Award shows are a pop-culture tradition around the globe. We all love spending some Sunday evenings with friends and family on a crowded couch debating which celebrities should take home an award or who is the best dressed of the bunch. But believe it or not, it can cost over $30 million dollars to put on an awards show for your viewing pleasure.
The broadcast industry employs around 279,300 people, of which hundreds are responsible for making these glamorous displays of celebrities and their accomplishments happen. All the glamorous aspects of annual awards shows cannot go on without a dynamic and diverse workforce ranging from set designers to makeup artists. When a media mogul needed assistance in making that happen, they turned to DZConneX to bring their annual awards show to life.
The Dilemma
One of our premier clients in the media industry hosts two massive, internationally broadcasted awards shows every year. The large size and volume of this show requires a large, complex workforce to pull off the production. On average, the client needed to onboard up to 400 people per show to complete the hundreds of jobs required to make the show a success.
Aside from the high ratings and awards received, the hard working employees assisting in the production need to be efficiently onboarded and paid – within a swift timeline. The amount of work that goes into producing a global awards show requires seamless organization and tact. As the flow of talent is constant but varying in job duties, our expert teams were tasked with ensuring everyone was compliant, onboarded and paid properly.
The Strategy
For a project that requires the onboarding of hundreds of workers in a non-office environment with dozens of moving parts for a unique event, there is very little room for error. Given the long list of job positions that need to be filled, there is an equally long list of workers that need to be paid accurately and quickly. As the payrolling manager for these awards shows, we do not handle the procurement of the talent. Rather, we are responsible for verifying the employment eligibility of each new hire and making sure that when an individual shows up for their first day, they understand the policies and procedures.
To best streamline our on-site team of 2-3 people against the 400 show workers, we use DocuSign to minimize physical paperwork, lines and errors. We also utilize an innovative time-recording and expense management platform to accurately capture information in real-time. All of the onboarding and payments are completed in a rapid timeline of just 5 days. To accomplish this, we work closely with the client’s management team to identify in advance all the talent that will be hired and needs to get paid. Our experts ensured that the show went smoothly and everyone was compensated properly for their hard work that made the show happen.
The Impact
Celebrities went home feeling successful with trophies in their hands, and so did our client. The award shows went on without any issues thanks to the diligence of our dedicated teams. The entire workforce was paid for their hard work accurately and on time. We not only updated paper documentation to digital processes, but we seamlessly onboarded 400 people per show.
Not only did we onboard a high number of people, we assisted anyone with fixing incorrect paperwork, and in doing so they had a 100 percent compliance rate. Because of the ease of the process, we have worked with this client since 2001 and will continue to do so. Our experts were able to handle the onboarding and payrolling so the client could focus on preparing everything else for their awards show productions.
For a more in-depth look at what went into this process, read the full case study.
