In many offices, you need to be around when things come up. There are very few jobs where you come in, work by yourself for 8 hours and then go home. Communication is important, and if you aren't there, it's hard to communicate.
Lots of company have flex time so people can choose their hours but have some overlap for communications. This is also where the "mid day meeting rush" comes from that exacerbates the situation.
High priority: call me or use some other synchronous communications protocol. Everything else: email, ticket please. Async is better.
I'm used to working in geographically separated teams in different timezones, so starting my day 2 hours ahead of everyone else is no different than me working in a different timezone. Once you solve this problem, you have solved the majority of your communication difficulties.