Challenge
Needing a transparent and functional option to realize international payments to external contractors.
With Springboard's team of mentors spanning across 30+ countries, the company found it difficult to streamline transactions. Every month they had to segment mentors based on the payment channel and then pay accordingly — using a combination of PayPal, Transferwise, Gusto, and other local bank wires depending on what country they were located in.
"It was really awful. We paid mentors through 6 different vendors. It was difficult to operationally manage and there was no way we could have scaled with the system in place." — Eva-Marie Costello, Team Lead, Mentor Operations, Springboard
In addition, the mentor operations team had limited visibility and access to the payment tools due to internal restrictions, making the process very inefficient. Springboard also lacked a system that would proactively let management know when someone was payable, which created concern that mentors would feel frustration if they were not promptly compensated.
Solution
Springboard was looking for a platform that could help them increase their operational efficiency around mentor payments, with two key attributes.
First, versatility: they sought an offering that could enable payments in each country they hired in. After considering other solutions like Stripe and Transferwise, they realized the limitations of those platforms wouldn't allow them to make payments to every country — preventing them from achieving their goal of having a single home for payments.
Second, transparency: they needed to see which of their mentors were completing onboarding. Due to the number of bank, tax and other information collected in order to initiate payment, they needed a system that was accessible by multiple team members.
"We really wanted to have one single home that could pay mentors regardless of where they were based and Worksuite was able to do that." — Eva-Marie Costello, Team Lead, Mentor Operations, Springboard
With Worksuite, they now get email triggers when someone completes onboarding and can check, at a glance, to ensure new mentors have submitted all onboard paperwork. If a mentor manager needs access to this information, they can now check for themselves which speeds up response time. Necessary safeguards are also in place to prevent payment triggers by anyone but the manager.
"We should be able to give a mentor an answer as soon as possible and Worksuite has allowed us to do that." — Eva-Marie Costello, Team Lead, Mentor Operations, Springboard
Result
Worksuite has provided Springboard's mentor management operation the much-needed transparency to oversee outgoing payments.
They can now view real-time information on any changes or additions where previously they had tracked this info in Excel. Team members can add a new expense without pinging a manager, which gives more autonomy for the team to manage payments.
"They've been very flexible with the communication with me and my team." — Eva-Marie Costello, Team Lead, Mentor Operations, Springboard
Since implementing Worksuite, the team has been able to focus on more meaningful work to improve the quality of the mentors that Springboard offers, moving away from time-consuming payment administration toward longer-term strategic projects.
"I'm now able to do more strategic work instead of dealing with payments issues. I'm now able to work on longer term projects like how we scale into the best mentor community in the world." — Eva-Marie Costello, Team Lead, Mentor Operations, Springboard
Springboard offers mentor-led, online education to students across a variety of tech-based courses. Founded in 2013, the company has helped over 10,000 students achieve vocation in areas like data science and UX design. Enrollees are matched with an experienced mentor who will help guide them through their program. Expertly-curated curriculums offer in-demand skills in emerging fields such as machine learning, data analytics, and digital marketing. Springboard can be found around the globe with students in 100+ countries.
