How Remote’s globally distributed teams saved 20,000+ hours of meetings in two years with Loom

All-in on async

Remote, the makers of the leading all-in-one global HR platform for teams distributed around the world, is at the forefront of a growing distributed work movement that’s turning traditional ways of communicating upside down – and reaping the benefits.

Remote, which has 1,500+ employees based in 75+ countries, has built an efficient, fully remote organization following asynchronous principles (meaning work and communication don’t happen in real time) – proving that creating effective, globally dispersed teams is not just possible, but preferable. 

“Async work is how high-performing teams get more done with fewer interruptions, higher efficiency, and greater reliability,” Remote President and Co-Founder Marcelo Lebre writes. He founded Remote as a distributed company in 2019 and has built a team dedicated to showing the value of remote work for both their company and their customers. 

Growing from a startup to a multibillion-dollar unicorn is a rare feat – even rarer for a completely distributed business. Remote’s team has achieved these successes by bringing together the right people and equipping them with the right principles, processes, and platforms to power their work. For the former, they turned inward. For the latter, they turned outward to a collection of tools that would help them make async work, work – including Loom. 

Battling the tyranny of time zones with Loom

As Remote grew, so did their collection of communication tools. To simplify and standardize their toolset, Remote chose to use Zoom for meetings with external customers and partners; Google Meet for internal, real-time meetings; and Loom and Slack for asynchronous communication. 

Sean Stanley, Documentation and Internal Communications Partner, says expanding Loom’s usage has been an enabler for increasing efficiency and collaboration, even when employees can’t – or don’t want to – meet at the same time. 

“We don’t necessarily want to be asynchronous, but we have to be, because we’re a global company. We would not be successful if we had to wait to get into a meeting to talk about something,” he explains. “That’s the genius of Loom. We have an all-hands meeting once a month. Other than that, so much is done through Loom, Slack, and other async tools.”

Creative uses to communicate everything, from Marseille to Manila to Montana

Since centralizing on Loom for video communication, Sean says the tool has become “woven into the fabric” of Remote’s culture. He’s been pleasantly surprised at how quickly employees across the company embraced the tool, as well as all the versatile uses they’ve discovered. 

The entire company now uses Loom for everything from corporate communication and collaboration, to performance reviews and training, to IT and enterprise service management, to sales enablement and customer support. 

Here are just a few tales from Remote’s team about the many ways they’re using Loom to communicate more, while meeting less.

Corporate communication

“Remote’s leadership uses Loom a lot. On an average day one leader will share a one-minute video about something she wants to flag for her team, and another leader will record himself answering questions for an async media interview. 

Our CEO does regular ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions to answer questions one by one. With a company like ours, it's hard to maintain visibility or have face time with 1,500+ people. Loom videos go a long way.” - Connor Murphy, Global Communications Manager, working from Oregon

“With the TL;DR [too long; didn’t read] crowd, Looms are indispensable. I can take a very talented person who doesn't like to read or watch anything, and send them a Loom. They can click on it, they can watch it at 4x speed, or they can read the AI summary or transcripts, which have gotten really good…We’re reaching more people with change management and important announcements.” - Sean Stanley, Documentation and Internal Communications Partner, working from South Carolina

One-on-ones and cross-functional collaboration

“Loom allows me to share my personality with people who are not always going to see me face to face. It conveys information that my written communication might miss, especially tone, personality, and my values as a team leader…I love the chapters that Loom creates, which make it easy to skip ahead. The ability to trim pauses and skip unnecessary parts with Loom AI are golden!”  - Rebecca Applewhite, Director of Solutions Consulting, working from the UK

“Our Solutions Consulting Team has to work effectively with our Products Team, communicate updates, and understand our roadmap. It's impossible to get everyone in a room, so we use Loom to pose questions for each other.” - Rebecca Applewhite, Director of Solutions Consulting, working from the UK

“I use Loom to communicate with my team, share key company updates, goals, and feedback, despite the challenges of different time zones and remote operations.” - Pierre, VP Corporate Controller, working from France

Performance reviews and training

“We have a robust management performance review process at Remote. I had 12 direct reports. I recorded myself in Loom speaking naturally about team members, then used the transcript to construct a written performance review. I will be doing this again!” - Rebecca Applewhite, Director of Solutions Consulting, working from the UK

“I am dyslexic, so Loom has been a game changer for me as I am a visual learner. I also find it easier to explain my thought process to others by using visuals. Working for a fully remote/async company and having Loom as a tool has completely changed my workflow and I can't imagine going back to a work life that doesn't include Loom.” - Remote employee

“Loom enables people to receive updates and learn the way they want to. For example, trainers can record and share content. Then learners practice and submit recorded Looms, and then trainers review, comment, and certify based on those videos.”  - Rebecca Applewhite, Director of Solutions Consulting, working from the UK

IT support and enterprise service management

“We’ve recorded Loom tutorials to build a useful corpus of knowledge. For example, I use the tool to answer common support questions and show people how to use our tools. Now, rather than having to get on Zoom and walk someone through how to do something, I just send a link to a Loom video.”  - Sean Stanley, Documentation and Internal Communications Partner, working from South Carolina

“I use Loom to collaborate with other teams in other time zones, particularly for documenting features and bugs, and for educational videos.” - Francisco, Front End Engineer, working from Portugal

“You can spend all this money on professional production and tutorials that are going to have no value in 18 months. Or you can use a product like Loom, with no fancy equipment or experience in film, and create a really high-quality video in minutes.” - Sean Stanley, Documentation and Internal Communications Partner, working from South Carolina

Sales enablement and customer support

“I use Loom to explain sales strategies and products to partners through video. It’s great for quick internal communications, upskilling, and clarifying complex processes to customers.” - Fiona, Sr Solutions Consultant, working from Sweden

“With Loom, we can explain what we're seeing, go through a proposal or other materials, and provide additional enablement on what we’ve done, such as an asset they've created.” - Rebecca Applewhite, Director of Solutions Consulting, working from the UK

“The best way to manage meetings is not to have them.”

While Remote’s employees are using Loom in countless ways, there’s one main benefit they all agree on: saving time by eliminating meetings. While many teams see meetings as the first step to good collaboration and communication, Remote sees them as the last.

“The best way to manage meetings is not to have them,” Rebecca says. Sean adds, “How do we reduce the need for two people to get together to talk? A lot of meetings could be emails. A lot of emails could be Slack messages. And a lot of Slacks could be Looms.”

Remote’s scrappy culture and Loom’s ease of use have been the perfect combination for significant time savings. From 2022-2024, employees saved over 20,000 hours of meetings. This shift in modes of communication is not only a testament to Remote’s growing efficiency as a business, but also to living their values and serving as role models for their customers. 

“We’re the best at what we do because we believe in what we do. We’re not just working remote, and we’re not just working asynchronously. We’re working remote asynchronously – and proving it can be a successful business model,” Sean says. “Loom is the best product on the market to support asynchronous communication. You can convey a lot of information in a short amount of time, reliably, with minimal effort. I can’t speak highly enough about it.”