Managing Remote Creative Teams: Challenges and Solutions
- Adilla
- Jun 20
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 11
As hybrid and remote work become more common in our work culture, they do not come without their challenges. While remote work offers benefits and the flexibility that creatives seek when it comes to work, managing a remote team requires a certain set of skills. Creative managers may have a challenging time making sure their team are not ignored or causing any miscommunication because of the lack of in-person communication.
Table Of Contents
Challenges of Managing Remote Creative Teams
First things first, as a creative manager, you should identify the potential challenges that could happen when you manage a remote team.
One of the main challenges would be communication. Not only will maintaining clear and effective communication with your remote team be difficult, but coordinating schedules and meetings with teams that live in different time zones might pose an issue. This could lead to mismanagement and communication gaps. Especially if collaboration is required on certain projects (which is one of the challenges of remote work).
Besides that, when it comes to tracking performance, it would be challenging to ensure consistency in work standards across the whole team. With a creative team, this is essential in making sure the brand identity that is produced through their creative design is cohesive. Thus, this leads to another challenge in terms of the feedback process.
Then, when miscommunication and misunderstandings do happen, conflict resolution is more complicated compared to face-to-face dialogue.
So, How Do We Tackle Challenges in Managing Remote Creative Teams?
Asynchronous communication
When it comes to communication, rely on tools and software that can conduct real-time meetings as a collaborative space and are accessible from all locations (as some countries block certain apps or, better yet, provide your team with a VPN if this is an issue).
When time zone is a concern, discuss with your team if it is essential to have a face-to-face conversation or if email is sufficient. If it is needed, take the time to ask what time is suited for everyone in the team and offer compensation if it is set outside their working hours.
Establish Documentation First Culture
When tasks are given out, emphasise to your team to document their progress and updates. Provide a space for them to update these tasks, like through Google Docs or Notion. If you would prefer more frequent updates, encourage them to update you daily or weekly on their goals or even roadblocks so you can assist them.
FYI, our project management software has a feature called TESSR Review that could help you track updates without being all up in your team’s business (in other words, micromanaging). This module essentially helps your team visually collaborate in a way that they can add annotations and contextual comments when giving feedback.
Define Work Hours
The difference in time zone and schedule could impact the work hours of your remote creative teams. Do you need them to work at the same time as your physical team, or are you open for them to work in their own time zone?
It's important to fill in these questions before setting these work hours. As remote teams in general have a blurred line between when they are working and when they are not.
Best Practices When Managing Remote Creative Teams
Utilise Remote Project Management Software
If you have not tried one for yourself, you’d be surprised how well organised your team will be and how they coordinate the information and tasks that are needed to progress on your projects. Managing remote workers is made simpler if you find the right tool for your team. However, as a creative team, your project management software must be able to handle the requirements of a creative project.
Our TESSR is a project management software made for creatives like you. We have a customisable ‘playlist’ that can help organise and keep track of multiple creative projects. Not only that, but collaboration is also made easy with our module, as we have a feature called TESSR Review that assists in giving contextual comments and feedback to streamline communication.
Invest In Mental Health and Well-Being
As creatives, our skills and passion can burn us out fast if we are not aware of the workload we are doing. Creative managers always need to make notes of their tasks, especially with remote creatives.
Working in isolation could make them less willing to be open about their struggle to keep up with work or even be honest if they are demotivated from their work. So, creative managers should prepare one-on-one check-ins with their team and provide the support and resources before they suffer a creative burnout.
Appreciate Your Team’s Achievement
Motivating your team physically is easy, but remotely? You would have to do it in ways that can bring attention to their achievement through your virtual meetings or even group chats. A quick mention of appreciation for their hard work could work, but it would be even better if they had a goal to be noticed by higher-ups. Praise them when given the opportunity to speak about your remote creative teams during big meetings.
Conclusion
Managing creative teams is already as challenging as it is, but remotely? It’s a different set of skills that’s needed when it comes to that. Be ready when encountering challenges and utilise the tools to bridge the gap between your physical team and remote teams.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What if my remote team are unreachable when I contact them in all forms of communication?
This may be a technical issue on their end or an unfortunate circumstance as a manager for a remote worker. Reach out to departments that would be able to contact them physically or look into whether their location has network issues. Good luck!
Is setting up an employee of the month working with remote creative teams?
Highlighting just one employee each month may negatively impact team morale and bring a competitive culture. It’s wiser to celebrate your team’s achievement with a more personal touch, like bringing up their recent achievement during team meetings or highlighting it in a team group chat.
I’m a remote creative, but being part of corporate-style work is demotivating. Are there better ways to get hired?
Working with a corporate company is not the only way to gain monetary value. Experimenting with different ways to gain them is essential to know what works for you. However, if the rigid structure of a corporate company is what stifles you, be sure to ask about the management style of the company before joining it. Best of luck!
Author Bio
With a background in Arts English, Adilla has been a casual writer for various hobbies like parodies of animated shows and plots for board games. She loves to read anything and everything from fantasy stories to articles on tips and tricks. Now an advocate for mental health and effective project management for the creative industry. Currently, Adilla resides in Malaysia and is a creative writer at TESSR. To know more about her, check out her LinkedIn.
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