A Manager's Guide to Hacking Timezones

What’s the fastest way to know if someone leads a global team? Say, “Timezones” and watch them wince. We train global teams at The Mintable, which means we think about time zones day-in, day-out.

Here’s our top 5 ways to beat the time zone tax.

#1 - Catch local vibes

Get to know their home turf to increase connection and support when things go wrong. 

• Set up a Google alert for the city your direct reports live in
• Add the local weather to your phone or laptop
• Follow local Instagram handles to appreciate where everyone is from

#2 - Lean into overlaps

Overlaps are your friend. Use them wisely.

• Use world time buddy to visualize when your team overlaps.
• Screen shot and highlight “happy” times.
• Schedule all key interactions during this time.
• Set the expectation that these are sacred hours (i.e. walk your dog outside these hours)
• If people need to work at tough hours to overlap, try to rotate what we call “the suck”. Meet late at night for ½ the year, and then switch it.
• Or give people explicit ways to rebalance if they are working tough hours - e.g. I don’t expect you to start work until 10a after late nights.

#3 - Beware daylight savings

These shifts can wreak havoc on your calendars if you’re not paying attention!

• Every October-November and March-April, daylight savings shifts happen across the world:
  
  • US 2025 changes happen in early March and early November.
  • Australia 2025 changes happen in early April and early October.
  • UK 2025 changes happen in late March and late October.
  • But some countries and even some states don’t change at all!
• The thing to note: the meeting stays on the time zone of whoever organized the meeting and which time zone they chose.
• Get ahead of DST shifts:
  
  • Send a note 1-2 weeks before reminding folks that things are going to shuffle.
  • Make sure key customer and sales meetings are scheduled using the time zone of the customer/prospect (literally change the time zone to theirs).
  • Schedule meetings in the time zone of key-people with tough schedules - e.g. use the CEO’s time zone for the All-Hands.

#4 - Get ahead of OOO

• Add observed holidays to your calendar and confirm with HR when team members will/won’t observe local dates.
• Look up school holidays and summer breaks and add them to your calendar so you can avoid scheduling things like retreats, trainings, or other flexible things.
• On the 1st of the month, send a note to your team asking if anyone plans to take time off in the next 1-3 months and add it to 1:1 agendas.
• Copy our awesome OOO Template to empower you and your team to take OOO effectively.

#5 - Communicate with intention

• Spell out the month. Why? Take 4/5/2025. In the US this would read - "April 5th". In Europe and ANZ this would read "4th of May". We repeat: Spell. Out. The. Month.
• If you have a truly global team, set clear expectations about when you expect people to respond:
  
  • I am going to send communications in my local time because, however, I expect you to respond in your local time within x hours of receipt.
  • Send truly important messages during overlap hours. 
  • If there’s an emergency, let employees know if and how to reach you. If you’re going to be sleeping, make sure you have a backup escalation path. 
• When new team members start, ask them to raise when your word choices or actions are confusing, not resonating or feel culturally insensitive.
• Use team meeting time to learn from one another. Here are questions of the week you can use:
  
  • What’s one word or expression we use in our company that isn’t in your home culture?
  • What’s 1 thing that’s considered super rude in your culture?
  • What are the best ways to share feedback and praise in your culture?

These hacks will help you and your team work more effectively and waste less time on time zone fire drills.

For more support leading high-performing teams, get in touch with us. We can help you and your company level up leadership.