Deputy helps this Ace Hardware store reduce their time scheduling from 72 hours to 2 hours

Dirk Swanson’s grandparents first opened Strand Ace Hardware in Escalon, CA, in 1975. Since then, the family has continued to grow the business.

“We just opened a second location about six months ago in Modesto,” says Dirk Swanson, Vice President of Strand Ace Hardware.

He and his wife Amanda run the stores together and oversee both locations. Their Escalon store has been Pinnacle status for the past six years, an honor that only 500 of the 5,000 global Ace stores have achieved.

“I love that I get to work with my family every day and that we’re a small business, so it’s very one-on-one with our staff,” says Amanda Swanson, HR Scheduler.

Strand Ace Hardware works hard to ensure the right employees are working at the right time. But Dirk and Amanda were creating employee schedules by hand, printing them out, and posting them on a wall. That wasn’t sustainable with a new store opening on the horizon.

The scheduling process was taking days out of their week just to complete a two-week shift schedule.

“It would probably take me three solid days to do the schedule by hand the way that I was doing it,” says Amanda. “It was very difficult for the staff to request vacation time and sick time — and to ensure they were getting paid correctly for their time off.”

The Swansons started a trial of Deputy in early 2019. Their first thought was how easy it was to use. Then they found out something that really sold them.

“Ace is interesting because each store operates independently, but we have the benefit of sharing best practices with each other,” says Dirk. “Once we went to the annual Ace Spring Convention, we learned that Deputy was Ace’s preferred vendor. After that, we just knew Deputy was the right solution.”

This decision has paid off. Previously, it would take the team at Strand at least three days to create a schedule. That’s been reduced to hours.

“Now that we build our team’s schedule with Deputy, I can do a two-week schedule in two hours, compared to what I was doing, which was taking me two to three days,” says Amanda.

With this time back in their schedules, Dirk and Amanda can focus on the continual growth of their business.

“Deputy has definitely made it a lot easier to bring on new staff and grow our staff,” says Amanda.

“Now we have much more time in the business to work on other things instead of scheduling. We’re focusing on our goals for the future,” says Dirk. “Our plan for our company is to continue to grow. We’re a third-generation business, and we want to keep growing for the next generation.”