The new normal: from synchronous to asynchronous

It is obvious to most of us that COVID-19 reality, in all its problems on our societies, represented a massive turning point to digitalization and/or modernization of several organizations. From the small enterprises that were forced to adapt to a remote workforce, including the tooling aspect, to the big players that, being equipped already to operate in that model, finally realised that it having a full-time remote workforce actually works and can be equally efficient.

It is my conviction that this is only the tip of the iceberg. The start of a much wider transformation in what concerns organisational models. Most importantly, the start of a cultural change in each of those organisations!

Most of us, when getting a job, are used to the idea of going to an office all the time, searching the area or city where the office is located for relocation purposes, having to think about other family conditions (can your spouse also work in that city or country, school for the children, etc). In reality, is all that really necessary when all companies want to achieve, when hiring, is increasing their value delivery?

My opinion is that none of that is necessary. Was never necessary and it is not anymore necessary with a proof of concept done over a number of months. It is a habit that was never sufficiently challenged that has been disrupted by the pandemic.

So the question becomes: “Where is this disruption leading us and what is the path we started pursuing recently?”

1 – Flexibility

Organizations often require people to be flexible and flexibility is a two way street. Being flexible towards people will be one of the strongest cultural assets a company may be judged in the future and a decisive factor for recruitment. Will have to become one of the intrinsic organization values if one wants to remain competitive. By allowing people to work from anywhere, enterprises will be providing the flexibility people want. Yet, flexibility means the right for people to make a choice on the remote work model that is effective for them.

2 – Productivity

Flexibility will also be one of the key cornerstones if an organization wants to increase its productivity. It is no secret that happy people work better! And it is not a secret equally that happy people normally show higher degree of engagement towards their organization. High performing companies are those whereby their employees demonstrate higher engagement.

We all have certainly examples in our professional or social circles whereby people have expressed their productivity increase with the changes COVID-19 brought – being more quiet and focused while working from home, for example.

3- Quest for talent

This is a train that won’t stop. Either you decide to enter this journey or you take one of the next trains and become indefinitely behind your competition. When your competitors start to recruit the best talents and allow them to work from anywhere they would like, without the need to relocate, they will automatically have an advantage towards you. The quest for talent will need to evolve and will become more globalised, moving further away from the traditional university campus job fairs. If today, the big players, already have some of these practices, this will now be true to any company that has the right infrastructure to cope with a sustainable remote workforce.

This is equally an opportunity to attract talent to every organization while increase your diversity!

4 – An asynchronous way of working

Most of organizations today work in a synchronous way. Even with more than one time zone, people often look for the overlap time to hold a meeting as the participation of an attendee from a different time zone is key. It becomes even more dependent when people are on the same time zone. How many of us have the agendas fully booked with meetings back to back all the time? It is a reflex of that synchronous way of working. Evolving our ways of working, will require being equipped to work in asynchronous mode, not having to wait till someone is connected to address a topic or take a decision. To do so, there is certainly a cultural change to take place and the increase usage of collaboration tools. As an example, email is an asynchronous tool that can lack efficiency when used to the extreme. Plus, with the remote workforce, if you rely only on email you lose the most powerful communication tools you have: body language. A good complement to the email usage is the video messaging systems where communication is broadcasted fast (and faster than writing an email) while the receiver has access to other relevant signals such as tone of voice or body language therefore increasing the efficacy of the communication.

All of those represent opportunities to evolve our organizations. It comes with a cost though. The need to invest in your HR department, namely to be able to cope with the different tax regulations you may be exposed going forward (for example), the need to invest in secure infrastructure and collaborative tools (leveraging SaaS or PaaS for example).

Not to mention the most important: the need to train your people and your management layers to adopt this cultural and mindset change.