Scheduling Meetings Across Multiple Time Zones. Elaine Varelas offers her advice
While many employees work within the traditional 9-5, their work hours won’t sync up perfectly with colleagues across different national and global time zones. Scheduling a meeting without first checking the time conversion is a common oversight, especially for employees in a company with few out-of-state workers, or one that has recently branched out. Elaine Varelas of Keystone Partners frequently works between multiple time zones and offers her advice on approaching colleagues scheduling meetings outside of business hours.
Q: My colleagues in different time zones keep calling me or request meetings that may start during business hours, but never end during business hours. What do I need to do to make them realize what they’re doing? How do I get them to call me when it’s convenient for both of us, not just them?
A: Knowing what time it is where you are and where your colleagues are is key to being a good colleague. A good tool to start with is your Outlook calendar, which has the capability to list multiple time zones. Paying attention to the start and stop time of meetings respects your colleagues in other locations, and keeps people to task when there is an agreed to end time.
Professionals understand that if they’re working for global organizations, they will absolutely not be working traditional business hours, especially if they’re supporting people in other time zones. However, if you’re working across North America, for example, your organization can let its employees know that standing meetings need to be scheduled between set hours, for example between 11 AM and 3 PM, so that people in all times zones can attend without causing hardships.
Talk to the colleagues on group meetings to set appropriate times that allow for everyone to commit to attending the meeting, and commit to being there at the start, and remaining until the end. It is a very professional request for organizations, particularly for standing meetings. Everyone understands that one-off meetings may, on occasion, intrude on personal time.
In the cases where some employees work in the office and some people work remotely, the colleagues who work from home need to be particularly understanding about engaging or extending calls into what would typically take place during commute times, and delay someone’s opportunity to catch a train or start a drive home. There may be some calls you choose to schedule during a commute, particularly if there’s no note taking involved, and you or your colleagues can stay safe, hands free, private and focused.
You also need to recognize that you’re invited to these meetings. If they’re inconvenient for you, and perhaps others, propose an alternate time. Arrange standing meetings that work according to your schedule, and suggest new times before colleagues who are less aware of the impact time zones have on the rest of the organization.
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