Async Meetings for Remote Teams

Meetings can be one of the most frustrating parts of working in a remote team. If you have to travel halfway around the world to meet with your colleagues, it’s an even bigger hassle—and if they’re not productive or efficient, they’re next-to impossible. Luckily there are ways that meetings can be made less stressful. Here are my top tips for making meetings more manageable:

Why Async Meetings Work

The problem with traditional meetings is they’re inefficient. The average manager spends 28% of their time in meetings and only 20% of workers say they find them productive. Managers and employees alike are more likely to be distracted by social media during a meeting than focus on the discussion (59% versus 52%). Meetings can also be stressful, as some people feel guilty about not participating or look overworked when they have to attend several at once.

If you’re looking for a way to improve your team’s productivity and efficiency, async meet-ups are an excellent solution! Async meetings allow remote teams to exchange information without having everyone in one place at the same time—a valuable tool given that 60% of U.S. workers spend part of their day working remotely from home or locations outside the office according to Gallup’s State Of The American Workplace report.

30 minutes per person per day saved using Event Anywhere

In a survey of Event Anywhere users, the average user saves 30 minutes per day. This is a conservative estimate, as it assumes that everyone is saving 30 minutes per meeting. The average person has around 100 meetings per month (though this number will vary depending on your industry), so if you’re saving 30 minutes per meeting, that means you’re saving 300 minutes each month.

The average meeting length is 60 minutes; if someone blocked out their calendar for an hour-long phone call every single day at noon, they would spend 6 hours each week on those calls—and that doesn’t even count any pre-call prep!

60% of people replace other tools and use Event Anywhere

You can use Event Anywhere to replace other tools. People have replaced Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack and Calendly for their meeting rooms and scheduling. Other customers have chosen to use Event Anywhere instead of Google Meet, Loom and other tools because it’s less expensive than many competitors.

40% of Zoom calls were replaced with Event Anywhere

Zoom is a great video conferencing tool, but it doesn’t have all the features that Event Anywhere does.

Event Anywhere is a better tool for asynchronous and synchronous meetings. It allows you to create async meetings or do live video calls depending on the need.

After everyone’s joined the meeting, you’ll find yourself in an intuitive interface where you can record audio or video calls with ease — just like in Zoom! The difference is with Event Anywhere you can play pre-watches before meetings or record meetings to easily share with people who couldn’t attend. Event Anywhere lets you create async meetings as screencasts or via meeting recordings and lets you meet with different live video experiences so you get the best of both worlds.

In the below example Adam Kenyon a Manager at Webanywhere creates an async meeting screencast to be watched by the board of directors. Adam isn’t a member of the change management board and doesn’t attend the meeting. Adam and other managers are able to playback the change management meeting recordings. Directors are able to see who has played the meeting recording and any comments made.

With Event Anywhere, meetings are asynchronous by default.

Asynchronous meetings are by default, but you can easily change them to synchronous. They are more efficient and productive because participants don’t have to spend time waiting for other participants’ replies or questions. Asynchronous meetings are a better use of time for remote workers since there’s less pressure to be constantly connected or available for the entire duration of a meeting.

They are also a better use of time for busy people who don’t have to worry about being interrupted by an incoming message while they’re in the middle of something else. Asynchronous meetings are generally better than synchronous meetings, but it’s important to note that there are always exceptions.

In the below example Sean Gilligan the CEO of Webanywhere doesn’t attend the weekly recruitment meeting. However, the recruitment meeting is recorded so Sean can play the meeting back and replies with his comments as a voice note. Steve and Ola who attended the live video meeting focussed on recruitment are immediately notified of Sean’s comment so they can play his voice note. Further conversations can be conducted asynchronously by the talent acquisition team or they can re-group with a live video call if they prefer.

How Event Anywhere Works

Event Anywhere is a cloud-based meeting platform that allows you to take control of your meetings, no matter where you are. By using the Event Anywhere app on any device—smartphone, laptop, tablet and more—you can easily host async or sync meetings with anyone in the world.

To get started with Event Anywhere you need to create an event site for your team. You can then invite team members and start sharing screen recordings for async meetings or bring your team together with synchronous meeting experiences on the live stage for all-hands meetings, breakout rooms for networking and using the booking system to align calendars for live video meetings.

How does Event Anywhere help me get my message out there?

Event Anywhere is a simple way to share screencasts, videos and voice notes with anyone in the world who has an internet connection. You can use Event Anywhere to:

• Share presentations with your team, customers or prospects.
• Host live video meetings where you can talk with multiple people at once.
• Create meeting agendas and record voice notes for each agenda item so that everyone knows what’s expected.

Asynchronous communication before and after a live video meeting

Asynchronous meetings are more effective than live video calls. Async videos can be sent before an actual live video meeting so that you are better prepared or you can record the live meeting itself and send async to people who could not attend. You don’t need to be in the same room for your team to work together effectively. When you have an async meeting, people can do their own research and come prepared with questions and suggestions. They can share any new information that might affect the meeting agenda, which saves time for everyone involved. Asynchronous meetings allow you to record key points on a call so that no one forgets anything from the discussion. This also helps you avoid interrupting someone who is speaking during a real-time meeting if they get cut off by someone else or have their mic muted by accident.

As we’ve seen, the benefits of asynchronous meetings are easy to see. They save time and money for both parties, allow for more flexibility in scheduling, and can help avoid burnout. The key is finding a solution that works for your team’s workflow. If you’re still unsure about whether or not Event Anywhere is right for your organization, check out our free trial. Event Anywhere lets you default with async meetings and start video meeting rooms when needed.