How DNA Recruitment saved $400K and seamlessly manages 600+ staff with Deputy

In 2016, Adelina Carnevale set out to shake up Melbourne’s recruitment scene. Frustrated by the industry’s status quo, she imagined an agency that combined the personal touch of a family business with the benefits of the latest technology. She turned her vision into reality by building DNA Recruitment.

DNA quickly made their mark, starting with a team of two and building a strong portfolio of top talent and clients across manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, and events. Their secret? A relentless focus on matching the right people with the right roles.

Alvin George joined the team a year later. Rising through the ranks from admin to senior project manager, his career has grown in step with DNA’s explosive growth. A champion of efficiency-driving tech, Alvin helped transform DNA’s operations and solidify their reputation as an industry innovator.

As DNA grew, so did the complexity of managing a larger on-demand workforce. Each sector DNA serves comes with its own set of compliance rules, certifications, and skill requirements, so matching the right people to the right shifts could become chaotic, and fast.

One of the biggest problems was scheduling. Clients often need shift workers on short notice, across dozens of sites. DNA was juggling everything with spreadsheets and bulk emails, a system that couldn’t keep up with demand.

“We were managing hundreds of people using Excel,” Alvin says. “That meant sending out 600–800 emails every day just to confirm shifts.”

Missed shifts, constant roster gaps, and double bookings became the norm.

“I started here as a casual staff member and used to receive shift info via Excel spreadsheets. I got double-booked all the time,” he says.

In addition to impacting workers, it threatened the business. Compliance with labour laws added another layer of stress, and compliance risks were frequent.

Manually tracking time and attendance was another nightmare, with staff scattered across dozens of client sites. Mistakes became common, leading to payroll issues, unhappy clients, and hours of admin labour. With no clear view of their day-to-day operations, tracking costs and performance became an exercise in guesswork.

Finally, the situation reached a breaking point.

“My manager gave me a spreadsheet with 300 lines and asked me to go through each one. I looked around the office and thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I’ll be here all week.’”

Alvin knew there had to be a better, more effective way of managing DNA's workforce — and that's when he discovered Deputy.

His director needed convincing, so Alvin got creative. “I recreated the work she was doing on a spreadsheet in Deputy and left it with her to take a look. Next morning she’s yelling ‘oh my God, this is amazing!’ That’s how Deputy became part of DNA.”

Time tracking made easy and accurate

DNA's team has made manual spreadsheets and admin errors a thing of the past by using Deputy to automate time tracking, reporting, and compliance.

Features like geofencing meant staff could only clock on when physically on site, eliminating buddy-punching or early log-ins. For staff on fixed schedules, DNA used Deputy to auto-fill their clock-in and out times, which frees up their team to focus on delivering a great client experience.

The result was near-perfect accuracy.

“Our error rate dropped to virtually nothing,” Alvin says. “Billing, invoicing, and payroll all became more accurate. We had one client who always had invoicing issues. Since using Deputy, we’ve not had a single issue.”

Clients can generate shift and timesheet reports themselves using the Deputy app — no chasing employees or any back-and-forth communication. The increased transparency allows DNA to remove pressure from their team, saving around 30% of their time.

Scheduling across locations with no stress

When scheduling could take hours (and add weight to the team's workload), being able to schedule shifts seamlessly was a must for DNA. Deputy delivers the capabilities DNA needed to reallocate their team's energy to focus on customers and sales.

“The scheduling screen is so smooth and I can pick and drop people onto shifts. It’s very simple to use,” Alvin says.

When Alvin posts an open shift, staff receive instant notifications via email and push alerts. Most of the time, someone picks up that shift within minutes. “I always joke that the shifts are taken before my screen’s even finished loading,” he says.

Now, Alvin and his team can easily match staff to shifts instantly — without added admin chaos.

Deputy considers factors like staff location, availability, and any hour limitations and labour compliance, automatically prioritising eligible staff.

Alvin and his team take advantage of features like these to make sure DNA can match labour supply to shifting demand without overstaffing or risking non-compliance. Not to mention, Alvin can worry less about pesky manual checks.

“We’ve cut down the work of three people to just one person,” he says. “That alone saved us around $80,000 a year.”

Schedules automatically sync across different cities and time zones. Meanwhile, communication across the business is so much easier:

Managers can build schedules, approve timesheets, and monitor attendance from their phones.

Staff can check schedules, swap shifts, and stay in touch with each other.

Alvin's team has noticed a stronger sense of unity and teamwork across all job sites.

$400k cost savings and quicker turnarounds

Since discovering Deputy, Alvin and his team have saved DNA hundreds of thousands of dollars. There’s no need for manual rostering, timesheet chasing, or data entry — just more time to focus on what matters.

“If we were still doing this manually, we’d probably be looking at an extra $400,000 in administrative expenses alone. That’s not even counting compliance risks, duplicate payments, and staff retention issues."

DNA can also react faster during peak periods by using Deputy — Alvin can publish a shift at 8pm, and it’s filled while he’s asleep.

Keeping DNA compliant

With more than 600 workers, keeping track of everyone’s eligibility and legal limits used to be impossible. Now, Alvin and his team use Deputy to do the heavy lifting:

Custom “stress profiles” automatically flag when a worker is close to hitting their limits around visa conditions or fatigue rules.

Ineligible workers are filtered out, reducing the risk of breaching labour laws or overworking staff.

“The system warns us, 'Hey, this person has worked 24 hours and is stressed’. So we don’t schedule them,” Alvin explains. “Deputy ensures compliance and fair scheduling.”

Future-proofing DNA's business

DNA now runs an efficient, high-performing business, with the team seamlessly coordinating 600+ workers and 40,000+ hours of shifts each week with barely a gap to fill.

What's their secret? Using smart, data-backed decisions that keep their staffing aligned with demand. As the business grows, their ability to scale without costly admin drag and scheduling chaos is setting them up for even bigger wins down the road — and they're leveraging Deputy to help get them there.

“Deputy has been instrumental in getting us where we are today,” Alvin says. “It’s the gold-level standard for recruitment solutions in our industry, and I would 100% recommend it to any small, medium, or large business. The results are above and beyond for us. It's changed our lives.”

And he means it.

“When management talked about reviewing our tech stack, I told them: ‘If you replace Deputy, my resignation’s going with it!’"

Ready to cut admin costs, make scheduling seamless, and grow your business like DNA Recruitment? See how Deputy can help you simplify employee scheduling, timesheets, and HR in one place.

Book a demo today.