i9 Sports improved time spent managing their workforce with greater team visibility

i9 Sports offers youth sports leagues, camps, and clinics for boys and girls between the ages of 3-14. While sports offerings vary by location, i9 Sports offers flag football, soccer, basketball, and baseball to hundreds of communities each week. As an alternative to the hyper-competitive, win-at-all-costs culture that pervades most kids’ sports leagues today, i9 Sports creates an experience that focuses on fun, safety, convenience, and community.

“i9 Sports also serves as a platform to teach kids about good sportsmanship and how to respect the rules, officials, opponents, team, and self,” said Mark “Coach” Cupp, owner of i9 Sports in Southern California. “Each of our programs is reliant upon seamless communication among site managers, sports directors, and contracted officials.”

Cupp purchased a brand new i9 Sports territory in Southern California in 2013 and three years later, the franchise has expanded to offer four sports programs at six venues, serving 6,000 kids and growing at 40 percent year over year.

As a result of demand and growth, Cupp would spend a significant amount of time creating schedules and communicating shift changes with the 50+ employees, athletes and contracted officials among the now four programs. When an important message or notification was sent, Cupp had no way of knowing if the messages were received and read. He struggled to email specific officials if someone was running late or sick. In addition, Cupp could not keep track of the employees who clocked in at the wrong times or the dates employees texted to request time off. In all, it was near impossible for him to effectively communicate and keep track of scheduling.

Cupp initially turned to competing workforce management apps to help manage scheduling and communication. Yet, these applications were expensive and complicated, forcing employees to open six different venue schedules to view, make changes to or communicate with site managers. Cupp was also forced to pay for features and other accessibility he was not using.

“Most of my team are tech-savvy Millennials that would prefer to text, rather than email,” said Cupp. “It was difficult to get my team to fill out forms or communicate in a way that wasn’t intuitive and easy to do on their smartphones. Still, I needed to keep track of conversations, schedule changes, and time off requests, but the solution we were using initially was cumbersome and not economical.”

Cupp needed a workforce management tool that was easy and simple enough for site management and contracted officials, yet intuitive enough to support the complexity of his business.

Cupps turned to partnering solutions of current trusted software, QuickBooks, and found Deputy. With Deputy, Cupp can now manage all of his business complexities and instantly communicate with entire teams with one simple application. Other benefits of Deputy include:

• A real-time, integrated view of i9 Sports schedules among all programs and venues
• Effective and easy communication and schedule management among the entire employee base, across six venues
• Instant syndication of notifications to individual employees or entire teams with a confirmation request that messages are read
• Ability to create and update schedules in real time, based on employee availability and requested time off.

Results: Efficient Communication Among Entire Teams

With Deputy, Cupp improved time spent communicating and managing employees by 30 percent by switching to a more affordable, scalable solution. Other results included:

• Quicker, more efficient communication process among entire teams and individuals
• Improved time spent managing teams and schedules by 30%
• Savings of up to 30% by paying only for features being used
• Greater visibility into team schedules of four programs across six venues
• Ultimate assurance that important messages and notifications were read
• Peace of mind that athletes and contractors arrived at the right place, at the right time, prepared for work
• Highest confidence that schedules were accurately created and employees received their requested time off

“Our franchise has been recognized as one of the most successful in the country and it starts with your employees showing up on time,” said Cupp. “Deputy helps our team to do just that!”

Find out how Deputy can help you better manage employees. Visit Deputy.com and follow @Deputyapp.