Mini Terrarium
Up to 50 people45 minutesfrom $69/person
Forty-five minutes, one object, finished. The shortest thing we run with a kit.
Best for: a 9pm slot for APAC, or a 7am start for the Americas. Short enough that nobody resents it.
Scheduling for global teams
Team Building Across Time Zones: Which Hour Actually Works
The overlap hours that genuinely work for US–Europe, Europe–APAC and US–APAC teams, what to do when no hour works, and how to stop the same office always getting the bad slot.
The short answer
- US + Europe:15:00 UTC
- Europe + Australia:08:00 UTC
- US West + Australia:23:00 UTC
- All three continents:No hour works
- Evening sessions:Cap at 60 minutes
- Table calculated:15 September 2026
For a team split across the US and Europe, one hour works well: 15:00 UTC. That is 8am Pacific, 11am Eastern, 4pm London, 5pm Berlin — inside the working day for everyone. For Europe and Australia, 08:00 UTC works. For the US West Coast and Australia, 23:00 UTC works, because Sydney’s morning is California’s afternoon.
For a team spanning the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific simultaneously, no hour works. Anyone telling you otherwise is asking a third of your team to log on at 11pm. The answer there is not a cleverer calendar — it is two sessions, or a rotation.
The overlap table
The bolded rows are the genuinely comfortable ones. The rest are workable but put someone at the edge of their day.
| Team spans | UTC | US Pacific | US Eastern | London | Berlin | Mumbai | Singapore | Sydney |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US only, coast to coast | 17:00 | 10:00 | 13:00 | — | — | — | — | — |
| US + Europe | 15:00 | 08:00 | 11:00 | 16:00 | 17:00 | 20:30 | — | — |
| US East + Europe | 14:00 | 07:00 | 10:00 | 15:00 | 16:00 | 19:30 | — | — |
| Europe + India | 12:00 | — | 08:00 | 13:00 | 14:00 | 17:30 | 20:00 | — |
| Europe + Singapore | 11:00 | — | — | 12:00 | 13:00 | 16:30 | 19:00 | 21:00 |
| Europe + Australia | 08:00 | — | — | 09:00 | 10:00 | 13:30 | 16:00 | 18:00 |
| US West + Australia | 23:00 | 16:00 | 19:00 | — | — | — | 07:00 (+1) | 09:00 (+1) |
| US East + India | 13:00 | — | 09:00 | 14:00 | 15:00 | 18:30 | 21:00 | — |
| US + Europe + APAC | No single hour works. See below. | |||||||
Calculated for 15 September 2026: US daylight time active, European summer time active, Australia in standard time. The US and Europe change clocks on different weekends, Australia moves in the opposite direction, and India and Singapore don’t move at all — so there is a two-week window each spring and autumn where the arithmetic shifts by an hour.
When no hour works
Three honest options. Pick one deliberately rather than defaulting into the worst version of it.
Run two sessions. The cleanest answer for a team above about 40 people. Split by geography and run the same session twice — once at a time that suits the Americas and once at a time that suits APAC, with Europe joining whichever they prefer. It costs more, and it is worth it. Two sessions of 30 people also produce better conversation than one session of 60. If you are shipping kits, this changes nothing logistically — the boxes arrive the same way.
If it has to be one session and you run these regularly, rotate which region takes the bad time. Publish the rotation in advance so it is visibly fair rather than apparently arbitrary.
| Quarter | Session time (UTC) | Who gets the awkward slot |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | 15:00 | APAC — late evening |
| Q2 | 08:00 | Americas — early morning |
| Q3 | 23:00 | Europe — late evening |
| Q4 | 15:00 | APAC — cycle repeats |
What kills goodwill is not the occasional 9pm call. It is the same office getting the 9pm call every single time while head office never does.
Or make attendance genuinely optional. If one region is always outside working hours, say so plainly and make it optional — with no social cost for not attending, and a real alternative for that region rather than a recording of other people having fun.
How long the session can be
Session length should follow time of day, not the other way round.
| When most people are joining | Recommended length | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-morning, local | 90 min – 2 hrs | Peak attention; people will stay |
| Just after lunch | 60–90 min | Fine, with something to do with hands |
| Early morning, before 8am | 45–60 min | People joined before their day started |
| Evening, after 7pm local | 45–60 min, hard stop | Attention drops sharply; people have families |
A two-hour workshop that is delightful at 11am is a chore at 9pm. If a third of your room is joining after 7pm their time, cap the session at an hour and finish early rather than late. Ending five minutes ahead of schedule is a gift; running five minutes over is a betrayal.
Formats with a physical object in front of people hold attention notably better in the evening slots than screen-only formats do. Hands occupied is the difference between a session and a webinar.
Which workshop suits which slot
Run time is the constraint. These are the sessions we recommend by where in the day most of the room is sitting.
Learn Easy Hand Lettering
Up to 50 people1 hourfrom $59/person
An hour of brush strokes and repetition. Calming rather than demanding, which matters at the end of someone's day.
Best for: evening sessions where you want low cognitive load and a hard stop on the hour.
Virtual Turkish Coffee Tasting
Up to 50 people1 hourfrom $89/person
Brewing and tasting, guided. Works at almost any hour because the ritual carries it — though it lands best mid-morning.
Best for: an early slot, or the session that opens a global all-hands.
Make Turkish Mosaic Lamp
Up to 50 people2 hoursfrom $89/person
Two hours of hand-setting glass. Genuinely absorbing, and genuinely long.
Best for: a mid-morning slot for the majority of your room. Do not put this at 9pm local.
Shipping to a global team
Time zones are the scheduling problem. Shipping is the other one, and it has a longer lead time.
| Region | Kit lead time | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| US domestic | 7 days minimum | Dispatched 3–4 days ahead; shipping included in the per-person price |
| Larger or customised orders | 10–14 days | Printing and branded packaging before packing |
| International | Confirmed per country | Feasibility, customs and duties checked before booking |
Contents drive feasibility more than distance does. Liquids, aerosols, alcohol, lithium batteries and live plants are the usual blockers, and they vary by destination. Confirm feasibility for every country on your list before you pick the activity — not after. There is more on this in our guide to shipping kits to remote employees.
Where a country isn’t feasible, run a hybrid: kits to participants who can receive them, screen-only variant of the same session for everyone else, one call. Better than excluding a region.
Practical rules
- Collect constraints before you schedule. A two-question survey — earliest and latest hour you can join, and any fixed caregiving windows — takes 20 seconds and prevents the most common own goal.
- Publish times in every participant’s local time, not in yours with a converter link. Put all of them in the calendar invite body.
- If the CEO can’t make the fair slot, run the session at the fair slot and record a two-minute message from them to play live. Do not move 60 people to accommodate one calendar.
- If someone joins well outside working hours, some organisations offer time in lieu or a small stipend. Whatever you choose, apply it consistently across regions — inconsistency is worse than nothing.
- Treat low attendance in one region as data, not failure. It usually means the slot was wrong. Ask that region what would work and adjust the rotation.
Team spread across three continents?
Tell us where people are based and we'll map the options — one session at a fair hour, or two sessions with the kits arriving the same way for both.
FAQs
Questions we get
Questions we get
every week
Still stuck? Send us the details and a human will answer.
15:00 UTC for US–Europe teams, 08:00 UTC for Europe–Australia, and 23:00 UTC for US West–Australia. No single hour covers the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific at once.
Two sessions at different times, or one session with a published rotation of which region takes the unsociable slot. Trying to find a single fair hour for all three is arithmetic that doesn’t resolve.
45 to 60 minutes if a significant portion joins outside working hours, and up to two hours when most participants are in their morning or early afternoon.
No. US domestic is a 7-day lead time; international is confirmed per country and takes longer. Plan dispatch around the slowest destination, not the fastest.
Make attendance optional without social cost, and offer that region its own session at a time that works. A recording is not a substitute for participation.
Yes. The table is calculated for 15 September 2026. The US and Europe change clocks on different weekends and Australia moves in the opposite direction, so there is a two-week window each spring and autumn where the arithmetic shifts by an hour.
