Imagine that, for a startup to succeed, every employee needs to be in perfect sync all the time. Furthermore, everyone needs to be in the same location simultaneously; otherwise, nothing gets done. Unfortunately, under today’s standards, this startup is destined to fail, as the internet provides flexibility never seen before, allowing teams to function from all around the world.
This workflow is called synchronous communication or real-time communication. Nowadays, highly productive teams are actually remote-first companies, like Twitter and Coinbase. They might clearly still rely on a combination of in-office work, and Zoom or other video conference tools, but they also depend heavily on communication tools like Slack.
Learn how you can optimize your daily stand-ups and team check-ins with a smart chatbot. Learn more
Having the freedom of working at your own pace and communicating via chat tools is called asynchronous communication. For instance, if a co-worker asks you a question via Slack or email, you’ll have some time to respond as there’s no need to get an instant reply.
Let’s review some examples of asynchronous communication and the best collaborative tools:
Chatbots are probably the most modern way of asynchronous communication as they optimize many different processes. At first glance, chatbots might appear inhuman and a little useful to encourage communication, but it’s rather the opposite. Chatbots are software often developed to help automate repetitive tasks and copy human interactions. DailyBot, for instance, facilitates daily standups, team check-ins, surveys, kudos, virtual watercooler, 1:1 intros, motivation tracking and more, just like a virtual assistant would.
Companies can run async and written updates instead of endless standups to reduce productivity blockers. You can set up DailyBot to track what your team is up to and identify possible blockers asynchronously.
This is one of the best inventions Google brought to the internet. Any G Workspace product (Docs, Sheets, Slides) allows asynchronous communication as people can edit documents and presentations in real-time from different locations. It’s straightforward to use, and you can leave comments to your coworkers and get work done without being physically present.
Slack is where work happens, or that’s what they say. After the pandemic, this tool became incredibly popular and brought asynchronous communication to mass adoption. Suddenly the entire world was locked down, and people had to learn to communicate remotely. Thankfully, Slack was already a robust tool when the pandemic hit, which made adaptation a lot easier and, more importantly, it boosted the change from working from the office to working from home.
💡 Learn how to keep your team agile and in sync by integrating DailyBot to Slack.
Some people think email is one of the slowest ways of communication. But on average, people aged 20-35 reply to emails in 16 minutes. This response time during a meeting could be beyond awkward, but the advantage of this type of asynchronous communication is that people have actually time to think the answer through and give an effective response. Probably more effective than “yeah, maybe.”
Not all forms of communication are written. Sometimes it’s hard to get a message across using only words, and at the same time, it’s not possible to gather the team together for a deeper explanation. Loom is excellent for recording step-by-step processes, descriptions and directions.
Successful asynchronous communication goes hand in hand with efficient remote working. The more the team master this new skill, the more productive they’ll be, and this could benefit not only the company but the employee’s work-life balance and happiness.
Check out our complete guide on managing remote teams for more about remote working.
