Making Remote Work Simple: A Guide to Asynchronous Work for Every Leader

In our fast-changing world, especially after COVID-19, working in ways that don't rely on everyone being online at the same time has become important for strong, lasting businesses. This shift towards remote work isn't just a quick fix; it's a smart way to build a business for the long haul.

Working asynchronously means we write things down and make our intentions clear. This is key when things change quickly. It allows for flexible working hours, which are ever-important for GenZ joining the marketplace.

When I switched to working remotely four years ago, I had no clue what it meant to work asynchronously. I’m a big fan of asynchronous work now. It’s hard to shift when you are an established company, but it’s worth it. It made me rethink how we share and collaborate in a modern knowledge-based economy. Let me share some learnings and practices we developed to stimulate an async workplace. If you start a new company, consider being async from day one.

Knowledge management system

It all starts with the basics. You need to have a common place that people contribute to. Many platforms allow you to structure your workspace for async work, like Notion, Coda or Nuclino. It's like having a coach or a guidebook that helps you grow people and make them collaborate. It’s important to remember that Microsoft Teams and Slack aren’t good replacements, as the context in threads on your messaging platforms is fleeting.

At my company, we started using a tool called Notion at the end of 2020. It lets us organize our work without the need to have everyone online at the same time. We began with just a few essential documents. People were initially slow to get on board because it meant changing how we did things. We didn't force it; we just created useful stuff that everyone wanted to use and got everyone involved bit by bit.

Now, Notion is a big part of how we do everything - from planning projects to keeping track of employee information and making decisions. It's our go-to place for all our important information.

If you're building a business, check out the Notion community templates. They have lots of ready-made setups for different stages of your business, which can be a great starting point.

Decision-making process

At work (and not only there 😀), we usually have to make some sort of decisions at some point of time. That could be the decision to start the project, devote more resources to the given topic, change company policy, or make a financial commitment. Usually, there are some stakeholders on whom we base our decisions, even if they aren’t directly engaged in the project we run. When working remotely, you need to be more intentional about your decisions and have a system to distribute them. Those decisions shouldn’t be discussed in private channels but should be available to anyone at any time. Access to reasoning is a key to building trust in such environments.

In our notion, we built a tool called ADR to support the async environment. That’s a place to propose a final decision and ask for feedback from your peers. The solution originated from tech background, where ADRs are used to document design choices about the software architecture. Everybody is allowed to make decisions that aren’t forbidden and follow the advice process. Every employee is allowed to make any decision if:

• it’s not forbidden
• they use the advice process mentioned in this document
• notify people that can be affected with the decision

We encourage employees to listen actively, integrate the best advice, and make a decision. They are allowed to make a decision if they follow those rules.

If you are interested in this decision practice, you can read more about it on the Reinventing Organizations wiki.

Communication

Meetings can often feel like a necessary evil, particularly in remote setups. But mimicking the traditional 'office' approach can be counterproductive. Here's how to rethink meetings in the remote work era. Take the best of what asynchronous work offers and have much fewer meetings. The key isn't to eliminate meetings but to transform them into strategic, well-planned interactions that respect everyone's time and contribute to meaningful progress. Those meetings are more intentional, purpose-driven, and much less recurring. Remember, a one-hour meeting with ten people isn't just one hour; it's ten hours of collective productivity.

Writing and consuming content takes a lot of time. Many people aren’t skilled enough to share information using written text. Sometimes, that form of communication doesn’t work well for them. You can consider tools that allow you to video communicate asynchronously. Check out Loom, a great tool for replacing synchronous video meetings.

By transforming your meeting culture, you can unlock efficiency and foster a more dynamic, engaging work environment. You need to be way more intentional about your Communication Architecture. I’m sharing with you our Communication Architecture notion page that document our approach to communication at Appunite.

I hope it can inspire you to build your own one when you are starting the company or want to improve your communication schema.

Culture

Building culture is usually hard for many leaders when they come from non-remote environments. They usually built their authority in closed meeting rooms and office politics. When working remotely, office practices and dynamics don’t work anymore. It’s just because of the characteristics of the remote environment. The access to people is way more convenient and less formal.

There needs to be a clear mission and vision that everybody in the company has a buy-in. That’s a Northstar for decisions they need to optimize for when they don’t have anybody to ask for around. We also openly share the strategy and other documents that help our teams have better context. Again, you might not have everything on day one, but you can iteratively work on that. Having the opportunity to distribute the information much more effectively means that velocity is more important than accuracy. Experiment, share doubts, and encourage people to question and improve those documents as you go.

When people are joining your company in the office, they can feel the vibe. It isn’t possible when they join their WFM environment. You need to take care of onboarding much more intentionally. Get people to understand what you stand for, what is important to you, and which behaviors are accepted and which are not. Make sure they can get to speed in just a few days. At least they have all the knowledge already available because everything is documented. See our onboarding document below for inspiration.

Don’t forget that having an in-person meeting is also important for people. If you can, meet as often as possible. Organize monthly or quarterly meetings in cities where people work. Think about a program to reimburse the costs of travel and accommodations.

Remote vs office work

There is no doubt that working remotely is a different pair of shoes compared to office work. The practices shared above can help you build more resilient organizations. If you have any thoughts or questions, PM me. Interested in more materials about building resilient organizations? Subscribe to the LinkedIn Newsletter or Empowered.House.

Suppose you want to get more materials about remote work. In that case, I encourage you to look at the GitLab guide to all remote, Sergio Pereira Remote Work Academy and Reinventing Organizations book.

PS. My biggest personal benefit from working async is that when I’m off or working from a different time zone, I can catch up at any time and things happen without needing to be there for meetings. You take advantage of the fact that everybody can iterate and push things forward.

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