The future of work is here — and it’s asynchronous video
This summer, we saw the Great Resignation. Whitecollar workers would rather quit than go back to the office. And lower-paid employees are tired of putting up with bad work environments for paychecks that hardly cover the bills.
As knowledge workers, we’re very fortunate to be actively creating the future of work. The truth is that the future of work is already here. And it’s not just remote, it’s also asynchronous video.
Remote work has a meetings problem
Ineffective and unnecessary meetings cause professionals to lose an average of 31 hours per month, which adds up to 4 workdays an estimated $399 billion in financial loss in US companies alone.
And even when the purpose of the meeting is valid, the time spent in the meeting and how the meeting affects a person’s calendar can be detrimental. 44% of professionals say that poorly scheduled meetings result in them not having enough time to do their actual work.
Of course, the problem of meetings isn’t just a remote work problem. But remote work is such an important battleground for freedom and flexibility.
In an article titled The real stakes of Apple’s battle over remote work, journalists and Shirin Ghaffary and Rani Molla found resounding evidence that employees will continue to push back against the company’s requirement of in-person work. “There’s this idea that people skateboarding around tech campuses are bumping into each other and coming up with great new inventions,” Cher Scarlett, an engineer at Apple, told the Vox reporters. “That’s just not true.”
When we battle against unnecessary meetings in the remote work environment, we’re fighting for greater impact and productivity in our remote working lives, and we’re making the case for remote work that much stronger.
In other words, you can’t separate the optimization of remote work from the fight to protect it.
The future of work is already here, it’s just not fully adopted yet
The more productive that remote workers are, the more companies will adopt this movement. Fortunately, the most important innovation to increase remote work productivity already exists. And it’s asynchronous video.
Instead of inviting a team member to an online meeting room where you both have to be present at the same time, record yourself talking through an important update or question.
Then, send the link to that recording. Your colleague can do a quick text comment on the video, or reply with their own video.
Here are the most important features of asynchronous communication tools:
- Audio
- Video
- Screen recording
- Shareable links
- Time-stamped, in-video comments
- Threaded replies
- Notifications of comments and replies
Many companies have already adopted asynchronous video as their primary communication channel, especially startups and companies in the tech space. Some friends at Salesforce recently shared that the company tested asynchronous video, and found it so effective for boosting productivity that they asked their 65,000+ employees to not have a single meeting for an entire week, and then to use async video as much as possible following that challenge.
But for the most part, medium and large organizations are slow to adopt new technologies, and are really missing out on the opportunity to communicate faster.
The contents of a 30-minute meeting can easily be distilled into one or two 3-minute videos that can be watched at the viewers’ convenience.
When this technology is adopted by the entire team, you can eliminate requests like “hey can you hop on a meeting really quickly?” Rather than allow productivity to be destroyed at scale, you can protect workers’ productivity.
Why asynchronous video is the future of work
Asynchronous video is more than just a cool way to send recordings and screen share videos back and forth.
It’s a powerful tool for creating an enjoyable and productive company culture.
Here are some of the top reasons why asynchronous video matters now:
1. Fair communication across time zones
When you use asynchronous communication, not only does your location not matter, but your time zone doesn’t matter either. For most white-collar workers, what they communicate about is not an emergency. It’s okay for a response to come in 2–24 hours (instead of immediately in Slack or on a call).
With asynchronous videos, teammates who are outside of the more popular time zones don’t have to feel left out. They don’t need to be constantly briefed about what they missed or wonder if others view them as truly part of the team. Instead, they can watch asynchronous videos, comment, and reply with their own videos just like everyone else.
2. Freedom enablement (schedules are irrelevant)
An overwhelming majority (73%) of remote workers say that remote work greatly improves their work-life balance. It’s so much easier to fit in a workout, dog walk, doctor’s appointment, or school pick-up when you work from home or a coworking space near your home.
But for companies that are routinely scheduling meetings that clutter up people’s calendars, this freedom evaporates. How can you meet a school-aged child at the bus stop when you have back-to-back meetings in the afternoons? You can’t. Asynchronous videos can be recorded and watched at the best times for each individual person, meaning work-life balance can be better struck.
3. Greater respect for deep work
Some companies expect immediate responses in the form of lightning-fast Slack messages or Voxer walkie-talkie comms or hopping on an impromptu meeting. This creates a company culture where urgency and responsiveness are mistaken for value. Here’s a hard truth: these companies are probably not measuring employee impact correctly. Why? Because these sorts of companies have zero respect for deep work.
If you measure people based on their responsiveness, instead of their contributions, you’re in trouble. Innovation at your company will move at a snail’s pace.
“When the expectation of an immediate response is removed, people are able to focus on their work for long periods of time while scheduling times of the day to reply to colleagues,” says Jen Rhymer, a researcher at Stanford University who studies how companies implement asynchronous working models.
You can immediately empower and enable deep work by rolling out asynchronous video across your team. This respect for deep work will manifest in team members achieving meaningful goals.
4. Improved productivity and day structuring
To put it simply, asynchronous video communication allows employees to structure their day in a way that sets them up for success. A winning schedule might be to check email, watch asynchronous videos, and read comments in the morning. Then, go into deep work until lunch. After lunch, check asynchronous communication again and go into deep work mode until day’s end.
Contrast this with constant meetings and back-and-forth communication and it’s easy to see how much can be achieved. When it’s not mitigated, context switching can eat up between 20–80% of someone’s day.
5. More thought-out responses
Asynchronous video also yields more thoughtful responses, since workers can consider how they want to reply. In meetings, people often say, “Let me do some research and get back to you.” What’s the point of the meeting then? It’s better for the person organizing the meeting to send a quick video link with their thoughts, and allow the other person ample time to consider their response and then respond. This can save hours of unnecessary meetings each month, while also improving the quality of employees’ responses to each other.
6. Infused with personality
Asynchronous video and audio recordings also infuse communication with humanity, emotions, and personality. Of course, some things can be answered with text-based comments, but it’s nice to have recordings of our team members so we can hear each others’ voices and relate to one another.
When to choose sync versus async
Of course, there are times when conference calls are useful.
In these instances, a meeting might be your best bet:
- Weekly goal setting and checking for any blockers.
- Onboarding new team members (many onboarding tasks should be asynchronous for better scalability, but more meetings might be required during the onboarding process for better team building).
- Kicking off a big new project with lots of moving parts.
- Communicating sensitive or complex information, such as a strategy pivot or big company change.
Asynchronous video communication has quietly been reinventing collaboration at companies all around the world. Embrace it, and you’ll enjoy more productivity and freedom.
