Client case study:
Circadia

I am the Director of Education. Education for the masses. Whether we are working on something that is dedicated to educating the consumer or the professional, I also lead education and training for all of our distributors and partners.

I create training opportunities for our professionals within their own businesses, as well as through the online Circadia University, which is our on-demand learning platform. I interact with every part of our team — whether it’s marketing, or you name it — I help support everyone’s education needs.

We have a team of educators that are around the world. For our TalentDesk purposes, I manage the people that we use within Circadia U.S. Corporate.

We have about 25 educators, as well as some graphic designers — we have one in Brazil. And then I even have an IT person and a designer in the Philippines as well, who I work with to help manage our Circadia University online needs. We also have some additional people that are support persons — marketing, PR.

Being able to create an easy system for managing the projects themselves, providing that kind of central location for everybody to access the information about what they need to perform the function. Any links would all go in one place. Being able to have everything centrally located, being able to have some of those onboarding documents to keep on hand and easily organized.

But more than anything — the payment portal portion. Being able to create those work-for-fee worksheets, as well as the expense needs of our team.

There were just multiple different portals that we were using to do everything. Our accounting department was handling the contractor payments and expenses, and it was just a clunkier system. It was just not streamlined. It wasn’t predictable when those invoices were coming in or when things were being billed out. So this has enabled us to be able to really just stay more on target and on time.

I go into TalentDesk Monday through Friday, once a day, and I’m approving things. I don’t wait for the new invoice to come in — for me, I would rather keep everything updated personally than wait and have a heavy burden. So for me, it’s being able to go in once a day — it’s less time-consuming in a sitting. I can do it in more bite-sized pieces. And just having all of that at the click of a button — easily accessible: what’s been pending, what’s been approved.

Also, for our contractors, being able to see where they are in that payment process: has it been approved yet? Has it been invoiced? Has it been paid? That visibility for both the Circadia side and the contractor side has been very beneficial.

Just that visibility for the contractor to not have to contact me and ask, “Hey Candice, has this been in place? Has it been approved?” Being able to have visibility on their side and my side. Everybody knows what the project is. They know what they need to have for the project. They know where we’re at in the billing process or the budget process.

Being able to have multiple departments also have access to it — so that each department that’s attached to a project has kind of the visibility of what’s happening and where we are. So I think streamlining communication — it’s definitely cut down on a lot of back-and-forth communication that’s just time-consuming, because people can just log in and go see where we are with a project or a process.

Goodness. That’s like asking who your favorite child is. A few favorite features — I’m definitely intrigued by looking into the availability calendar. I think it may become one of my favorite features.

It’s been a big pain point for us - communication. Everybody’s busy. Our contractors are often in training, traveling, or they’re training for a whole day. So waiting for a response from one another just bogs down and slows down a process. Being able to have people not have to go back and forth on every little detail of everything is a huge time saver for me.

I think that enhanced communication of both the process of the project, but also the payment system — the interface on that is great. Now that people can upload multiple expenses to one report — that has been a great enhancement that you guys have added.

I would say it probably cuts down at least 50% of our back-and-forth lag time in communication - and even interdepartment. Two people will book these projects and trainings for me. And then, of course, I go in and I approve expenses on the training.

But not having to even communicate interdepartmentally within Circadia — not just with the contractors, but also just cross-departmental internal communication — is improved. We don’t have to text and call about everything anymore, because we can just go in and see what’s happening.

Oh my gosh. So many things. I don’t ever have enough hours in the day. So anywhere where I can save even five minutes is huge. Maybe that means I ate lunch.

I would just say overall productivity — being able to focus on more important tasks than some of the mundane things that TalentDesk is able to streamline for me.

I think that there’s just a little bit of an initial learning curve in how to set up some of their things, or some people not understanding setting up their taxation questions. But for the most part, they love it. Like I said, it’s great because they can go see their project. They know where they need to be. They know what they need to do. Everything is really there for them. And just ease of submitting their expenses and worksheets for payment — I’ve had just positive feedback on that.

Everyone I’ve dealt with has been wonderful. And Carly is fantastic — so no complaints. She’s been wonderful.

Yeah. I appreciate you listening to the features that we may feel even further benefit us, and trying to respond to those. I know it takes more than one person to have a request, but I feel like you are listening and hearing what it is that we want and need to further improve. Thank you for that. I think it’s great.