I've worked on a lot of distributed teams. For an actual team (not just subcontractors) every place has had some level of "office hours". Normally a ~4+ hour block every day that you are expected to be "in office" and available for calls/chat. Some places do hardcore 9-5, even for remote workers. When teams have different time zones in play, normally everyone tries to have atleast a 2 hour overlap during a normal work day. It's during the office hours of someone the manager knows they are available for ad-hoc meetings etc.
Perhaps a more important note is that, in my experience, most distributed teams have /way/ less meetings than an in person teams. A lot of things are done informally over IRC/chat. I say informal, but since IRC is usually logged, if someone is not involved in the informal discussion at the time it takes place, they can just read it to catch up on why the decisions were made.
Perhaps a more important note is that, in my experience, most distributed teams have /way/ less meetings than an in person teams. A lot of things are done informally over IRC/chat. I say informal, but since IRC is usually logged, if someone is not involved in the informal discussion at the time it takes place, they can just read it to catch up on why the decisions were made.