Best Practices for Scheduling Global Team Meetings

Managing a team across multiple time zones presents unique challenges, but with the right strategies, you can make it work smoothly for everyone involved.

Understanding the Challenge

When your team spans continents, finding a meeting time that works for everyone can feel like solving a complex puzzle. A 9 AM meeting in New York is 2 PM in London, 10 PM in Singapore, and 1 AM the next day in Sydney. Not everyone can attend at their optimal hours.

Key Strategies for Success

1. Establish Core Overlap Hours

The first step is identifying when your team has the most overlap during reasonable working hours. Use a tool like Whenest to visualize working hours across all locations and find those golden windows. Learn more about this in our guide on finding overlap hours or jump straight to the overlap finder.

For teams spanning US and Europe, the overlap is typically between 2 PM - 6 PM London time (9 AM - 1 PM New York). For US and Asia, you're looking at early morning US time or late evening Asia time.

2. Rotate Meeting Times

Don't always make the same team members attend at inconvenient hours. If you have a weekly standup, rotate the time so the inconvenience is shared:

• Week 1: Convenient for US team
• Week 2: Convenient for European team
• Week 3: Convenient for Asian team

This shows respect for everyone's time and prevents burnout.

3. Record Everything

For meetings that can't accommodate everyone live, always record the session. Share recordings along with written summaries and action items. This ensures no one misses critical information.

4. Be Mindful of Holidays

Different countries have different public holidays. Before scheduling an important meeting, check if it falls on a holiday for any team member. Whenest displays public holidays for each location automatically. See our FAQ for more details on holiday features.

5. Keep Meetings Focused

Respect everyone's time, especially those attending outside normal hours. Have a clear agenda, stick to it, and end on time. If someone joined at 10 PM their time, they'll appreciate a 30-minute focused meeting over a 2-hour rambling session.

Tools That Help

Modern meeting planners like Whenest make it easy to:

• Visualize working hours across all team locations
• Find the best overlap times automatically
• Share meeting times that auto-convert to recipients' time zones
• Track DST changes that might affect recurring meetings

Check out the meeting planner or read the How It Works guide to learn how to use all these features.

The Human Element

Beyond the technical aspects, successful global team coordination requires empathy. Acknowledge when someone is attending at an unusual hour. A simple "Thanks for joining so late, Tokyo team" goes a long way.

Conclusion

Scheduling global meetings doesn't have to be a headache. With the right tools and a considerate approach, you can find times that work reasonably well for everyone while building a culture of mutual respect across time zones.

Ready to schedule better meetings? Try Whenest - it's free and requires no signup. Also check out our guide on time zone etiquette for more tips on respecting your remote team members.