After two full years, the global pandemic changed the work world forever. Prior to March of 2020, less than 15% of jobs that could be done remotely, were. During the pandemic, that number ballooned to almost 80%.

As the pandemic is becoming more endemic, most remote workers want to continue working remotely and enjoying the benefits it brings to their work-life balance. Along with this change, there are other new work trends to help make remote workers even more productive. One of those is the emergence of asynchronous work, or letting employees not only work where they want, but when they want.

If you haven’t yet heard of this, let’s read on to see what this new trend of asynchronous work is and how it might already be happening in your workplace.

Background

Asynchronous is a term that gained popularity as technology started to move data between systems, and basically means not doing things in real-time, but in sequence after a previous action has taken place.

As technology has developed, schools have started leveraging the concept of asynchronous learning more in recent years. In this model, students will watch the teacher’s lesson at home on their own time, and then do their ‘homework’ in the classroom where the teacher is available to help with questions. This helps students learn at their own pace and not have to engage in discussions at the same time.

When applying the concept to the workplace, it simply means work that is not done at the same time, in the same place, but is performed when and where it works best for each employee. Each employee will do their work and then queue it up for the next that needs their output to be worked during the times they work.

If you’ve ever worked with an offshore team, you’ve likely already worked in this way. Typically in this model an onshore team will send requirements to their offshore partners, when the offshore team comes online they do the work and send to the onshore team for review and approval. Each team works the hours that work best for them and work can actually move faster than if everyone was working at the same time.

Necessity

Here at TriviaHub, we’ve grown as a 100% distributed team and have seen immense benefits from it. With this model, we’ve been able to find and hire the talent that best fits our needs and culture, wherever they’re located.

One side effect of this is that is has created quite a distributed team. We now have staff members across all U.S. timezones, partners in Asia, and clients spread across the globe. There’s no way that all of us could ever physically all be working consistently at the same time.

With this, we’ve almost naturally had to work in an asynchronous way, queueing work between team members, partners, and clients as time passes.

Implementing

If your team is naturally moving in this direction, or you are looking to more formally structure this type of work environment for your remote team, there are some tools and tips that can dramatically help.

Set the Stage

The first is to be direct about the model. Formalize it with your team by teaching them what it is and that it is OK to work more flexible hours, assuming their work deliverables are continuing to be delivered with quality and timeliness. Getting everyone on the same page about the model is key to your success, and their mental health.

Get Some Tools

You’ll also want to make sure you have the proper tools for the job. We’ve found that some of the common tools already in your workplace can work great.

Slack - the communication tool that has been a staple of the remote work revolution is also great for asynchronous work. You likely already have the channels you need setup and everyone is familiar with it and has it installed on their mobile devices. The major difference here, is that instead of looking for everyone’s green bubble before sending them a message, you’ll always be sending a message as a request or question with the knowledge someone will respond as they come online.
Trello - if you don’t already use Trello, it’s a great way to create a workflow for remote teams. You can queue up a list of tasks, assign process columns, and then allow people to pass tasks between those columns as each person works it.
E-Mail - the classic asynchronous communication tool is especially important for working with clients and external partners. We still recommend keeping all internal communications within Slack.

There are newer tools out there that are being designed specifically with asynchronous work in mind, and you might want to check out as well. Some of those include: Loom, YAC, Twist, and Friday.

Training

Beyond mindset and tooling, since most of the time the work you are doing will not be live in an office or over a call, one of the most important skills to instill in your team will be written communication. The more clear and concise your team can write messages, directions and requests for each other, the more efficient and powerful your asynchronous environment will be.

There are many written communication training sessions on LinkedIn Learning, and tools like Grammarly can be helpful in training teams as well.

Integrating

As productive as asynchronous work can make your team, there are still going to be times you need to meet to talk, discuss or just have some fun. A few ideas can help here as you transition the mindset without losing the ability to still gather synchronously as needed.

Core Hours - if most of your team is based in the 4 core US timezones, you could potentially work to set a ‘core hours’ period. A time that might work best could be 12 PM ET - 3 PM ET where your West Coast members are on during morning hours and your East Coast members are on for afternoon hours.
Recurring meetings - in an asynchronous model, if you want to ensure there is a time where everyone is online together, it is best to plan ahead. You could set a standing bi-weekly collaboration meeting or even a monthly teambuilding session to gather everyone for some fun.

Conclusion

The world of work changed dramatically in just two short years, and it will continue to evolve going forward.

One thing is for certain, employees, now more than ever, are looking for flexibility in their work schedules to ensure they have needed work-life balance. In addition to flexibility on where employees work from, flexibility on when they work will be key to retaining the best talent going forward.

Asynchronous work is the answer to that and we hope the ideas we’ve provided here help grow this emerging trend in your distributed team.

If you have other ideas, input, or feedback, please be sure to share with us!