How to beat time zone challenges when organising an international conference call
Never mix up time zones again
Have you ever arranged a meeting with someone in a different time zone and when you call the other person he tells you that you are calling an hour too early because you miscalculated the time difference? Or maybe you have organised an international conference call and one of your colleagues is missing? Then it dawns on you that the reason he is missing is because you chose a meeting time that equals to 2 am in the morning for him? I have done that many times and always felt a bit embarrassed for creating such a mix-up.
In my previous job, I had to organise many international calls with wool industry colleagues from nearly all time zones of the world. Whenever I had to organise a meeting it was a struggle to find a suitable time that fit all. No matter what meeting time I chose, for someone it was always the middle of the night. What made planning even worse was that not all countries changed their clocks to daylight saving at the same time. To give you an example: The time difference between Germany and Australia would sometimes be 8 hours, then for two weeks 9 hours and then 10 hours.
Only when I was introduced to an online tool called International Meeting Planner all my meetings became super organised, at least schedule-wise.
In this blog post, I would like to introduce you to this free little tool as I think it will help you overcome the time zone challenge when you organise your next international call. I explain how the Meeting Planner works in this little video tutorial. Have a look and tell me afterwards what you think. Also, if you have a tool that helps you stay on top of time zones, please let me know in the comments below, I would love to hear from you.
About the author, Elisabeth
Elisabeth is the founder and host of the Wool Academy Podcast. She also runs her own consulting business where she supports wool industry businesses with strategic communications and project management.
Elisabeth used to work as the Secretary General for the International Wool Textile Organisation where she developed her passion for wool and the wool industry. Her previous education and work experience equipped her also with a broad set of communications skills.
Elisabeth vision is to see the wool industry thrive which is why she supports wool industry businesses communicate successfully.