(Credit: René Ramos; Jacob Lund, Mix and Match Studio/Shutterstock.com)
Asynchronous work simply means collaborating but not simultaneously. Most people think of it as something employees do when they're in different time zones. In other words, everyone gets their work done on their own schedule. But it's more than that. When done right, working asynchronously can bring out the best in people and help teams become more collaborative and productive.
While I've highlighted quite a few points and tools below, you can read more about the benefits of asynchronous work and how to do it right in my book, The Everything Guide to Remote Work.
Async Helps Bring Out the Best in All Team Members
Working synchronously favors certain kinds of people over others, whereas working asynchronously can help everyone shine.
Take being in a live meeting, for example. The people who speak up the most and the loudest tend to have many of the same attributes. They might be assertive types or extroverts, and perhaps they are native speakers. We all know people on a team who are more reserved with their thoughts, who don't like to share an idea until it's fully baked, or who spend a lot of time thinking of the right way to phrase something they want to say. Even people with disabilities may be reluctant to speak up in a live meeting.
Now imagine everyone on your team is invited to participate in the purpose of a meeting without the pressure of speaking up orally during an actual meeting. One example is to set up a shared virtual whiteboard or an online collaborative document where everyone can write down their ideas over the course of several days before or after a meeting. That way people can take their time to brainstorm, phrase their ideas appropriately, and participate fully. Giving people an asynchronous option even helps people who work better at different types of the day, like night owls who struggle to come up with fresh ideas first thing in the morning.
The Best Whiteboarding Apps
Async Forces You to Confront the Word 'Urgent'—and Slow Down
One disadvantage of asynchronous work is its slowness—although very often, when people start taking asynchronous work seriously, slowness turns out to be an advantage.
When teams work asynchronously, they have to be intentional about their expectations of time and urgency. If I send you a Slack message at the end of my workday and you're already asleep, when do I reasonably expect you to reply to it? The answer is, it depends on what rules and expectations or norms we've established on our team. And to establish rules and norms in remote or hybrid work, you have to discuss them.
In short, your team has to confront what "urgent" means and how one would deliver an urgent message or ask for a response urgently. Perhaps if something is truly urgent, then you are required to communicate by phone or personal text message—save Slack messages for anything that can be answered within, say, 12 or 24 hours, depending on your team's time zone spread.
If a truly "urgent" matter requires a phone call and everything else can wait a few hours, your whole team will be forced to slow down and think a little harder about how to answer both urgent and non-urgent issues. When the pressure is off to get back to someone right now about a matter that's simply not urgent, everyone can take their time to think and react calmly, and hopefully with better judgment and fewer errors as a result.
Asynchronous Work Creates Records
Another benefit of asynchronous work is that by its nature, it creates records. Typically, asynchronous work is written down, whether it's in collaborative task management apps, project management apps, shared Google Docs, online whiteboards, and so on.
Writing down information means people have an easy time searching for it and referencing it. This is in stark contrast to work that is not captured, like oral meetings (unless they are recorded and transcribed). When workers can look up what was said, what action items were assigned, and what details were shared, then they can get their jobs done better and more efficiently.
The Best Tools for Working Asynchronously
If you want to support asynchronous work and do it well, what tools do you need?
The Best Apps for Asynchronous Work
So far I've mentioned Slack, a leader in team messaging apps, though many organizations use Microsoft Teams, which is equally good. There are other options, but those are the two leaders by a long shot.
I also mentioned whiteboard apps. Teams has a whiteboard app included, and you can make use of one in Zoom meetings as well, but a few are better than those. Miro is the best you'll find, and a PCMag Editors' Choice winner. Mural is nearly as good, though, and if you don't need every feature under the sun, Stormboard and Lucidspark are also excellent options.
I can't think of an organization that doesn't already use some kind of collective document system, whether it's shared Google Docs and Sheets or collaborative setups of Microsoft Word and Excel as part of a Microsoft 365 account. In any event, those tools are enormously helpful—so use them to their fullest.
The Best Project Management Apps
Finally, a good work management or project management tool is invaluable for remote collaboration and asynchronous work. The type you choose depends on the kind of work your team does, but a few of our favorites based on years of testing them are Editors' Choice winners Asana (for nearly everyone), Todoist (for smaller teams), GanttPro (for teams new to project management), Teamwork (for client-based work), and Zoho Projects (for growing teams managing projects).
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