How To Balance Asynchronous with Synchronous Communication At Work

There has been discussion for years about what can be better for an office, synchronous (at the same time) or asynchronous (at different times) communication. Since working from home has become much more of a standard part of many people’s lives, figuring out what should be synchronous and asynchronous has become even more critical. Let’s take a look at what sort of balance you might want to have for your workplace!

Should You Go Fully Synchronous or Asynchronous?

It’s a common question many companies are asking at the moment. And there are a lot of advantages and evangelists for each method. The concept of a “digital nomad” has been picking up steam over the last few years. This is someone who works from anywhere in the world, in any timezone. It would seem to be advantageous to be completely asynchronous in this scenario. They can send over whatever information they need to, and then people can reply as and when they receive it in a different time zone.

The more traditionalists prefer everything to be synchronous. All your staff is in one location, if they need to talk, they can just get up and go and do it. Meetings are held in one place, face to face, and all decisions are made on the spot. Both of these methods have some advantages. However, which one is better? In our opinion, you need a mix of both.

Why Not Both?

Here at VideoCom we believe the future is very much a mix of the two. You can see this in practices like the “hybrid office,” where people will spend some days in the office and some days at home. However, it is possible to be genuinely remote while combining the benefits of synchronous and asynchronous work.

For example, while something like a big company update would seem like it should be synchronous, in many cases, it would be more effective to deliver this asynchronously. Using VideoCom Presenter you can load in all your slides from Google or PowerPoint, add your webcam and any media you need then pre-record the update. This way, you can upload the video for your staff to watch at a convenient time. If any questions arise, you can have individual or group break-out sessions at a later date.

Now you don’t have to have everyone stop working simultaneously to tune in. Also, if you have a remote, global workforce, some team members don’t have to be up at 4 am their time to see the update. Presenter does, however, allow you to do all of this live as well, so if you want to, you can still run it as a live call over any video service.

Synchronous Asynchronous Communication

Now, that may not make a ton of sense. How can something happen at the same time but also at different times? Let us give you an example. So, you’re talking on Slack, and you need to explain to a team member how they can access a certain part of the development portal for your new site. The quickest way to do this would be a quick video call, share your screen, and you’re done, right? Well, you can achieve the same goal but make it something that person can revisit at any time. It’s even more useful as it is something anyone can revisit. Using VideCom Capture you can quickly capture your screen and record a voice-over showing the process step by step, just as you would if you were on a video call.

Now let’s look at the asynchronous part. The video is automatically uploaded to the VideoCom cloud, and a link is available. You can share this link with anyone or pin it to a Slack channel for easy reference next time someone needs the same information. It’s replayable at any time, and colleagues can even leave comments on the video if they have any further information for future viewers.

So, as you might be able to tell, we’re a big fan of the workplace having a combination of both synchronous and asynchronous communication here at VideoCom. You can learn more about how VideoCom can help you have better meetings right here.