Deputy helps Premier Lighting during the busy holiday season

Entrepreneur, Justin Lubbers began helping his family, friends, and neighbors with their Christmas lighting needs at the young age of 14. Fast forward 13 years and Justin has now turned his passion into a thriving business, Premier Lighting, which serves commercial and residential clients in the northern Dallas-Fort Worth metro.

While Christmas designs, custom decorations, and lighting still remain the primary focus of the business, Premier Lighting also helps clients with auxiliary projects throughout the year, including pole banners, landscape lighting and lighting maintenance for commercial clients.

Today Premier Lighting has grown from a one-man show into a business that has approximately four to five year-round employees and up to 20-25 seasonal workers during peak holiday season.

As a business owner, Justin soon faced the challenge of managing employees in an industry that posed inconsistent work hours, a high density of seasonal workers and multiple job locations. This all made it hard to properly track time and complete accurate payroll. These admin processes also forced him to divert his time away from more critical aspects of the business like generating leads, attending tradeshows and spending time on job sites.

One year ago, Justin converted his employees from 1099 contractors to hourly employees. He didn’t have a real system for time tracking in place and ensuring proper management became a constant headache.

“Before Deputy I relied on my crew leaders to track not only their time, but the people in their crew as well, and then submit it with their paperwork at the end of each day,” said Justin. “With this method, however, a lot of information got missed. I then had to spend one full day a week deciphering handwritten time sheets to complete payroll.”

Justin’s accountant then turned his attention to workforce management solutions including Gusto and Deputy.

“We were looking to put some systems in place to help streamline daily processes like employee time tracking and payroll,” said Justin. “I tried Deputy, loved the easy-to-use interface and the fact that it integrated with our payroll provider, Gusto, and decided to implement it at Premier Lighting.”

“There are some weeks during our busy holiday season where we work 80-100 hours and I always have employees coming and going at different times from various job sites,” said Justin. “Because of Deputy, I can ensure that all of that time is properly tracked for each of my employees. They also enjoy it, because tracking in real-time eliminates any mistakes and the need for them to recall time on their own.”

With the holidays continuing to be Premier Lighting’s high season, Justin constantly faces the challenge of bringing employees on and off his payroll.

“Deputy has made the process of managing a high influx of seasonal workers pain-free,” said Justin. “I simply add new employees on Deputy and they add it to their phone. Then they’re off to the races. My employees have truly experienced little to no learning curve with the platform.”

Remember the one day a week that Justin had to spend locked up in his office to complete payroll? With Deputy, his days are now free.

“With the seamless time tracking, I can instantly gather employee time and integrate it straight into our payroll provider, Gusto,” said Justin. “In total, it takes me approximately only one to two hours to complete payroll. I finally have control over my Mondays again.”

“My success has been tied to relationship building more than anything,” said Justin. “By using Deputy to help handle every day administrative tasks, I have been given the freedom to foster these relationships and further grow my business.”