Remote work: Learning from others

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to improve their climate literacy so as to understand the projected impacts from the expanding climate crisis and how to adapt their workplaces in the face of these impacts.

Remeber working remotely is not new and best practices have long been established years prior to this pandemic.

If a leadership team wants to embrace anywhere working there is absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to learn how to assimilate these best practices into your workplace.

One of these best practices is the need to become what is know as “async-first” meaning your communication and work defaults to asynchronous as the norm.

This goes contrary to how things work in a physical office which is almost entirely a synchronous experience:

• In-office 9-5: synchronous
• Meetings: synchronous
• Phone calls: synchronous
• Hallway chats: synchronous
• Instant messaging: synchronous
• Real-time email response: synchronous

Most new to remote work have attempted to replicate the above remotely, and its exhausting and highly inefficient!

This way of working all has to be un-learnt.

Here is an an example what “async-first” communication and work looks like in practice (from team Doist):

70% async using Twist, Gihub, Paper
25% sync using Zoom, Google Meet
5% physical meetings (eg team retreats)

Mastering asynchronous working and communicating is a non-negotiable skill if sustainable, long-term work from anywhere is the goal.

How far are you down this path?