Nurturing a Culture of Innovation in Remote Teams
In the past year, businesses were forced to adapt to remote working, as bustling offices became empty hallways. It's a challenge that few organizations were prepared for, especially those in the creative industry. The essence of creativity stems from collaboration and momentary reflections with fellow creatives, and it's more difficult to recreate this in a remote environment.
To breed creativity, you must nurture a creative culture, even in a remote setting. Encouraging collaboration and co-creation can lead to creative solutions to everyday problems. In a remote setting, it's vital to recreate the experience as much as possible. To do this, remote teams should maintain a level of consistency, which means that regular calls, informal chats, and laid-back work sessions are encouraged and normalized.
Creating a culture of trust, diversity, and inclusion is also a crucial aspect of remote working. Remote work is successful only when teams have a sense of belonging and are open about their work style. Without face-to-face interaction, it's challenging to build a shared culture, but it's essential to the wellbeing of most creatives. By using technology like video conferencing, chat, and project management tools, companies can build virtual water coolers, which provide the opportunity for remote teams to connect informally.
In a remote team, you may find staying motivated and enthusiastic about the work challenging after working awhile, but this can be remedied by rekindling the passion in your work. This includes developing a work style that works best for you, limiting outside distractions, and building up your remote workspace that.
Another important aspect of remote work is the degree of collaboration with clients. In a remote work setting, creative teams must take a client-centric approach and foster collaboration that integrates with video communication tools, project management software, and other collaboration tools. These tools not only help create a sense of shared culture but also help team members understand the client's pain points, expectations, and vision for a project.
Remote collaboration as a creative setting is more than piling up a list of factors that can increase your productivity. It's a mindset that's all about inclusivity, sustainability, and creativity, all while safeguarding everyone's mental and emotional wellbeing. While there is no one size fits all formula for remote work, being intentional in promoting a culture of innovation, focusing on maintaining consistency, and encouraging collaboration and co-creation can potentially make a virtual team feel much warmer and cohesive. By creating innovative solutions to overcome digital divides and applying new perspectives from different cultural backgrounds, remote creatives can help move businesses forward even in uncertain times.
Whether in a professional or creative setting, remote collaboration is a new obstacle that people are still adjusting to. Finding that creative fire that burns hot during in-person brainstorms or supportive working sessions are so difficult to recreate, that it’s good to actively normalize these behaviors in order to foster your relationships with partners and yield better creative.
