By Diana Shi
Photo Credit: Romualdo Faura
1. BE EXTRA CLEAR
It doesn’t matter how well-connected people are if they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing. “It’s important to get all the key information out from the start,” says Stephanie Lee, team experience manager at social media consultancy Buffer, which employs a distributed workforce of 85 people across 15 countries.
2. SELECT THE RIGHT TOOLS
Timeanddate.com, for example, “is a handy way for me to look at timing overlaps across the time zones we are in,” Lee says. “I just select the time zones of the people attending a meeting to find a suitable time.”
3. DEPRIORITIZE SYNCHRONOUS MEETINGS
When the objective is “to make sure that as many people as possible can attend,” Lee says, offer more than one viewing opportunity. Buffer holds “half-sync” all-hands meetings, which she describes as “an all-hands watch party followed by breakout synchronous discussion groups.”
4. TIME-BLOCK YOUR DAYS
Having a structure in place means you’ll spend less time looking at the clock and counting forward or back. “For example, 7 to 9 a.m. is for calls [in my time zone],” says Lee, who is based in Singapore. “Late afternoon is for calls with Europe.”