TecHR Interview with Jennifer Shambroom, CMO at Deputy

Know My Company

Tell us about your journey into HR Technology. What galvanized you to work at Deputy?

What I really love about the world of technology and Marketing is that you get to boil down these really complicated ideas, concepts, and products and then find a way to make it interesting and communicate that message to customers.

The other thing that attracted me to technology is that it is always evolving.

Deputy was attractive to me because there is such a huge opportunity and we have such a solid product and a leader that built the product, has built the company and is leading the team on the journey.

The main reason I joined Deputy though actually came down to the people. Everyone I met throughout the process when exploring the opportunity was incredible. Their high caliber, positive energy and the shared belief in the product and the mission of the company were too good to pass up.

What is Deputy and how does it fit into the current HR Technology landscape?

Deputy is a company that aims to make the work lives of more than 2 billion shift workers easier. We do this by automating time-consuming tasks and making it easier for teams to connect and communicate. Those features include:

Scheduling

Create employee schedules in no time, and notify everyone of their schedules with just one click.

Automated Timesheets

Easily see who worked and when, plus create, approve and export timesheets to payroll software.

Time & Attendance Tracking

Easily capture when and where your people work for greater HR compliance, payroll accuracy, and insight into workforce productivity.

Payroll Integrations

Get out-of-the-box support for Quickbooks, Xero, ADP, MYOB, NetSuite, and many more. Take advantage of streamlined approvals from timesheets to payroll.

Optimized Employee Communications

Give your employees an easy way to stay informed, share important messages, and contribute to the workplace conversation via their mobile devices.

Task Management

Create and assign tasks to your employees anywhere and anytime from your smartphone or tablet. You’ll even get notified when they’re done and where your people work for greater HR compliance.

Remote Workforce Management Capabilities

With applications available on both iTunes and Google Play, it’s easy to manage your workforce from any location from your iPhone, Android, tablet, or even your Apple Watch.

Employee Rewards

Employee performance won’t go unnoticed any longer with our Journaling feature, which allows employers to recognize and reward top performers.

How can modern HR teams fully-transform their Staff Management process using Deputy?

Deputy is at the forefront of the modern workplace.

The future of work exists in a world where operations, human resources, technology, and management have transformed into trustworthy, transparent and collaborative workplace disciplines.

This new collaborative approach allows leaders to not only manage global teams but opens up more efficient and collaborative tools for management and staff to communicate and drive efficiencies. This approach also enables the workforce of today, that has completely different expectations and aspirations, to work together more closely.

Most importantly, Deputy is a tool that is facilitating the idea of trust back into the relationship between employers and employees. Making sure staff are paid correctly and employers are operating in compliance with the law.

How do you see Marketing, Sales and Customer Service departments benefiting from Workplace Collaboration and Scheduling software?

Deputy is a platform that connects people so they can collaborate better and communicate effectively in order to reach a shared vision or goal.

Workforce management platforms empower each member of a team to play their part and drive change in an organization. Customer-focused teams such as Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service have a unique opportunity to leverage solutions to be that force of change and provide a collaboration tool to open communications across cross-functional teams.

What is the return on investment of Collaboration tools on Small and Medium-size companies?

There are two ways to look at this question.

The first way is perhaps the most obvious – time and money. Investing in a collaboration solution like Deputy drives efficiency by automating time-consuming tasks. The impact this has is both immediate and significant for a business owner.

A real-world example: Recently an enterprise customer stated that since implementing Deputy, they have cut the time spent creating schedules by 50%. This improvement allows the manager to spend that time focusing on growing their business.

The second is the personal satisfaction you get knowing that investing in a tool like Deputy is helping to foster trust between yourself and your team, as well as providing your hourly workforce with stability and clarity within their work life. An empowered workforce is a productive workforce.

How could customers connect your technology to HRMS and Performance Management platforms?

Deputy integrates with more than 50 technology partners that aim to improve your business’s operations, profitability and customer experience. We also have an open API for customers to build out their own connected business without any limitations or unnecessary barriers.

What is your vision of the growing revenue opportunities for HR Technology platforms?

We are at an interesting crossroads when it comes to tech. There is a very obvious lack of trust between users and technology companies at the moment. That is why I think the biggest opportunity for HR Technology platforms is going to come from being able to commoditize this idea of being able to trust tech companies again.

A platform like Deputy could become the source of truth about a person’s work life, replacing the need for future employers to ever need to see a resume because they can already access the work history, qualifications, and skills of a new candidate. Our product and engineering teams are world class and are focused on advancing the modern workplace, and empowering teams.

Which Marketing and Sales Technology solutions do you use at Deputy?

Our Marketing, Growth, and Sales Technology stack is extremely robust and designed to support global growth:

• Salesforce
• HubSpot
• Salesloft
• Madkudu
• Optimizely
• Google Analytics
• Adobe Ad Cloud
• Adobe Media Optimizer
• Adobe Analytics
• Tableau
• Slack
• Walk Me
• Intercom
• Confluence
• Jira
• Trello
• AirTable

Which start-ups in the tech industry interest you the most and why?

As a Bay Area marketer, I’m always surprised and delighted by all of the change our industry sees every single day. A new product is launching every week that is designed to improve our lives, gives me a giggle and changes the tech landscape forever.

What technologies within AI and HR Technology are you interested in?

AI is a term that is widely used across the industry that can be interpreted in many ways. Deep learning capabilities can support the automation of gathering data and generating insights. This enables HR teams to make decisions that maximize the overall workforce performance.

In HR Technology, what are the new emerging markets that you see providing the biggest opportunities?

• Embracing the change in the industry
• Putting people first, not profitability
• Giving the keys to the new leaders in the industry and seeing how they evolve the way we work.

What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?

Foster an environment where any team can generate the very best ideas.

Name the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read.

Kara Swisher – @karaswisher

Thank you, Jennifer! That was fun and hope to see you back on TecHR soon.