Why is this a problem?
Meetings are often scheduled based on North American or European work hours. This limits participation and excludes voices from many regions. People in Asia, Oceania, Africa, and other places may be unable to attend. Differences in Daylight Savings Time can make this worse when meeting times shift and are inconsistent.
Ways to address the barrier
Make remote/virtual/online meetings accessible
Quick Actions
- Platform & Tools
- Use reliable platforms with accessibility features (e.g., Zoom, Microsoft Teams).
- Ensure platforms work with screen readers, braille displays, hearing aids, and other assistive technologies.
- Encourage the group to choose collaboration tools together and decide how they will use them to best accommodate everyone. For example, many screen reader users prefer to have the chat feature disabled in a video conference or used very sparingly so that they aren’t listening to a speaker and the chat at the same time.
- Allow flexibility and customization so tools can work with individual needs and assistive technology.
- Documents & Materials
- Share all documents before the meeting in accessible formats.
- Avoid live editing that screen readers or translation tools cannot follow or make sure to read out and describe all changes that are being made
- Use screen sharing consistently and describe visual content for people who are blind or have low vision.
- Speaking & Participation
- Remind participants to say their name before speaking.
- Make sure only one person speaks at a time; raise hands before speaking and avoid talking over others.
- Use inclusive language.
- Explain jargon and abbreviations.
- Keep captions on for everyone.
- Ask participants to mute themselves if not speaking to reduce background noise.
- Offer ways to participate without speaking such as chat, email, shared documents.
- Repeat questions or comments from participants for clarity.
- Meeting Management & Inclusivity
- Provide breaks and allow people to step away without judgment.
- Allow anonymous feedback or a way to talk directly to the chair.
- Share clear meeting rules so everyone knows how to take turns and ask questions.
- Check in with quieter members to make sure they are included.
- Offer virtual attendance for all meetings so people with mobility, transportation, or health challenges can participate.
Barriers these actions address
- Inaccessible hybrid meetings
- Inaccessible virtual meetings
- Lack of training and support for chairs and facilitators
- Limited meeting times and time zone exclusion
Plan meetings so people worldwide can join
Quick Actions
- Use UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) 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 in with members often 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.
Barriers these actions address
- Inaccessible hybrid meetings
- Inaccessible virtual meetings
- Limited meeting times and time zone exclusion