Bopper Media is a high-growth, integrated marketing agency that lives at the intersection of brand strategy, identity, and content services. Primarily serving clients at the forefront of Web3, their output depends on a fast-moving, high-quality creative workforce. Kai Peters, Senior Creative Services Manager at Bopper, leads the charge in bringing structure and organization to their resourcing efforts, ensuring the team has the right talent at the right time.
Manual Workflows and the Compliance Ceiling
Before partnering with Worksome, Bopper Media relied on ad-hoc contact lists and manual workflows to manage their freelance creatives. This created significant friction and delays; briefs were often inconsistent, and the process of ensuring regulatory compliance was both time-consuming and stressful. Bopper was heavily reliant on recruitment firms to handle payroll and IR35 classification, which came with high fees and limited visibility into the payment journey. Hiring a single freelancer would take three to four days, often involving a tedious "back and forth" with agencies to find and vet the right talent.
Key pain points included:
- Manual Friction: No structured timesheet or payment process, leading to administrative bottlenecks.
- Compliance Stress: Navigating IR35 and regulatory requirements manually was time-consuming and prone to uncertainty.
- Agency Reliance: High dependence on recruitment agencies for payrolling, which incurred hefty fees.
- Slow Speed to Hire: It typically took 3 to 4 days to secure talent, often without clear briefs or vetted status.
Centralizing Control with a Single Source of Truth
Worksome provided Bopper with a centralized source of truth, replacing loose spreadsheets with a structured digital talent pool. This transition, supported by weekly guidance from Worksome CSM Emma Parker, helped Kai automate the heavy lifting of onboarding and compliance. Now, Kai can effectively "flick through" a trusted network of Artworkers, UI/UX designers, and videographers, matching them to jobs instantly with full awareness of their skillsets.
"The beauty of Worksome is that a contract can be created within minutes. If you required a freelancer the same day, you could have them booked same the day." — Kai Peters
By using Worksome, Bopper has turned hiring cycles that once took days into a process that happens in minutes. With built-in IR35 classification, the stress of manual determination is gone, replaced by a simple, automated workflow where workers input their own details directly.
“Just a simple click of answers helps to determine that classification. So it takes the burden, the stress of having to figure that out or engaging a recruitment agency to do that work for us." — Kai Peters
Speed, Savings, and Smoother Payments
By implementing Worksome, Bopper has seen an impact on both speed and cost-efficiency. The can now confidently engage talent outside of IR35 and reducing their reliance on traditional recruitment routes, plus the agency has saved approximately £180,000 in payrolling and agency fees.
Operationally, the time to hire has been slashed to just two days, while the time to approve payment requests has seen similar improvements. Freelancers now experience a smoother, more transparent journey, typically receiving payments within ten days of a request.
“I really value that the entire process is contained within the platform. It makes it easy to communicate with talent when questions arise." - Kai Peters
- Massive Cost Savings: By confidently engaging talent outside IR35 and bypassing agency payroll fees, Bopper saved approximately £180,000.
- Accelerated Hiring: Time-to-hire was slashed to just 2 days.
- Payment Efficiency: Payments are approved in 2 days, with workers typically paid within 10 days.
- Operational Confidence: 100% of the workforce is now classified accurately, removing regulatory risk.
As Kai puts it, Worksome has removed the "burden and stress" of manual management, giving the team full confidence that every engagement is set up correctly.
Building a Global Talent Network
Bopper is looking to double down on their internal talent pool to drive even higher recruitment savings in 2026. As they take on more web-based projects, they plan to expand their global reach, using Worksome to onboard international UI/UX and design talent compliantly—without losing their signature speed.
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