I do know, however, that some of my colleagues in Asian countries feel an non-official pressure to accept late-evening meetings so that European and American colleagues may participate.
The most extreme example I have is myself, in France, having calls with people in New Zealand. That's an 11-hour difference. Basically, we'd have them at 8 AM CEST, which is 7 PM NZDT.
8 AM is somewhat early by Paris standards (usual office day begins at 9 - 9:30, with many people coming in around 10) but it's still feasible. I don't know how the day is organized in NZ, but I'd assume being done at 8 PM is a bit late but still tolerable.
Exactly. So if it works for Europe with New Zealand, it should work at least as well with Asia.
You should be weary with Spain, though. Even though it's quite out West, they're still using Central European Time (same as Hungary / Poland in the East), which is completely absurd. Hell, even France shouldn't be using CET, but WET / GMT. Only Portugal uses WET, and you have to go East to Finland / the Baltics / Romania / Bulgaria / Greece to switch time zones again (EET / GMT + 2). [0] is a handy map of time zones in Europe.
> The problem comes when you try to make THAT compatible with the California as well, which we determined it's just not possible in my last company.
You mean a call involving the three at the same time? Yeah, I can't see how that could be reasonable for all parties involved.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Time_Zones_of_Europe.svg
In some companies you might start later and finish later. Of course every company is different and some might insist on you being until very late there.
It worked out for me because I worked 1PM to 11PM or so (my bosses weren't thrilled about it, but not a lot they could do), but I'd have been very unhappy if I was working a normal 8 - 5 or 9 - 6 day.
These days I live in Europe and won't work outside my standard hours, with very rare exceptions, backed up by some fairly strong laws (Germany, so not as strong as France, I think) and some interesting wording choices in my contract.
It's within the (usually hard-fought for) rights of employees in many countries to refuse such meetings. Unless they explicitly signed up for such a schedule of course. However, I would be very surprised if freelancers and people in leadership positions can refuse to participate in such meetings. In turn, they usually have higher salaries.
Of course, it sucks for people in other countries not being able to refuse to work at weird times. But if they could refuse, their country would immediately be much less attractive as an outsourcing destination.
Edit: tl; dr: regular remote meetings should between people in leadership positions. Day-to-day work should be managed by local managers, else it will either suck for everybody or suck enormously for workers in the country with weaker worker rights.
It looks cheaper on paper but this way you get all the overhead of offshoring but bad productivity. It’s terrible.
When I was living in Hawaii I was up at the crack-end a few times a month, pounding coffee, trying to ignore the roosters.
Social acceptability had nothing to do with it. It wasn't a great hour for Brussels either.
It’s understood that European folks try to schedule Europe-only meetings in the morning so that there is plenty of time available in the afternoon for NA colleagues, and conversely NA folks keep their mornings open for team meetings.
I personally shift my work day to starting at 7 so that I have an even larger overlap, but not all of us do that and it is not expected of anyone.
I altered my work hours to 3AM to 12 noon. It is amazing.
I catch everyone in the office at the end of the day for meetings. I pick up and finish and work they need done, I get 3-4 hours of deep work every day when they are all gone.
And then I finish at noon, so I can go exercise and enjoy the day working on my startup.
Bed at 6PM to wake up at 3AM
Yes he has to wake up 1h earlier than me on that day, but he also probably earns 2 or 3 times my salary just because of his location so fair enough.
Once way to make things more fair is to set up two or three bi- or three-weekly recurring meetings to cover all participants time zones. So everyone gets it to happen in their own TZ at least every other week or so.
I know the practice is often different, depending on where the company's headquarters are, but I encourage folks to spread the rotating TZ idea out of fairness and respect for colleagues elsewhere.
The right to disconnect feels more about letting people disconnect "after hours". But this depends on your hours.
My "team" is composed of around 700 people across Asia and Europe.
My kids are in school during work hours.
My 6pm—midnight slot is strictly private life and there is no reason for it to be otherwise.
So, your last line contradicts the rest of your own comment.
I said in another comment, If you were a police officer, pilot, truck driver, deep sea diver or in numerous other professions, you'd be expected to do some weird hours and have a lot of time away from home.
This is where I think people are being unreasonable. Remote work, we have it better than ever, no commutes, no time away from family, almost non-inconvenience but now, even a late night meeting is against "my time".
I think with remote work, the cost of walking 50 meters, sitting in a comfortable chair and dialing into a meeting from 11pm-12am is pretty inconsequential all things considered. You can probably have the meeting in your jammies on the couch.
I'm not 100% discounting that it's inconvenient, but I mean, relative to the things I've been through and others have to go through, it's minuscule in comparison.
Lastly, I think you're just lucky you work for a company who allows you to just say no to meeting with your peers in other time zones. Again, you might be lucky and everyone has a good crossover with you, but many don't have this luxury, and never meeting with your peers, at least where I work, means you're not part of the team and you're getting fired.
We rotate the difficult meetings in the group so we all feel some of the pain, but three is a bit of pain and I guess that's why it's called "a job" and why I'm part of a team.
Staying at peoples houses who get up early and make a lot of noise after a hard night falling asleep is never much fun.
A lot of good points on this thread, and even though I've always advocated for doing more async work within our team, I'll push a bit harder now.
I'm all for restricting employers from my personal space, however I would expect the same to be applied to all other members rather than be a special case.
Personally, I tend to rotate the awkward meetings so it sucks equally rather than weighted more on someone else. As a remote worker, myself and my family are ok with that because I'm available during the daytime.
However, if you're unable to work async nor be flexible to accommodate your fellow team members, then I suppose the company's recruitment process is to blame.
For me working remotely isn't just about having my ass in a different geographical location, it's about flexibility. Both in my private and professional life.
I didn't say you can't spend time with your kids, but personally, working 8am-9am then 8pm-12pm doesn't sound so bad either. (for example). I find kids need to do homework and get to bed early so those times for me would work pretty well.
With remote work I appreciate having the option to use the inevitable idle time to be more efficient with house chores and such but remote work never brought me the freedom you tout...
I have worked remotely in the past before COVID and tried your suggested approach, would be free during afternoons and work from 17-00, or split the day in morning and evening work. It didn't ever give me the same relaxation as I get from having free time until the end of the day.
So there you go, we're different.