Is Sharing Your Calendar with Co-Workers a Good Idea?

Having a good relationship with your coworkers is critical if you want to keep the office peace. Understandably, teamwork also helps with productivity and efficiency as well as general comradery.

Of course, teamwork is a two way street. Everyone needs to try to get along and stay organized for the good of the company, not just one person. One way to help accomplish this goal is through the use of a shared office calendar.

But is sharing your calendar with co-workers a good idea?

Pros of Calendar Sharing Your Calendar:

1. You Know Where Your Co-Workers Are

Having a shared calendar can be very helpful when everyone is busy and going in multiple directions. Rather than calling or texting a co-worker several times when they are out you can tell by looking at the calendar.

2. Set Meetings for Multiple People

If several people are working on a project together and a meeting needs to be schedule, one person can do it for everyone. All they have to do is look at the calendar to ensure the meeting time doesn’t conflict with anyone’s schedule.

It’s much more efficient than trying to call each person multiple times as you try to figure out when everyone can attend.

3. Less Rescheduling

Scheduling and rescheduling meetings is not only annoying but very inefficient. When calendars are shared, there is less likelihood that meeting will need to be rescheduled.

4. Access from Anywhere

Today’s calendar apps can be accessed right from your cell phone. That means less to carry to each meeting or back and forth between home and work.

During meetings, one person can set up the next one and sync it to the phones of each person in the room.

Cons of Calendar Sharing Your Calendar:

1. You May See Personal Events of Co-Workers

Some of your colleagues may prefer to use one calendar for everything. If that is the case, they may have personal appointments integrated into their work calendar.

This means you may see doctor appointments or other information you may not care to see.

2. Others Can See Your Information Too

You can’t hide anything on your schedule if it is shared among co-workers. Not that I am suggesting you try to deceive them or anything.

But if you do have any personal appointments on your schedule, everyone else on your team would be able to see them too.

3. Someone May See What They Shouldn’t

Occasionally you will have an office snoop who goes looking through the calendar to try to find out what everyone else is doing. Or, you may have someone get in a tiff because they feel they should have been included.

4. Micromanagers Will Make it a Chore

Some managers want to know the details of every minute of your day. If you have a time slot with nothing scheduled it may lead to them demanding to know what you were doing.

Even if you don’t have anything to hide, constantly having to prove your productivity every second of the day is exhausting.

As you can see, there are a lot of good reasons to share your calendar with co-workers. Whether or not you do may depend on your preferences as well as those of the rest of your company.