shifts need no approval; bigger ones require a quick heads-up.
• Transparency: Calendars and statuses reflect availability.
• Accountability + intensity: Push hard for goals, then rest and celebrate.
• Work in progress: Policy reflects ideals, not perfection.

Final Thought

Remote work across time zones isn’t just about logistics. It’s about building trust, respecting boundaries, and creating a culture where people can do their best work—wherever they are. These practices have helped us at ZenBusiness, and we share them in the spirit of helping others on the same path.

We’re building ZenBusiness Velo in the open. We hope you’ll join us.