Beyond Nine to Five: The biggest Advantages of
Asynchronous Working for
Employees, Teams and Companies

Asynchronous Working: effective Collaboration without continuous Real-time interaction

While the term “remote work” refers to spatial flexibility (employees can work from anywhere), the concept of “asynchronous working” is about giving employees a free hand both in terms of where they work and in terms of working hours.

However, an asynchronous working model is not necessarily associated with working from different locations or from the home office because even in a shared office, team members may have different working hours or work on different projects, which requires the use of asynchronous communication methods.

All in all, asynchronous working is about creating flexibility while ensuring that team members can collaborate effectively regardless of their physical location or working environment and without the need for continuous real-time communication.

In a traditional nine-to-five job, you would typically have to be in the office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (i.e. at a fixed location at set times), which would mean, among other things, that you would often be stuck in rush hour traffic and have little time for personal hobbies and interests. In an asynchronous working environment, on the other hand, you have much more opportunities and a lot of advantages.

The biggest Advantages of an Asynchronous Working Model - from different Perspectives

The Advantages for individual Employees

• Autonomy: Employees can decide for themselves when to take breaks, when to start work and when to finish work - apart from fixed coordination dates, meetings and deadlines, of course, that should be clear. 😉 This allows employees to work very independently, where they can complete their individual tasks at different times and where there is no continuous real-time interaction.

• Spatial and time flexibility: Asynchronous working is practically the opposite model to “Nine to Five”. The concept combines spatial and time flexibility and thus allows even significantly more creative freedom than remote work. For example, it is possible to attend private appointments in the middle of the day, which would be unthinkable with rigid working hours.

• Better work-life balance ⚖️: Employees can organize their day as they wish in order to achieve the optimal balance between work and leisure. For example, there is much more freedom when it comes to spending time with friends or family.

• Healthier working environment: The flexibility also automatically helps to reduce stress and prevent burnout. One of the reasons for this is that employees don’t have to be constantly available and can switch off better during non-working hours.

• Working according to biorhythms ⏰: Everyone’s internal clock ticks differently - every employee is most productive or not so productive at a different time. And individual working hours can be tailored precisely to this. The motto is: “It doesn’t matter whether you start at 5 a.m. or 11 a.m..”.

• Motivation: The more independent division of work is intrinsically motivating, which in turn has an effect on the efficiency of employees. They are then often able to cope with a greater workload.

• Higher productivity: More phases of deep work are possible - i.e. phases in which you can work with high concentration. This is because there are fewer distractions, fewer interruptions and fewer meetings and you can focus better. As a rule, you are less likely to be disturbed in concentration.

The Benefits for Team Collaboration

• Increased efficiency: If individual employees can work more efficiently and are more productive, this logically also benefits teamwork.

• Continuity during work interruptions: If employees are absent due to personal circumstances or illness, a project can still progress, as other team members can take over their work. This is possible due to the high level of transparency. In addition, the other team members are able to continue working autonomously on their own tasks (unless the work steps necessarily build on each other).

• Better transparency: If some of the internal communication takes place in the corridor or next to the coffee machine, it is rare for people to take notes during the process. 😉 With asynchronous work, on the other hand, there is usually written documentation of conversations that can be accessed later.

• Easier collaboration across time zones 🌏: For example, it is not a problem if an employee works from Japan for a company located in Germany. Due to the time difference, their working hours are naturally different to those of their colleagues who work in Germany. An asynchronous way of working offers the best conditions for this.

The Benefits for the entire Company

• Higher employee satisfaction 💙: Satisfied employees are more loyal to the company and there is less fluctuation. Valuable employees remain with the company in the long term.

• Stronger employer branding: You have the opportunity to recruit new employees for whom asynchronous working is a key benefit.

• Access to a larger talent pool: Your company is no longer limited to local talent in its recruitment process. It can hire professionals from different regions (even internationally!), which can lead to a more diverse and skilled staff.

• Promoting diversity and inclusion: Asynchronous working can offer people with different circumstances and needs the opportunity to become part of the organization due to its high flexibility.

• Positioning on the market: Enable your employees to work asynchronously, position yourself as a modern and innovative company that breaks new ground, enables new ways of working and is open to change. This aspect can also have a positive effect on your employer branding.

Under the right Conditions, Asynchronous Working can revolutionize the World of Work

The invention of the assembly line revolutionized the automotive industry back then - in a similar way, the concept of “asynchronous working” could turn the working world upside down. This requires companies to say goodbye to the synchronous working week, which is also a remnant of the industrial revolution. Of course, this requires the courage to think differently and try something new.

For the whole thing to work and not degenerate into chaos (in the worst case), you also need concrete guidelines. In addition, all employees must be able to work very self-responsibly and have a certain discipline. And, of course, you need to provide the right software tools and methods that enable time-shifted working.

These include tools that can be used to work together on documents, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote (Microsoft 365), cloud storage for file sharing (e.g. Microsoft OneDrive), communication platforms such as Microsoft Teams, email services with an integrated calendar, such as Microsoft Outlook and project management tools. Here, it makes sense to rely on solutions that are seamlessly linked via a technology platform.

Bye-bye Isolated Solutions! That's why
the Future belongs
to the Platform Approach

As new ways of thinking are required in some places at the beginning, it may be advisable to implement change management for the changeover process. Also bear in mind that the way of working is not suitable for every type of task. Some tasks still require real-time interaction.

Considering ll these aspects, asynchronous working brings significant benefits to employees, teams and organizations that no nine-to-five job could offer. It can even be argued that this new way of working is capable of revolutionizing working life to a certain extent. 🚀😊