Tips for working with a graphic designer
1. Build relationships with your freelancers
A freelancer is a business partner. Even if it is just a one-person shop, their organization is agreeing to do work with yours. Cultivate these relationships just like you would with a vendor, supplier, or regular customer. The freelancer relationship will have more elements similar to how you treat a team member, so taking time to get to know the freelancer as a person will help you better integrate them into your workflow.
Find something you can share and work to build a positive connection. It can improve responsiveness and the quality of work freelancers provide.
2. Define project details
A freelancer doesn’t know your company’s inner workings or how you like to complete projects. You’ve got to clearly define all project details and requirements to ensure that the final result meets your expectations. Take the traditional project management approach and set requirements for each phase of your project.
Start with high-level requirements and then get into specifics, including:
Skills and knowledge
Tools and software
Availability
Task completion and delivery
Final approval
The best place to start is in your job description when you post a job. Here you can set technical requirements and skills and provide an outline of how you want the process to go. Define the deliverables and how you want them provided. Then, as you hire a freelancer and the project progresses, everyone has a document they can look at for reference.
3. Provide proper documentation
Many freelancers will need some documentation to ensure their work meets your standards. These documents not only set specific requirements, but they help freelancers ensure the project maintains your brand identity. For example, writers will need editorial guidelines that discuss grammar and the tone your company uses for its blogs or website.
For programmers, documentation can instruct them how to leave notes within their code or build certain elements so your development team can use, manage, and update that code easily in the future. Clear documentation minimizes confusion for freelancers and follow-up work for your team, increasing your project’s overall quality.
4. Set expectations and a budget
Your agreement with a freelancer should set clear project expectations and the budget for the work. Stick to it. Respect your freelancer enough to pay separately for any additional work and ask them to respect you enough to fulfill their end of the contract at the negotiated rate. Align your budget to the project details mentioned above to keep everyone in agreement on what’s covered.
If you’re paying a freelancer an hourly rate, create related work and budget expectations. Ask how much work they’ll be able to do within a project’s hourly allotment, and request that they proactively communicate any issues to meeting the work requirement.
5. Streamline communication
Choose your preferred communication channel and help the freelancer reach you there. For example, if you like communicating via email, share your address and a first message before the project kicks off, so you can troubleshoot any potential deliverability issues at the start.
Your project management tools like Asana may have messaging built-in to allow you to easily add someone to a specific task and tag each other in comments for direct notification. Or, if someone is working on a variety of daily and hourly tasks, communicating via direct messages such as on Slack may be easiest for you both.
Try to communicate with all freelancers through the same channels to avoid missing notifications and minimize the places you need to check for messages. When it comes to managing freelancers, the tool is less important than your ability to communicate easily and regularly. It’s always a promising idea for managers to establish required communications—such as a weekly check-in—at the start of a project.
Be clear about communications
Great teamwork hinges on clear communication, but for remote team collaboration, it’s just as important to discuss boundaries. Rather than digitally harassing each other with multiple messages through multiple applications, set clear expectations up front about when and how to communicate.
To take it one step further, Tim Sanders, vice president of customer insights at Upwork, suggested embracing asynchronous communication—people connecting when they aren’t necessarily available in real-time. "You need to create a pull not a push environment for distributing information,” he said. This can be particularly helpful when your team works in different time zones.
The key, he noted, is to create a strategy that has nuance. “Instead of copying everybody on everything and creating 15 Zooms a day, create repositories—such as folders on Google drive and Slack channels for hot topics. Create living FAQs so all the information is there and you can pull it at your leisure.”
Consistent communication
Communication can make or break any team. For distributed workforces, however, the manner, frequency, and style of your communication can be especially important.
Many challenges relate to the virtual tools that remote teams use. Emails can be missed or misread. Chat messaging can arrive at busy moments, only to be forgotten as the day goes on. Miscommunication arises in traditional office settings too, but remote teams’ reliance on these tools considerably increases the likelihood of it happening and the stakes when it does.
Additionally, when interactions occur on these digital platforms, important contextual cues can be lost or missing altogether. A written message creates ample opportunity for misinterpretation, especially about its sender’s tone and intentions. In the context of a global team, cultural differences and language barriers can also create confusion.
Independent talent may also not have the same line of sight into the business as full-time employees. So you may need to make extra effort to ensure they understand how their work affects the company or departmental goals and how they contribute to the bottom line.
These issues are hardly insurmountable. With a few thoughtful adjustments, you can implement solid remote communication practices across your distributed team.
Best practices for communicating with remote workers
Err on the side of empathy. Be careful with your tone in emails and messages to combat the risk of digital miscommunication. Stay friendly, relatable, and positive. Although everyone is busy, there is always time to make a message more human with a simple greeting or acknowledgment. That doesn’t mean you can’t be assertive, but try to stay courteous even in uncomfortable conversations.
Meet individually often. In contrast to larger groups, one-on-one video meetings offer exceptional opportunities for transparent communication and feedback. There’s no better way to ensure you’re on the same page or address a worker’s concerns. And don’t just schedule them when something goes wrong: Make them a regular part of your approach.
Choose a communication hub. Managing remote collaboration requires a centralized spot where general updates and interpersonal communication can happen asynchronously. While other communication tools are important complements (email and chat, for example), maintaining a primary platform keeps everyone updated and accountable. Plus, remote team members with different schedules can all keep an eye on progress or get up to speed quickly.
Set clear expectations for communication. Don’t leave your team guessing how they should communicate with you and other colleagues. When they join your team, clearly specify communication expectations, including how, when, and whom to update and which tools to use. With mutual expectations around sharing information, everyone can play their role with additional confidence.
6. Consider time tracking
Time tracking is essential for hourly jobs or those where you need to bill specific time to individual projects or clients. Coaching your freelance team on ways to improve their time tracking is also an important part of managing freelancers.
Here are some of the best tools you can use to track freelancer time include:
Toggl Track for free time tracking
Upwork Desktop App for hour validation and payment protection
Harvest for tracking teams across projects
Everhour for managing team availability and integrating with project management tools
Clockify for freelancers who want to track their time and share it with clients
Screenshot Monitor for tracking time and taking screenshots regularly
Now, there’s a big caveat for some of these services. Track freelancer time when it’s appropriate to the job and task. If you’re paying someone hourly to make sales calls and have a tool that creates call logs, asking for a screenshot tool may create an antagonistic relationship, because it demonstrates a lack of trust. However, screen capture is generally appropriate for hourly data entry tasks. If you hire an expert programmer or copywriter to complete a project, screen and time tracking may not be appropriate.
Freelancers should be treated like the professionals that they are and should respect you and your company in return.
7. Use project management tools
Project management tools simplify communication from asking for updates to delivering content and finalizing phases. Some of the most popular project management tools that will help you manage freelancers include:
Asana for ease of use. This project management platform lets you organize projects and tasks in multiple visual styles and provides clear places to add project requirements such as due dates, project type, tags, and assignees.
Trello for project boards from Kanban to Scrum. Its mix of boards, cards, and color-coding make visualizing project management and tasks easy.
Instagantt for simple task management. This Gantt chart project planning tool is easy to learn and use, even when tracking multiple projects.
Basecamp for large teams and notification controls. You’ll organize projects into camps and have dedicated HQ and HR channels, with multiple ways to send messages or tag people, allowing you to quickly reach one person or a whole team.
Jira for software and product roadmaps. Jira’s tools are focused on companies creating new products or releasing updates, so you and freelancers can more easily perform related tasks such as tracking bugs.
Monday for power users. Monday is perhaps the most robust tool on this list and offers hundreds of project management systems, styles, and tool integrations. It’s fully customizable, but many project management best practices are built into its templates organized by department, objective, or project type.
We also have a larger list of all the remote team tools you need, many of which fit perfectly with freelance talent.
Have collaboration tools in place
It’s no surprise that keeping virtual teams well connected for their day-to-day work depends heavily on having the appropriate tools in place. But what are the tools that help maintain productivity and good team communication? You may want:
A conferencing app that supports features such as video or audio calls, screen sharing, and chat—all features that make it really easy for your team to share and show ideas.
A project management tool that enables everyone to track progress, ask questions, and stay on the same page.
A virtual whiteboard app so your team can create and contribute to documents such as Kanban boards, process flow diagrams, or mockups.
A group chat app for conversations and spontaneous water cooler comments that are better organized than email and easier for multiple people to contribute to.
Cloud-based storage to make group file sharing easy.
8. Include freelancers in team building activities
Freelance and in-house remote workers perform better when they feel like a part of your team or company. Include them in any activities that you use to build the team up and create camaraderie. This starts with having effective communication lines so that people can speak with each other and know how to get in touch with you to ask questions.
Extend communication outside of the project itself and invite freelancers to some meetings where you catch up with people. Ask about their day and their hobbies. Have them work with your team on team building exercises or create virtual celebrations that build trust. If you use a communication tool like Slack, invite freelancers to the “#random” channel so they can share pet photos, talk about WandaVision, or get cooking tips.
In short, work to make freelancers feel like they belong. Consider having them go through the cultural part of your company’s remote onboarding process to help them become part of a stronger team and establish long-term relationships so you can rely on them for the next project.
9. Provide feedback
The majority of freelancers want to do a job so good that you’ll become a regular client. They want you to enjoy working with them. Creating that relationship can help you get the best work out of a freelancer too, making it easy to retain them again.
One of your best tools to maintaining a positive relationship and ensuring quality is to provide regular feedback. State what isn’t correct and then help the freelancer fix it. This applies to small and large fixes.
You may say something like, “I really liked your introduction. The following sections need to focus more on the issues our customers face, but I’m excited to see how you do that.”
If the relationship turns negative and you won’t work with the freelancer again, still provide feedback when the project completes. It’s an opportunity for you to ask what might have avoided the issue and help another professional improve the services they offer.
10. Limit scheduling meetings
As you determine how best to communicate with remote workers, take a hard look at meetings. Often, a formal meeting isn’t necessary:
Can the issue be discussed via video chat or email?
Could you share a design mockup in Miro then solicit feedback via Slack?
Can you clarify scope with a 10-min Zoom now instead of a 30-min meeting later this week?
With COVID-19, our personal and work lives are, in many ways, one and the same; even people who typically work remotely are working under unique circumstances. It’s an ideal time to rethink how you meet with your team, when you meet, and why. Consider limiting meetings to a certain window during the day, limiting their length, or keeping one day a week free: At Upwork, we’ve cleared Wednesdays of internal team meetings and standups.
11. Balancing trust and accountability
For some managers, remote work raises fears concerning accountability and productivity. If professionals are at home rather than in the office, will they succumb to distraction and slack off?
Our research suggests these worries are unfounded. In fact, in our Future Workforce Pulse Report, hiring managers have noticed an increase in productivity, attributed to a reduction in non-essential meetings, a flexible work schedule, and a lack of commute.
However, just as you would with an in-office team, you’ll need to balance effective oversight and smothering scrutiny..
Don’t fall into the trap of micromanagement: If you’re constantly checking in without a real reason to do so, you’ll impede productivity overall. Strong workers thrive with additional autonomy, whereas you risk stifling them with pesky intrusions.
On the other hand, you should provide the information and expectations necessary for your team to execute effectively. Here are some ways to achieve this balance:
Suggested solutions for balancing trust and accountability with remote workers
Define deadlines and deliverables clearly. Be extremely clear about what you expect team members to accomplish and the time frame they have to deliver. This stage is crucial, and a little extra effort upfront can prevent a ton of frustration later. That being said, delays and setbacks do happen and should be addressed transparently. Set up a standardized process for professionals to ask for extensions or request additional help if they fall behind.
Communicate overall project goals. Because remote team members are often accountable for just one component of a greater effort, the big picture can sometimes seem unclear. In meetings and other forms of communication, consider outlining your larger goals to the entire team—and do so consistently as you proceed. When professionals see their work within this collective effort, they’ll be motivated to perform well to support other team members.
Compensate correctly. Nothing drains morale, loyalty, and energy from a remote team like late, missing, or incomplete payments. We understand that payment details can be tricky, but if independent talent make up part of your remote team, and you agree to pay at a certain rate or based on a project, hold up your end of the bargain.
12. Coordinating tasks and projects
Managing different schedules, time zones, and workloads adds another layer of difficulty in coordinating tasks and projects. Ensuring all client needs are met can be challenging to achieve unless you’ve developed a system for coordinating projects.
By coordinating who is in charge of what aspect of the project, every team member understands their role in achieving the common goal. And project managers play a key role in this. Need an experienced project manager to lead your remote project? Upwork can help you find the best independent project managers for your project.
Without coordination, resources are wasted, and results are sometimes delayed. However, there are ways to help coordinate tasks between remote workers, including:
Solutions for coordinating tasks between remote workers
Ensure team members are involved from the start. Having to explain the goals and scope halfway through the project can inhibit productivity. For this reason, all team members must be included in the project from the start, as adding a person halfway through the project can slow everyone down.
Start the project with a meeting. Even if your distributed team is in different time zones, it’s important to set a meeting in which everyone is included to kick off the project. During this meeting, the team should define the project goal, scope, and timeline.
Stay in communication. Stay in communication with your team to discuss the project and offer support when needed. Although instant messaging is helpful to keep in touch about project progress, using video conferencing tools like Google Meet or Zoom can help cut through any confusion. In addition, hopping on quick calls to clarify specific tasks or answer questions can often cut back on time you would have spent typing a detailed explanation in a chat or email.
