Challenge
Levitate needed a single pool of talent from which to easily source, onboard, and manage their team of remote freelancers.
Managing Levitate's full-time and freelancer workforce is difficult as the variety of services they offer and production locations are very diverse. The company operates in remote areas across the country with crews approaching 20-30 members. Talent can range from 3D renderers, A/V techs, to camera operators and script writers.
Their old system of onboarding freelancers involved individually coordinating with them over email, with a lot of back and forth getting people to sign things. Once the freelancers had relayed their contact info, portfolio and availability, the team was then tasked with manually inputting this into Salesforce which acted as their contractor CRM.
The procedure for paying freelancers also posed challenges. Once a freelancer had completed work and submitted their invoice, more manual work had to be done to ensure the payment would be released. Invoices would then be tracked on a spreadsheet and, finally, after having individual approval from the operations team, the finance department would be able to release the payment.
Since they hired through mainstream job outlets as well as specialized production sites, they sought to push applicants to a link where they could create their own profile with the autonomy to self-populate fields of information. They also needed to be able to easily sign agreements and self-book their interview time.
"We needed a super solid tool to help us organize all that data and capture information we need in a very short, quick feedback loop." — Toby Leddy, Director of Production, Levitate
Solution
Levitate needed a platform that would allow their one-time and reoccurring freelancers to self-onboard.
With Worksuite, Levitate now has an onboard procedure that has eliminated much of the back and forth the operations team handled with the previous process. Candidates can now upload their own information and book an interview through a popular email platform integration.
"I really like when I'm interviewing applicants, I can just pull up their profile and can easily reference their details. I don't have to keep track of NDAs and payment information or go in and out of Salesforce. Worksuite has cut out a large amount of paperwork from my day." — Summer Carsten, Production Coordinator, Levitate
Their private talent pool in Worksuite has also come in handy. They currently use filters to determine where freelancers might be located for a remote project or to find a one-time voiceover artist that speaks a certain language. The ratings and reviews option of the talent pool also helps narrow past talent based on previous work feedback.
Result
Levitate now has a streamlined onboard procedure that has eliminated much of the back and forth the operations team previously handled.
The team has full visibility of the project lifecycle from portfolio submissions to payment schedules, which frees them up to tackle bigger tasks.
"The number one benefit is having everyone's info easily accessible so I don't have to keep track of everything. I enjoy having it all there." — Summer Carsten, Production Coordinator, Levitate
Since 2009, Levitate Media has produced over 7,000 videos for over 1,500 clients. The Boca Raton-based company creates video on behalf of many industries across a range of services including voiceover production, product video creation, live remote video as well as animation and post-production. Notable clients include Daimler, Hilton and Novartis. As of 2014, Inc. Magazine has included Levitate on their 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list every year.
