Building A Remote PR Team: Challenges And Solutions
New York native and nomad by choice—Emily is a marketing & PR pro, now the founder of the award-winning R Public Relations, New York.
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In a post-Covid-19 world, remote work has become more normalized in many industries—including public relations. It's so normalized, in fact, that U.S. workers' remote workdays have stabilized and shifted to regular business hours since 2020, according to Gallup's 2023 annual Work and Education poll. With such stabilization, some businesses are switching to fully remote teams.
For those in PR, building and managing a high-performing remote team opens up a world of possibilities in what you can offer to both your team and clients. But just as building a traditional, in-person team brings challenges, so too does building an entirely remote team—from how quickly the industry moves to ensuring all team members communicate properly.
While the challenges that come with building a remote PR team can seem daunting, there are solutions you can implement as you build and create your team. Taking the time to understand how to tackle the challenges that come with fully remote work can help set your PR business up for long-term success.
The PR space is very fast and is known for trends, news cycles and ever-changing strategies. While plenty of tried-and-true practices have stuck around, the nature of PR is still quickfire and requires immediate responsive action. If your remote team is not well-connected and excellent at both internal and external communication, you can miss media opportunities.
Remote PR teams are responsible for a great deal of communication. To ensure your team communicates effectively, it's important to set up tools that make it easier for them. This includes everything from email and video conferencing software to online project management platforms. Here are a few of my team's favorites:
• Google Workspace
• Microsoft Outlook
• Slack
• Zoom
• Trello
• Asana
• Monday.com
• Basecamp
Communication options are wide and varied, giving you freedom in how to best build a communication toolbox suited to your team's needs. Remember, video conferencing platforms allow remote PR teams to meet on camera, record meetings and easily share screens as needed while project management tools are key to keeping your team on track and ensuring the moving parts of all your projects are completed.
PR is all about setting the tone—something notoriously hard to do online. And for a fully remote PR team, being able to set the tone is crucial for every aspect of their work. When it's time to nail the messaging tone, unclear organization guidelines and team members lacking the ability to write effectively can lead to issues.
One major factor when hiring for a remote PR team is ensuring your team members are able to write conversational English in addition to professional business writing. This can ensure they accurately convey the tone of messaging on behalf of clients, no matter the project they're working on. Tone is important to maintain across all client work, from strategic communications and public affairs to crisis management, as it helps build trust and credibility. As you build your remote PR team, ask to see writing portfolios during the hiring process and consider offering additional training opportunities once individuals are brought on.
A fully remote team doesn't have the luxury of meeting in person for training. And for the PR industry, which has a learning curve, this can be a challenge! You can't really learn the nuts and bolts of PR in a classroom. There's a good amount of on-the-job learning that has to happen, and this is particularly tricky in remote settings. But it's not impossible.
One solution to address your team's PR learning curve is to develop a robust meeting structure, including training opportunities. This helps ensure your remote team is meeting regularly and keeps everyone in the loop on projects, clients and internal news. Training opportunities for employees of all experience levels can be built into your meeting structure at regular intervals to help team members improve their skills and knowledge, from media training to professional development workshops.
You can also consider a formal mentorship program that pairs individuals with experienced peers within your organization (something that benefits both mentors and mentees), making for unique knowledge-sharing opportunities and career advancement.
Building a remote PR team means you might face a range of challenges, even beyond what I've covered above. Here are a few additional solutions to keep in mind as you build up your team.
• Establish clear communication guidelines to help keep your team on the same page—from which communication platforms are to be used to how asynchronous communication works for your team.
• Create a remote team culture where possible. Recognize professional accomplishments, create social time once a month (such as a virtual team lunch) and incorporate a 'social' channel into your chosen communication platform.
• Define remote work guidelines so that all team members know what's expected of them from day one.
A remote PR team comes with its challenges as you build, but there are solutions you can incorporate to lay a strong foundation for your team. Understanding how fast the PR industry moves, establishing clear communication channels and ensuring your team has training opportunities to continue growing professionally over time are just a few solutions to consider as you build up your high-performing team. Remember, you have total freedom to incorporate solutions and strategies that suit how you want your remote PR team to function and how you ultimately want to serve your clients. Get creative and enjoy the process!
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Craig Lord, The Canadian Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
