It sounds like you are describing a work culture that relies heavily on synchronous communication to make progress. These don’t work well for companies that want to have remote workers and treat them as first class citizens.

The solution is to find ways to knowledgeshare that don’t require everyone’s attention at the same time - like a well maintained wiki, or recorded knowledge sharing sessions.

Consensus building may well require synchronous communication, and it should be made clear to remote workers which meetings are cruft and which are important. This can be accomplished by publishing meeting agendas and goals prior to the actual meeting.

I think at the end of the day it is important to recognize that different people work differently and accommodations have to be made for all sides to contribute effectively. By that I mean some people need to sit in a meeting with a person that is presenting slides to learn, but someone else might pick up the same material via one paragraph and a diagram + access to the code, and someone else might work better with a whiteboard presentation.

I prefer async written communication (email) because it leaves behind an easily searchable record to reference in the future.