In this article, we'll take a close look at the best time of day to hold meetings when it comes to productivity, decision-making, and attendance while also exploring how to deal with having attendees in a number of different time zones.
In 2020, a little less than half of remote workers used video conferencing technology to communicate with their team. Just two years later, this percentage increased to 77%.
Considering that Zoom and Microsoft Teams are the two most downloaded business apps in the US, there's a good chance that your team is utilizing one of these major platforms to communicate with one another.
While video conferencing technology has made it possible for teams worldwide to meet up and conduct essential business, remote meetings/work also pose unique challenges. One of the biggest questions facing team leaders tasked with scheduling meetings is: what time of day is best for remote Zoom or Teams meetings?
In this article, we'll take a close look at the best time of day to hold meetings when it comes to productivity, decision-making, and attendance while also exploring how to deal with having attendees in a number of different time zones.
There are a number of different considerations you'll want to keep in mind when setting remote Zoom or Teams meetings. Things can get more complicated when each team member is in their own timezone, and we'll touch upon how to deal with that a little later. First, let's look at how productivity can be impacted by the time of day you hold your meetings, with the assumption that your entire team is roughly located in the same time zone.
Breaking the day up into five different time slots– early morning, mid-morning, lunchtime, afternoon, and late afternoon/evening– lets us look at what the research has to tell us about attention, productivity, and decision-making during each block of time.
Early morning meetings are held within the first hour or so of the work day. This can be a good strategy if you want all of the attendees to be able to touch base and communicate necessary information before moving on and focusing on their work for the day.
This is generally considered a good time to have short meetings (15 minutes) or a brief check-in. You probably don't want to have an in-depth meeting this early in the morning, as there's a good chance that team members are still waking up and mentally joining the day.
If you feel like early morning meetings are the right call for your team, make sure you do any required preparation the day before.
Assuming a 9-5 workday, a mid-morning meeting would occur between 10 am and noon. This is typically a more effective meeting time than early morning meetings, as everyone has had the chance to wake up and settle in but, at the same time, isn't distracted or overwhelmed by the other tasks of the day.
You'll find that your staff is less likely to waste time if you hold your meeting right before lunch, as they won't want their break to be pushed back. At the same time, they might be distracted by the fact that it's almost time for their break and less engaged than is ideal. Therefore, you'll want to make sure you schedule enough time for your meeting so your employees don't start getting antsy and distracted.
Pro tip: Do you want to make your early-morning or mid-morning remote meeting a little more special? Want to help put a little more pep in the step of your entire team and create a bonding experience at the same time? If so, consider bringing a little energy to your next meeting with our coffee, tea, and breakfast catering service.
There's nothing wrong with a lunchtime meeting, but if you schedule one, it's a good idea to provide some food for everyone to enjoy while going over the day's business. This can be a reasonable time to hold a more casual meeting and allows time for a fun icebreaker or team-building activity.
If you take away your employees' lunch break to have a meeting– no matter how fun and motivational it is– you're likely going to find that everyone is a bit bummed out to be missing out on their opportunity to chow down and take a breather away from their work. To turn your lunchtime meeting from kind of a downer into a truly great time, consider sending lunch to your remote employees across the globe.
Right after eating, there's a good chance that all of your team members need a little time to digest. People typically feel pretty sluggish after lunch, which means that they won't be performing at their best. However, after their metabolism has been hard at work for a little while, they typically are more energetic again around 3 pm.
3 pm can be a great time to hold meetings, as workers are no longer in a post-lunch slump and have had plenty of time to reflect and prepare for the meeting. Team members will also likely be motivated to be efficient during the meeting as much of the day has gone by, and they are near the end of the day.
It can be a bit dangerous to hold a late afternoon meeting– there's a good chance everyone will be paying a bit too much attention to the clock. While this might not be a bad time to have a quick recap meeting on the business of the day, it's generally not a good time for a meeting that intends to get your employees psyched about a new project or motivated to obtain group goals.
When it comes to evening meetings, you really want to avoid them if possible. If your team is spread out across the globe in different time zones, you might find that someone is inevitably signing on late at night, no matter how you try to schedule things. In general, though, it's best to keep meetings during regular work hours unless your employees work an unorthodox schedule.
Sometimes, you simply can't avoid scheduling a meeting later in the day or even in the evening. If it's crunch time and your team needs to start burning the midnight oil, you might find that a remote pizza party turns those frowns upside down.
Now that we've gone through each segment of the day, a burning question remains: what is the best time of day for remote meetings?
There are varying opinions on this matter, but most agree that the most productive meeting times during the day are either during mid-morning (10 am to 11 am is ideal) or afternoon, with 2:30 or 3 pm being a commonly cited time.
According to a survey, 2:30 pm on Tuesday is the best time to host a meeting if you are concerned about attendance. On the other hand, the best time of day when it comes to decisiveness is the mid-morning period of the day, between 10 am and noon.
The reason that mid-morning is the ideal time of day when it comes to team members' decisiveness is that scheduling a meeting this early helps to avoid decision fatigue. As the day goes on, people have to make more and more decisions which can become so exhausting that their ability to make decisions decreases.
Now that we've taken a thorough look at the best meeting time, assuming that everyone is in roughly the same time zone, let's go through additional considerations you'll want to take into account when your team is sprinkled across time zones.
If your business operates in a global environment, you'll want to be very considerate of the time zone of each of your team members. When you don't factor this in, it might mean that a handful of attendees are signing on very early in the morning or late at night, impacting their ability to be productive contributors to the meeting.
Beyond that, it's important to translate meeting times between time zones. Don't simply send out a meeting reminder saying that you'll be getting together at 10 am– instead, make sure the time is clearly translated into any and all time zones that participants will be signing on from.
When you're meeting with people across time zones who are all signing on from home offices, communication becomes even more essential.
For this reason, it's a good idea to send an automated reminder to all participants before the meeting so it doesn't slip their minds.
If your team is sprinkled all across the globe, you might find it difficult to find a meeting time that works for everyone all the time. You'll likely want to utilize other forms of communication to help ensure that all vital information is passed along in a timely manner without requiring that part of your team get out of bed at 3 am to attend a meeting.
At the same time, you might consider rotating your meeting time so that it isn't always inconvenient for the part of your team that's located on a different continent. For truly incompatible schedules, coming up with a plan with your team to ensure you can meet regularly in a way that keeps everyone's schedule in mind is likely the best strategy.
Meetings are a vital part of any business environment, but they also can be a somewhat overused form of communication. Consider only holding meetings when the information contained can't be communicated effectively through a different format, and utilize the power of asynchronous communication whenever possible.
Async communication can mean using chat, email, or even video messages to other team members with the understanding that they aren't sitting right at their desks and are able to respond right away.
If almost all of your team is in one time zone, it's likely practical to schedule meetings in a way that suits the majority of your team. However, it's still important to remember how meeting times can impact other attendees in different time zones– for example, an 11 am EST meeting on a Monday means that your Australian team members need to sign on at 1 am on Tuesday.
On the other hand, with smaller time differences, it's still possible to find meeting times that work for everyone. For example, a 2 pm meeting on the east coast of the US would mean an 11 am meeting on the west coast, which puts both parties in the range of the most effective meeting times.
There aren't just better or worse times of day to hold meetings, but you'll also want to consider the day of the week.
Though meetings are commonly held on Monday mornings, this actually isn't an ideal time because everyone is just getting back into the swing of things for the week. According to one study, the best day of the week for a meeting is Tuesday, while the best time is 2:30 pm.
Another important factor is that not all remote workers keep a standard 9-5 work schedule these days. In order to schedule meetings in a way that fits within everyone's schedules, you'll want to communicate with your team and determine what hours of the day they're working.
You might just find that your London team members are night owls that do most of their work in the evenings, and therefore a 2:30 pm EST meeting works out just fine for them, as it will allow them to sign on at 7:30 pm their time.
If you manage a remote team, we don't need to tell you that motivating everyone to be fully engaged in Zoom or Teams meetings can be difficult. This is particularly true when your team is signing on from different time zones– some of your team members might be just starting their day, while others might be ready to sign off.
Luckily, we have the perfect solution to solving this problem– treating your team to delicious meals and team-building experiences when you meet up digitally. This can help bring everyone together and overcome some of the obstacles presented by remote work– increased difficulty in creating a cohesive team bond, loneliness, and isolation– to name a few.
If it's time for you to add a little pizzazz to your remote meetings, make sure you check out our catering and virtual experiences specifically designed for remote teams!
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