Do you schedule meetings without checking for time zones? Do you assume your “first thing in the morning” works for everyone? Each time you schedule a work event, you could be irking every participant with your assumptions of when you expect this meeting to take place.
That’s because you could be guilty of a time zone bias. It’s where you assume that everyone else is operating in the same time zone as you.
As humans, we’re susceptible to “proximity bias” at work, according to researchers at the University of California at Davis. In studies, they found that we favor the people we physically see more, and that employees who appear in person get more career opportunities. And in theory, you may automatically favor the time zones of the people you physically see more ― while forgetting about the remote colleagues you see less of each day.
But in an increasingly global and remote workforce, not acknowledging potential time zone differences is a rude and disrespectful mistake to make. Yet it’s an all-too-common one.
Arianne Young, who runs her virtual assistant business Not Your Average Girl Friday, said this time-zone error is one of her top pet peeves. In her experience, people on the West Coast are the “biggest culprits,” expecting everyone to know they mean Pacific Daylight Time/Pacific Standard Time when scheduling.
“The rudest action I experience is a calendar invite being sent without the sender confirming my or my client’s availability,” she said. “They, more often than not, don’t consider that the time zones may differ ... or they think it’s better to just ‘get something in the calendar,’ and then the back and forth begins to find a time that actually works. It is a waste of time, it’s disrespectful, and it’s such an easy thing to avoid by simply asking.“
Anna Dearmon Kornick, time management coach and host of the “It’s About Time” podcast, said that when she worked as a scheduler for a congressman with constituents on Central time, one time zone mistake had “the potential to completely upend an entire day’s itinerary.”
Beyond souring relationships with clients and colleagues, assuming the wrong time zone is bad because it simply makes your job harder. Kornick said this avoidable mistake causes “more email ping-pong” to finalise the information for a meeting.
With her clients, “One of the first things that we do is we tighten up the way that they are drafting their emails in a way that reduces the need for responses,” Kornick said.
Here’s how:
To avoid frustrating your colleagues, do include and ask for time zones up front.
In her emails, Young said she always includes the time zone her clients are in and, if she knows the time zone of the people she is booking with, she will include a helpful time conversion for them, too.
For example the note looks something like:
Please see below for
availability (30 mins.): Tuesday, July 23, 9:00 a.m. PDT/12:00 p.m. EDT.
And if you are confused about where the other person will be calling in from, simply ask for more clarity.
“People are allergic to asking questions nowadays,” Young said. “If a meeting needs to be scheduled, I will ask the people I’m reaching out to: ‘Please let me know which time zone you’re in so I can be respectful in the options I’d like to provide.’”
And even if it was not specified in the initial request, mention the time zone you need for the meeting. “Include all the information you need in your response even if it wasn’t indicated,” Young advised.
To avoid “time zone gymnastics,” Kornick suggested using automated scheduling tools like Calendly or Acuity Scheduling. Alternatively, send a calendar invitation using Gmail or Outlook because those programs will convert the meeting time to the participants’ unique time zone.
Sharing more information up front and double-checking on your guests’ preferred time zones takes a few more minutes, but it will save you bigger headaches in the long run. There are a “million ways to do it,” but you should always be asking for this time zone information to avoid confusion, Young advised.
And as a general rule: The best way to avoid being rude is to consider the schedules of people who are not in the same room as you but will be expected to attend your meeting.
Just because a meeting time across different time zones is physically possible does not mean it is the best time for everyone. If your regular meeting time forces certain co-workers to wake up at the crack of dawn or stay awake past normal bedtimes ― go back and change that meeting time.
As Laura Gallaher, organisational psychologist of the consulting firm Gallaher Edge, previously told HuffPost: “If you are expecting someone you invite to have an active role in the meeting, it’s rude to not plan around their schedule, or inquire about whether or not they can miss or move what’s already there.”
You can either be the conscientious colleague that others enjoy working with, or you can be the person others groan about behind your back because of when you plan meetings. The choice is yours.