Remote work doesn’t just mean being able to hire across the country. To truly reap the benefits, you need to be hiring across mountains, deserts, and oceans.
But with that, comes the challenge of managing teams across time zones. As a fully distributed team ourselves, we understand how that can get tricky.
That’s why we’re especially excited to share the launch of our latest tool: the Time Zone Crossover Calculator. In this blog post, we explore how you can use this tool to calculate crossover in your future colleagues’ working hours and discover new locations to hire from globally.
Collaborating across time zones
Whether you’re new to global hiring or not, by now, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve been faced with some time zone math. Finding a time for a synchronous team meeting can get complicated when you have a teammates on opposites sides of an ocean, and while there are plenty of ways to effectively manage a remote team across time zones, time differences can certainly be a consideration when building out your team.
Let’s say you’re an HR manager at a company in Germany, and are trying to hire a senior product designer, but are having a hard time finding qualified candidates. With such a collaborative role, you’re concerned about hiring someone outside of your time zone since meetings are quite common.
It would be great if there was a way to easily identify which countries have time zone overlap, and start sourcing candidates from there, right? That’s exactly where Oyster’s Time Zone Crossover Calculator comes in.
With it, you can now:
- Identify new countries and regions that still have at least five hours of crossover time so you can expand your hiring pool, but not dramatically alter your workflow
- Understand how your team falls on the asynchronous work scale, and make moves to improve it (if you want to!)
How does the Time Zone Crossover Calculator work?
Using the Time Zone Crossover Calculator is simple (and free) for hiring managers everywhere.
To use it, start by selecting your location. Then, identify the level of overlap you’re comfortable with. The benefits and challenges of each level are outlined within the tool. For example, if you’re a hiring manager who’s relatively new to remote work, or if your team is primarily in one centralized location, you may choose to hire in a country with 5+ hours of overlap. This allows you to still collaborate effectively with your new hire through synchronous meetings and calls throughout the day, but you’d have to make some adjustments since you’re not working the exact same hours.
Alternatively, if you’re very comfortable with the idea of asynchronous work, you may choose to expand your search to countries with just one hour of overlap with you. This likely means your company is remote-first, and you have very few must-attend meetings—so no one feels left out because of their time zone.
Hiring managers can also use the tool to denote custom working hours. If you need specific shift coverage or work on an alternative schedule, control your workday and required crossover time using the calculator’s custom option.
Once you determine the level of remote work you’re comfortable with, the tool will then populate a list of countries where you can expand your search.
Want to give it a try? Check it out below.
The global talent pool awaits
In an increasingly competitive hiring market, more and more employers are looking beyond their own backyards for talent. Skilled workers exist everywhere, not just in your city, and hiring managers everywhere are rethinking their approach to building teams.
Using the tool, you’ll probably even find that places that seem distant or foreign are actually a lot closer than you think. (San Francisco employers—did you know that you can hire anywhere in South America and have 5+ hours of crossover time?)
Expanding your workforce to different time zones means opening up your team to different perspectives, new ideas, and ultimately, a world of possibilities. Are you ready to get started?
Tap into the global hiring pool. Give Oyster a try today!
About Oyster
Oyster is a global employment platform designed to enable visionary HR leaders to find, hire, pay, manage, develop and take care of a thriving distributed workforce. Oyster lets growing companies give valued international team members the experience they deserve, without the usual headaches and expense.
Oyster enables hiring anywhere in the world with reliable, compliant payroll, and great local benefits and perks.