More and more companies today work with teams that span different time zones. Here at MeetingKing our team even spans several continents, and communication tools like Zoom, Webex, Google Meet or Skype make that really easy. The problems arise, of course, not from the tools we use to actually carry out the meetings, but with finding the time to meet.
How do you schedule a meeting in different time zones?
Now, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but MeetingKing meetings are automatically adjusted to your time zone. If you are in New York, and you set up a meeting with your Sales team in Los Angeles at 2 pm (your local time) using MeetingKing, you will see that your meeting starts at 2 pm. Your Sales team, on the other hand, will see that the meeting starts at 11 am!
Now, MeetingKing can’t help you find a good time to meet up with your team across time zones (yet). So if you want to meet people from Singapore, we won’t alert you to the fact that your 2 pm is their midnight. So how to set up these meetings in different time zones? Luckily, there are tools to help.
Use Timeanddate.com to efficiently schedule meetings in different time zones
If, for example, you want to talk to a new designer you’ve just found in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Timeandate.com make it easy for you to see what the time is there. Just click ‘World Clock’, and you can search by city, or country, and see what the time is there.
If you want to set up a meeting in different time zones, you can use the meeting planner. The meeting planner helps you see when is the best time to meet for everyone involved – in this instance, we have teams from Los Angeles, New York and London.
As you can see, the areas in red are hours that aren’t really viable for at least one team, with the areas in yellow being hours that aren’t convenient. In this case, the teams can meet online at 9 am, 12 pm and 5 pm respectively. Simple, right?
If you want to video call with people in different time zones, then timeanddate.com is a great app to use.
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is a great tool to use when you want to schedule a meeting with people in different time zones, because it can show you more than one time zone in your calendar. This way, you know exactly what time it is in Singapore, when you are scheduling your meeting. And of course, you can link your Google Calendar to MeetingKing or, if you do not want to link your Google Calendar, MeetingKing can automatically import meeting details from meetings that are created in Google Calendar.
The con here, is that Google Calendar only shows you one other timezone. If you have to set up a meeting in different time zones like the one shown above, from LA, New York and London, you won’t be able to see all the timezones on your calendar. There is a workaround, as you can add clocks to your calendar’s sidebar, but they aren’t as elegant.
So, you’ve planned in your meeting with people in different time zones. Now what?
Not that you’ve got your meeting in your calendar, it’s time to prepare. To get the most out of your meeting we recommend that you set up an agenda and send it to all parties involved. That way everyone will come to the meeting prepared, and you can get started straight away. Not sure where to start with your agenda? MeetingKing is an efficient meeting agenda software to help you create clear agendas for everyone to follow.
Of course, the agenda is just one of the first stages of a meeting. Once the meeting has started someone needs to keep track of the meeting minutes. This needs to be done in an orderly fashion with very clear transcripts. By using a meeting minute app such as MeetingKing, you will easily be able to manage, structure, record, and follow-up on your meetings. And all in one place. Start your free trial now and automate your agenda and meeting minutes.
About Post Author
