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Deputy Announces the 2017 Hourly Worker Benchmarking Report, Identifies Top Challenges for U.S. Businesses
[June 01, 2017]

Deputy Announces the 2017 Hourly Worker Benchmarking Report, Identifies Top Challenges for U.S. Businesses


Deputy, the cloud-based mobile workforce management platform, today announced the results of a survey focused on the challenges faced by U.S. businesses that employ hourly workers. The survey was administered to more than four thousand businesses across various industries, including retail, restaurant, healthcare, services, education, manufacturing and construction. The survey uncovered top challenges and tactics to manage profit margins, employee retention, changing labor and healthcare laws, and customer service. One major insight uncovered is the gap between businesses' confidence amidst a shifting regulatory environment and the priority of complying with changing laws.

For more information and to download the full report, please visit: https://www.deputy.com/lp/2017-us-business-report.

U.S. businesses with hourly employees face tectonic shifts in the workplace with the rise of a younger workforce, increasing wages for hourly employees and continuously moving regulations, labor laws and compliance standards. These trends catalyzed Deputy to initiate the survey. Key findings of Deputy's 'Top Challenges for U.S. Businesses with Hourly Workers' report include:

  • The top three business challenges are revenue growth/profit margins (39 percent), employee retention/turnover (24 percent) and customer experience (23 percent).
  • Only 56 percent of businesses feel confident their business attracts the best employee talent anywhere.
  • 44 percent of businesses anticipate business growth of greater than 25 percent over the previous year by the end of 2017.
  • 43 percent of businesses don't feel that they are in control of their profit margins.
  • 56 percent of respondents "do not feel confident with understanding changing labor and healthcare laws."
  • The least important business challenge for respondents is "keeping up with labor laws/compliance" (5 percent).



"The hourly workforce continues to grow year after year, and U.S. businesses are struggling to keep employees happy, productive and loyal while maintaining the ability to focus on their bottom lines," said Jason Walker, President of the Americas, Deputy. "This survey confirms that managers are reporting difficulties in staying on top of compliance and regulatory challenges, while being able to grow revenue margins, and recruit and maintain top talent."

"Notably, the lack of confidence in understanding labor, wage and hour, and healthcare laws is evident," continued Walker. "Yet, these issues were identified as one of the least important business challenges-an inherent contradiction in how businesses are going about compliance. In 2016, there was a 76 percent success rate for employees filing wage and class action lawsuits, up from 70 percent in 2014. The restaurant, healthcare and agriculture sectors are the most targeted for wage and hour issues. With changing regulations around healthcare, wages and workplace safety, even large businesses are having to shift attention to compliance issues."


To help understand and prioritize insights and adhere to compliance, Deputy provides a comprehensive management solution that ensures businesses can address many of this report's top findings. By using Deputy's cloud-based technology, businesses can easily manage their employees and grow their bottom lines. Delivered in an easy-to-use mobile app, the employee scheduling feature empowers managers to create optimized, labor forecasted schedules in minutes. Time and attendance recording capabilities allow for easy clock in and out to adhere to hour and wage compliance while preventing and regulating overtime, and the communication features enable employees to stay abreast of HR policies, labor law updates, requested tasks, and employee performance with confirmation settings to improve compliance and engagement.

Deputy was built as an in-house technology which served a highly regulated and complex aviation maintenance business in Sydney, Australia. Founded by Ashik Ahmed and Steve Shelley during the rise of Australia's complex Federal Award system, Deputy was built in the cloud to keep pace with rapidly changing regulatory needs of arguably the most complex labor rules in the world. Deputy's rapid growth in the U.S. is supported by the ability to support businesses to stay compliant at half the cost of competing solutions.

To learn more about Deputy and get a free 30-day trial visit www.deputy.com.

About Deputy

Founded in 2008, Deputy is headquartered in Atlanta, GA, and Sydney, Australia, with offices in the United Kingdom and the Philippines. As the ultimate workforce manager, and an Apple Mobility Partner, Deputy offers best-in-class technology in a cloud-based solution that simplifies scheduling, timesheets, tasking and other employee communication. This, coupled with brilliant mobile apps and one-click payroll integration, equips business managers with the tools they need to get out of the back office and into the action. More than 35,000 workplaces in 73 countries use Deputy to manage their employees. For more information, visit Deputy.com and follow @DeputyApp.


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