The Complete Guide to Team Calendar Management

Step back in time to an office from the 80s or 90s and you would likely find yourself wondering around a room filled with enormous computers, chirping fax machines, chunky telephones, a few Rolodexes, and a wall planner taking pride of place for all to see.

For those of us above a certain age, we risk getting misty-eyed at the nostalgia of this, but don’t worry, we’re not staying down memory lane for long. We’re here to talk about that most crucial of planning tools – the team calendar.

In those halcyon days, the team calendar was the beautiful wall planner or whiteboard. Big, manually filled in with fragrant whiteboard pens or permanent marker. Viewing was by standing in front of it. Data retrieval was by manually updating our own calendars, which were quite often paper diaries, full to the brim with scribbled appointments, reminders, crossings-out, and probably some doodle sketches too.

Those of us below a certain age might be wondering how anyone survived before technology took over and gave us the digital systems to manage our time. (Answers on a postcard).

A lot has changed, and our working world is constantly evolving. Advancements in tech mean greater connectivity and the ability to spread offices out nationally and internationally to deliver the business needs. We’re working everywhere, not just in one office. We’re global, not just local. We’re flexible, we’re hybrid, we’re part of a continuous moulding and shaping of how the world works as trends move on, as technology advances, and as the world keeps turning.  

In and amongst all of this, the role of the team calendar has evolved too. Far from being a place where we find out what’s happening on a given day, the team calendar is now the team planner and the central hub for organising work, coordinating schedules, managing meetings, tracking progress, and arranging collaborative time.    

What is a shared team calendar?

Put simply, a team calendar is a shared calendar for a group of colleagues who need to communicate their availability to one another and work together. ‘Team’ can be a single team in a department,  or it could be multiple teams who need to connect. It can mean a project-based team for a fixed duration of time or could be continuous and based around the evolving needs of the business.

The team calendar doesn’t replace the individual calendar; it builds on it, so fear not those of you who have a secret love of the paper diary.

Life without a shared team calendar

It’s no easy task managing a team and it’s a little trickier these days when the office is both physical and remote. Many businesses have adopted a hybrid work schedule which often includes certain days spent in the office and others working at home/remotely. Hybrid workplaces without a central calendar management system can find it particularly challenging to manage.

In fact, any organisation without a system in place will struggle as they will have limited visibility of where teams are, scheduling work will be difficult and can be further complicated if the company operates across different time zones. Meeting coordination can be time-consuming if it involves manually gathering availability from different calendars. Scheduling anything can be difficult if there aren’t systems in place to coordinate availability quickly and efficiently.

And the solution is……

why having a shared team calendar of course, which brings myriad benefits for you and your team. And whilst it can seem daunting, there is an abundance of team calendar software available to suit your requirements.

Shared calendars give everyone visibility across the team. This means greater transparency, and better scheduling capability. Meetings can be arranged with ease, without the need to check individual calendars, and meeting space booking and login details for virtual meetings can be included in the entry.  

Collaborative time can be arranged and the potential for scheduling conflicts is significantly reduced when you know where everyone will be.  

But the benefits reach far beyond simple diary management.

Organisations can use shared team calendars as work planners, availability-checkers, scheduling tools, meeting organisers, milestone-markers, progress trackers, and collaboration-bringers. Managers can maximise office usage by having oversight of who is using the spaces, for what purpose, and noticing any patterns of over- or under-occupancy. The calendar can be used as a work planner to make the best practical use of team availability, paying close attention to when in-person meetings and collaborative sessions take place, and overall, it can become an essential tool in the productivity toolkit.

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If you build it, they will populate it

There are many systems out there to help you build your calendar. Not least Google Calendar and Outlook. The system you choose very much depends on the requirements of your business. In some teams, a simple availability tracker and scheduling tool is sufficient, but others will benefit from the wider suite of features programmes offer.

Take Team Today. Our features provide a comprehensive solution that enables companies to manage team availability, work planning, leave planning, desk booking, meetings management, and even parking management, without having to leave the app. With integrations including Office365, Microsoft Teams, Outlook and Google Calendars, Team Today fits with your existing software and is quick and easy to populate. Our work planner also includes the option to assign health and safety and regulatory roles to team members, such as fire wardens and first aiders, and for these to show on the shared team calendar when the role-holders will be in the office, which helps organisations to meet their legal and compliance requirements.

The effects of having such a system in place are improved efficiency in the way your teams work, collaborate and communicate, increased productivity, and greater flexibility.

Wellbeing and Work-Life Balance

Systems become truly effective when they are accessible to all who use them, and their users are able to fully engage with them. It’s important that users have control over their contribution to the calendar and don’t feel that it is something being inflicted upon them.  

According to the latest Owl Labs’ report on the State of Hybrid Work in the UK, several new trends are emerging in the workplace, one of which is ‘clock-blocking’ – blocking off time in diaries to protect that time for the individual. This is being seen in other areas too.

This isn’t a new phenomenon, but its increase in prevalence suggests there is a need for people to have control over their time in a shifting and flexible working world. Organisations would benefit from embracing this and adopting it into their working practices. For example, considering formalising this time – perhaps as wellbeing time, quiet working time, personal time, or specific no-meeting days – to ensure teams have this protected space and aren’t at risk of burn-out.

If a less formal approach is required, managers could concentrate on building a culture of openness and transparency so that teams understand they can take the time when they need to. As a start, leaders should include their own personal time in the calendar as an example that this is encouraged for the wellbeing of all staff. And time can be built-in between meetings to allow for a breather, as well as having a start and finish time during the day when meetings should be held and when they should cease, e.g. before 8am is too early, after 4pm is too late.

A note of caution here – managers should reinforce that personal time is protected time, and not the easiest time to ‘borrow’ when struggling to find a meeting slot.

Time Zones and Regional Variations

Calendars that involve teams spread out geographically must take account of differences in time zones and reflect this in the planner. Having colleagues in different time zones will affect when meetings or catch-ups can take place.

Some tips to manage this include making use of shared availability times for important in-person communication and working. This is a good time to schedule meetings and phone calls and any check-in time. If this isn’t possible, for instance if one office’s day is another’s night, you can work around this with careful and considerate scheduling. Perhaps hold evening meetings or early morning catchups, being mindful not to have colleagues working too many hours outside of their normal working day. Hours should be adjusted when required.

Companies should also be aware of any travelling rules or variances that will affect calendar management and will need to be recorded or tracked. An example at the moment is the Schengen Area Agreement, which affects the number of days in a rolling period a person can stay in a Schengen Area country without needing a visa. Team Today has a calculator to support management of this.

Keeping your calendar neat and tidy

Now that you’ve got your shiny and new calendar, you need all users to be able to contribute and keep it up to date. This includes making sure they have the correct equipment and technology to access the calendar, that they are properly trained, and that weekly habits are embedded into the ethos for updating and cleaning up the calendar.

Permissions should be set up and access granted to all users. Any recurring events, holidays, or company-wide entries should be populated by central admin.

Users should be instructed to keep the calendar updated with accurate and timely updates and should be mindful not to overload.

Entries should be as detailed as necessary, with appropriate categories and tags assigned, as well as any relevant log-in or access details.

Meeting invites should be kept to those who are to be present at the meeting, to avoid confusion if cc’d colleagues are unsure how to respond. If colleagues who aren’t to attend must be aware for their own records, the invite should state they are not required to RSVP.  

All users should know who the calendar owner is. In teams with a traditional hierarchy, this will likely be the manager, but if it is a project calendar, then a calendar manager may need to be agreed on.

How’s it going?

As with any system, it’s important to keep track of how it’s working, to make sure expected benefits are being realised, and if they aren’t, determine what refinements are needed. Some review and reflective time should be built in, either as a regular calendar review or as part of a wider system review.

There are a number of metrics you can use to guide you here.  

You may be able to chart increased productivity in the time since implementing the shared team calendar. You may find meetings management becoming more efficient and that your teams report they are able to focus their time better.

Managers and teams may also notice positive effects on their wellbeing and mental health.

Depending on the software you use to create and manage your calendar, built-in management reporting tools can facilitate this data gathering.  

Team Today provides management data on a range of areas, including office usage and whereabouts by group and user. For example, the data may show times or days with low activity, times where meetings are particularly prevalent, or times when quiet time is favoured.  

The data can also help managers to identify if any individual users need additional support, such as spotting the risk of burn-out if meetings are being held back-to-back and days are filled up with no breaks.

You can begin your shared team calendar journey right here with Team Today, which is free for up to ten users.  

For more insights and articles about work and hybrid working from Team Today, visit our blog here.