Quick Actions
- Use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as the main time reference, because it stays the same all year and does not observe Day Light Saving.
- Rotate meeting times so the same region is not always stuck with late-night or early-morning meetings.
- Some meetings can work best for North America and Europe
- Other meetings can work best for Asia and the Pacific
- Consider having two meetings at different times which cover the same topics.
- Check regional holidays and observances when scheduling meetings. Try to avoid major holidays in different regions, or offer alternative ways for people to participate if a meeting falls during a holiday period.
- Check with members to make sure the meeting times still work, and change them when needed.
- Record meetings and share the recording and notes afterwards.
- Share agendas and documents early, so people in different time zones can review them.
- Allow people to give input in writing, not only during live meetings.
- Use tools that work well in many countries and do not require special paid accounts.
- Make sure meetings start and end on time.
- Avoid using local terms like “10 am my time” and include UTC and a time-zone converter link.
Examples
- Australia – Standards Australia promotes rotating meeting times across regions. For example, in cloud computing standards, they helped implement schedules that shift between Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Americas. They also support asynchronous collaboration through shared documents.
- International Organization for Standardization (ISO) uses rotating time slots and collaborative platforms to support global input. In developing AI ethics standards, meetings rotated to include all regions and were backed by recordings and online discussions.