I recently chatted with Digiday‘s WorkLife editor Jessica Davies about asynchronous work and the confusion surrounding this term as part of their “WTF…” series (that title is so apropos for this era of change!)
“The confusion is occurring because not everyone has understood that to make it work well, you need to set some guardrails on how it’s going to work.
“‘When you hear a lot of managers right now saying they’re overloaded, it’s because there are no rules [around asynchronous working). If everyone is doing their own thing, there is no coordination. It’s a mess.’”
When it stands alone, asynchronous work can become just one of many “next of work” shinny buzzy concepts. However, when it’s coordinated with hybrid or remote or a four-day workweek, asynchronous becomes an enabler of the reimagining of how, when and where organizations can operate across workplaces, spaces and time.
Organizations need to first start with “what we need to get done,” or the work. Then, establish guardrails that keep everyone on track moving forward as they do their jobs and manage their lives in a flexible, dynamic way.
#futureofwork #asynchronouswork #flexiblework #strategy #leadership