Deputy helps New Age Security to manage time and attendance of security guards across a range of sectors

Established in 2009, and based in Reservoir, Victoria, New Age Security provides a broad spectrum of security services to the businesses and government, industries. New Age Security has grown rapidly and broadened its service offering to meet the growing demands of customers as they shift to outsourcing security guard services. The company now provides: static guards; loss prevention officers; construction site security; crowd control for major events; alarm responses; patrol services; and customer service based security roles. The business also operates an accredited training academy providing specialised training in security which leads to industry recognised qualifications and licenses. To run its operations, New Age Security has a management team of five and employs a team of 65 experienced security professionals in addition to approximately 30 contractors that it calls upon when required.

A big part of being able to expertly manage this growing business is the ability to provide an immediate and professional response. This means being able to roster the right security professional, with the right credentials at the right time. But this is no small task. While a large volume of security work repeats from week to week, there’s no such thing as a typical day. The number of shifts can vary significantly from day to day and week to week. Special events and even the time of year all add to the constant chang

As New Age Security’s operations grew, rostering became an increasingly difficult task to manage. Gagan Arora, Director of New Age Security comments, “Many of our customers are companies that used to employ their own in-house security guards. But now they turn to us to provide contract guard services. A_s our business expanded, our rostering process started to become really inefficient. Putting together the rosters using_ Excel spreadsheets was extremely arduous and beginning to take up a significant amount of time each week. Then having to make follow up telephone calls and send emails to make sure all the shifts were filled and that the guards were aware of their precise responsibilities and their shifts only added to the time drain.”

Seeking a better way, Arora researched alternative solutions and found Deputy met his business requirements. Almost immediately, Arora could see the difference.

“Before Deputy, I never used to look forward to the rostering day of the week as it used to take me hours to complete and even more hours to recheck it,” explains Arora. “Now that we are using Deputy, the rostering part of the business has become so efficient and convenient, it’s actually fun. “Deputy has saved me hours of my time each week having to work out who I need to schedule where and when, and it eliminates mistakes or double-ups on the fly. You see, Deputy does not allow you to roster a person if they already have a shift at that time. This means there’s no chance of double-booking a guard. At a glance, I can see who’s available for work, easily manage last minute changes and no longer have to spend countless hours approving timesheet records. This allows us to process wages promptly and accurately every time. For work that repeats week after week, Deputy makes it easy to preserve and re-use our optimal roster and update it as required.”

“By using Deputy, once we publish the roster, it automatically sends a text message and emails to all the staff members it concerns. This makes sure that everyone on the roster knows where they should be and when they should be there. Plus, our staff members can acknowledge the shifts online from their mobile devices which gives us peace of mind that the shifts are filled and saves numerous phone calls in order to confirm the roster.”

Arora also thinks that his staff appreciates using Deputy. “As our security staff works off-site, there’s not always someone available to sign off their timesheets. Being able to corroborate the start and end of their shifts by logging into Deputy on their mobile phones is very effective. Plus, our employees know that any time logged via Deputy automatically feeds their timesheets which means a prompt and accurate payroll. It’s very efficient and eliminates a lot of double handling and mix-ups. Our people can also use the platform to set and respond to tasks and pass on important information back to the head office. We can also send out all staff alerts or site-specific announcements to keep everyone informed. From a management perspective, Deputy gives us great reporting and an easy way for us to manage and optimise wage costs so that we can operate at maximum efficiency.”