Challenge
To find a flexible solution for onboarding and managing a growing freelance network.
Jack Morton was looking for an alternative solution to their internal freelance management system, which involved both Google Sheets and an existing platform which was lacking the functionality the company needed to grow.
They needed a software solution that would let them organize and communicate smoothly with their contractors, plus enable them to standardize their onboarding processes. Their existing platform lacked a portfolio view and advanced search capabilities — both of which were becoming increasingly important as their talent pool expanded.
As long-time partners with Atrium, Jack Morton asked the Atrium team if they had any recommendations for a software solution that could handle all their freelancer management requirements going forward — and this led to them discovering Worksuite.
"We were looking for something standalone, and that's something that Worksuite provided. We started talking to their team, and we decided — let's give this a shot. In our estimation of the spend that we do on freelance — we just did quick math and figured out that it would be a huge saving for us." — Allen Larson, VP of Talent Acquisition and Resource Director, Jack Morton Worldwide
Jack Morton was managing up to 300 freelancers with spreadsheets, which was becoming time consuming in terms of onboarding and assigning the right people to the right projects. While they were able to send out regular communications to their talent pool, there was no real-time updating of who was available to work, and who wasn't.
"I got bounced emails all the time. And I had people telling me that they've been in a full-time job for three years now. It was really a mess."
Solution
A branded, centralized platform to easily manage a growing freelance talent pool.
Worksuite and Jack Morton worked together to bring their 600+ existing freelancers into the new platform.
"We built the initial onboarding process and work streams with Worksuite — but in the process they kind of taught us how to do our own. So we can add this question and that question to the onboarding flow, and it literally walks you through things. It's idiot proof!"
The response from their freelance network to using the Worksuite system, and being able to manage their own onboarding and personal profiles, has been overwhelmingly positive. Each freelancer can build their profile the way they want to in the Worksuite platform — from entering desired rates, contact information, and tax details, to adding a detailed portfolio of their previous work.
Once freelancers are onboarded, the system enables the Jack Morton team to easily search through segmented pools of both vetted freelancers and new applicants as they are assigning upcoming projects. When there is downtime, the resource managers are able to be proactive about searching the applicant pool and inviting contractors to go through their vetting process.
"We started to do the iterations of Worksuite to make it more customized to us. The big bonus was the branding. Everything coming from us now has our voice and our branding on it. It feels very custom and very specific to our freelancers. Which led us to imagining — what else is possible?" — Allen Larson, VP of Talent Acquisition and Resource Director, Jack Morton Worldwide
Result
Fast, efficient onboarding and management of freelancers — plus huge time and cost savings for the company.
Jack Morton ceased all other onboarding processes once Worksuite was implemented. With the automatic platform prompts, onboarding time has been dramatically shortened, and communication with freelancers has improved exponentially.
"We saw results on day one. Our onboarding time is faster, it's more efficient. It forced us to rethink how we want to workflow people to make it a better experience for them, and to make it faster and easier for us. That cut off probably eight hours of sourcing and calling and reaching out to people — huge time savings and money savings." — Allen Larson, VP of Talent Acquisition and Resource Director, Jack Morton Worldwide
Collaboration and communication has also improved between Jack Morton's freelance relationship management teams. They are able to see which freelancers have been assigned to previous projects, and view the notes about each individual from the managers in charge of those particular jobs. This makes it simple to share talent across the company, and choose the absolute best fit for every upcoming opportunity.
Compliance issues had previously been a concern for Jack Morton's freelance managers and accounts payable teams. With Worksuite's rapid onboarding and smooth workflows, the company no longer has to worry about any potential compliance issues.
"It's a centralized platform for freelancers that really professionalizes our system in such a beautiful way."
Worksuite also allows Jack Morton to send personalized group messages out to potential candidates in their freelance network, saving the company hours of time every week trying to manually source and onboard the ideal people for each new contract.
"If we just do math in a single office, we can have as many as eight to 12 freelancers being onboarded in a week. Each one of those would normally require eight hours of sourcing and messaging — so that's like 80 hours that nobody could do in a week. There is a cost saving because if we can offer a freelancer six months of solid work, we might get a better rate." — Allen Larson, VP of Talent Acquisition and Resource Director, Jack Morton Worldwide
"The customer experience from the team at Worksuite has been remarkable. They are so responsive. They make us feel like we're the most important client they have. It's a great product, with great service." — Allen Larson, VP of Talent Acquisition and Resource Director, Jack Morton Worldwide
Jack Morton is a global brand experience agency that works with over 600 freelancers. They are long-time partners with Atrium, who provides world-class employer of record (EOR) services. By collaborating with both Worksuite and Atrium, Jack Morton now has a holistic solution for engaging freelancers in both direct contracts and EOR.
