Working for an American company abroad
Before I jump into me, me, me, I wanted to give you a little context of the company I work for.
Help Scout has three co-founders and their first hire was remote — from the beginning they believed in the idea of having a remote-friendly team. Today, the leadership team is largely in Boston, but not necessarily in the office — regular communication on this team (and all teams) happens via video call (Zoom), chat (Slack), and long form written communication (Confluence).
Right now, most of the team resides in the Americas, Europe, or Australia. Most teams don’t span across all three continents — “only” two. This helps with collaboration and communication. However, the Customers and Product/Engineering teams have teammates in all three places, but they’ve incorporated ways to keep everyone on the same page with changes, decisions, and feedback. See: How Our Remote Customer Support Team Collaborates and How Our Design Team Collaborates Remotely.
So, enough about them. Let’s talk about me 😉, or rather, someone who lives in Europe, working for an American company.
How have I adjusted my work habits to increase my work quality and work-life balance? What mistakes have I made along the way? What will I continue to work on and how? I’d like to break up this section into two parts: managing what you’re in control of and managing relationships/work beyond yourself (i.e. working with your manager/team).
WHAT CAN I DO?
Routine. This is a given for any remote-based role (or not?) regardless of where you are. Setting a routine keeps you accountable to your responsibilities both at home and at work. In a perfect world, it keeps you motivated and happy. Ideally 😜
For me, that means my calendar in the morning is empty. I have at least half of the day to focus on pending projects, write up feedback to a teammate, respond to other questions that came in on Friday after I left for the day, etc. In the afternoon, I can collaborate with folks in the Americas. This is when *all* of my meetings/chats/interviews take place (save roles that are focused on an EU hire).
Experiment with your schedule. When I first started at Help Scout, I thought, well, I’ll work til 9PM because that’s about the time we have dinner anyway. That worked for a couple of weeks until I started to realize how grumpy I was getting at the end of my day. My brain had already started to shift to “fun” mode and it left me feeling unfocused and unhelpful in my meetings in the evening.
Then, I tried take a big break in the middle of the day. I worked 4 hours in the morning, took 2–3 hours in the middle of the day to hang with family and my dog, and then worked another 4 hours in the afternoon/evening. This was helpful, but I also found I wasn’t taking a true “break” in the middle of the day. I’d continue to answer emails/slack messages or have my thoughts trained on work during my midday break.
Now, I’m trying to start work a little later on in the day, making more time for myself in the morning to take a walk, write a blog (hi!), or read a book. Starting later means I’ll work almost a full day without a huge break in the middle, just a normal-sized lunch break in the afternoon.
All that said, being able to experiment with your schedule depends on SO many things — the biggest ones being your actual job (is it the work that you do flexible?) and your life(style). I’m incredibly privileged that I can run experiments like this, knowing that I continue to try different things as my needs change. I have a healthy balance of project and task-based work in my current role at Help Scout, and my partner is a professional photographer.
Finding balance in the morning. I’m still trying to find balance between tactical and strategic work in the morning, when I have the most flexibility in my schedule. I’ve spent several days-weeks-months focused on very task-based work in the morning. It feels good to check those things off of a list, but doesn’t feel that great at the end of the day knowing I didn’t take time to contribute to a bigger goal. For example, I can easily review all of the applications we have in our applicant tracking system, or getting to inbox zero, or quickly responding to asks that came in via Slack.
I’ve learned that I need to spend more time on the chunkier things on my to-do list. I need to take a moment to reflect on what’s to come the rest of the day — meeting prep has taken a backseat recently. That means that by the end of my day, during all of my meetings, I’m in absorb/observe/listen mode rather than collaborate/contribute/learn mode. I’d like to find a better balance there, and I’m still working on it.
Find time for socialization. Because my afternoons are full of meetings or interviews, I’m focused on being helpful/success, but I’ve realized that I’ve taken less and less time getting to know the people I’m trying to help. Again, some reflection and vulnerability could go a long way here.
Being on a remote team, regardless of your location, means you have to put in extra effort to stay connected to the folks you work with. Much the same as you’d do in an office — grabbing coffee together or even lunch — being remote dictates that we force those interactions to happen a bit. It can be clumsy and awkward sometimes, but at a healthy remote-friendly company, the culture of intention will be there. You’re expected to make connections and, ideally, they’ve got some ideas to help this happen. See: 6 Tips to Keeping your Remote Team Connected.
A couple of things have helped a lot when it comes to connecting with some of my teammates…
Earlier chats. Spending time in my morning for a “coffee chat” (fika) with someone in Europe probably means we haven’t yet started our day, but we’re taking time to slow down and get to know each other first.
IRL meet-ups. Recently, I met three other coworkers in Amsterdam to attend the European Women in Tech conference. We stayed in the same hotel, and all took Friday as a vacation day. Normally, I’d be ready to crawl back to my cave/home office at the end of the conference, but the opposite happened. I was more energized than ever to return to work, knowing I’d made deeper connections with a few of the women at my company. I hope to do something like this regularly, even if there isn’t a conference involved, just spend some time working together IRL with someone I rarely get to work with.
Self-care. This one is for all of the workers out there — remote or co-located. So easy to put in the extra effort when you really love your job or your coworkers, or your company or a combination of those. That’s exactly what’s meant to happen in great company culture. Keeping people happy and motivated means they’ll be that much more likely to work their ass off for you, but sometimes those same people need help with boundaries. I’ve kept this one under the “What can I do?” category because it is something that has to start with you.
Take time to understand what you need. What your life and family and friends need from you, and then what your work needs from you. Always in that order (if you can help it).
If things are going well at work, it might be easier to stay online, trying to do more and more, riding that wave of “productivity” (gross, sorry). At the same time, if things aren’t going so well, you might feel the need to stay online based on determination and loyalty. I’m here. I can do this. Trust me.
For me, I’ve found it difficult not to start working right away in the morning. Mornings are quiet and I can get a lot done, but this has lead to me not reflecting on or digesting important projects and decisions. When I start too early, that means I’ll still need to be online for meetings later in the day, which means I’ve worked way too many hours. Then, I get grumpy and useless, and more grumpy because I feel useless.
Self-care is always an interesting topic for me because most of the other categories are about putting *more* things into your schedule: reflecting, planning, organizing, and socializing. The self-care sermon sounds like it erases everything else in the list above, but it should be about understanding yourself and finding balance in your day-to-day life and knowing that you won’t always succeed. I certainly haven’t figured it out yet.
WHAT CAN I DO WITH MY MANAGER/TEAM?
This is a shorter category because everything under my list above relates to how you work with your manager. If you need to change your work schedule, even as an experiment, why not talk to your manager about it? If you’re not the only person they’ve worked with in another timezone, they may have some advice.
Well, start early. Talk about expectations for your role and schedule in the hiring process. Dig in and make sure you understand what’s expected of you throughout the day. What happens when something urgent comes up? Will you have someone on your team to call for help, or will you need to be online? If you’re online late one day, can you make it a shorter one another day that week? How does your team work across timezones? How does communication happen? How are you expected to contribute to this communication and one what schedule and in what format?
If you need to find balance with your work from the morning to the afternoon, having that conversation with your manager will be crucial. Do you have clearly defined goals? How do you know when you’ve been successful? How will you communicate when you need help? Prioritizing and planning your work can only happen if you’re continually talking through goals/expectations with your manager.
Finding time to socialize with your coworkers will help you feel more connected to the team, you’ll learn who you can go to for certain questions, and you’ll inevitably glean ideas and share your own with these people. If you’re having trouble putting some of it in place in your own schedule, ask your manager how others have done it. They may have a few people on the team in mind for you to talk to, too.
Lastly, you might not be comfortable talking about self-care or routine or personal life with your manager, and that’s unfortunate. However, even if you’re keeping the relationship very focused on prioritizing and executing on your goals, then you’ll become more and more comfortable telling your manager when you need more time or guidance or support. I won’t urge you to reveal everything that’s happening in your life, but as you feel more connected and successful in your work, you may feel more comfortable doing so, little by little.
👋🏾 Thanks for reading through, friends. I know it became very individualized, based on my own experiences, but I hope it proves useful. Especially if you have the chance to consider working for an American company from Europe.
By the way, if you’d like to work here too — we’re hiring, but I’d love to hear from you even if there isn’t a role open for you today. Check out our Careers page 😁
