Case Study: How Blue Star Security Streamlined Operations and Scaled Growth with Roosted

<span style="display: none;" fs-none-element="span-none">Challenge</span>

{{challenge-box}}

Company: Blue Star Security
Industry: Private Security
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Active Workforce: 850+ Active Officers
Roosted Client Since: 2021

Blue Star Security is a Chicago-based private security firm, employing only active or retired law enforcement officers. Since its founding in 2009, the company has grown rapidly, onboarding nearly 1,900 officers over time and maintaining a current active roster of over 850 officers.

Blue Star Security’s rapid growth also brought growing complexity behind the scenes. As their workforce expanded, so did the operational challenges of managing schedules, payroll, and worker communication - all handled manually through spreadsheets, calendars, and one-on-one outreach. In summer 2021, the company partnered with Roosted to simplify their processes and build a scalable foundation for continued success.

Leading the day-to-day operations at Blue Star Security is Jerry Prampin, the company’s Director of Operations. As the company experienced rapid growth, Jerry and his team worked hard to keep operations running smoothly using the tools they had - including spreadsheets, calendars, and direct outreach. But as their workforce expanded, it became clear that their manual systems, while effective in the early days, were no longer the most efficient way to support their growing team and clients.

Before Roosted, Blue Star Security’s operational processes were fragmented and labor-intensive. Scheduling was managed across six separate Google calendars, each maintained by different supervisors. Payroll involved manually logging every shift into spreadsheets, reconciling totals, and transferring data to ADP, their payroll processing platform.

"We used Google calendars and manually logged all of the hours. Our payroll specialist would pull every shift one by one daily and enter it into an Excel spreadsheet which was then passed off to the owner."

The team spent hours cross-referencing calendars, spreadsheets, and billing records each month to ensure payroll was accurate - often catching discrepancies that required additional verification and backtracking.

Communication was equally challenging. Field supervisors relied on phone calls and text messages to notify guards about open shifts, a process that became harder to manage as the company grew.

These limitations became even more evident during the civil unrest in Chicago in 2020. With over 70% of their roster made up of active Chicago Police Department officers - who were unavailable due to extended duty -  Blue Star struggled to fill urgent client requests. Without a centralized system, the team resorted to manually texting workers from memory.

"I basically sat on my phone, at home, with our Excel spreadsheet roster and I went through and by memory I text people that I knew weren’t active CPD, seeing if they were available."

The team recognized that if they wanted to continue growing and delivering on client demands, they needed a more efficient, scalable way to manage their workforce.

<span style="display: none;" fs-none-element="span-none">Solutions</span>

{{solution-box}}

In summer 2021, Blue Star Security implemented Roosted to overhaul its scheduling, payroll, and communication workflows. Roosted brought all their key operational functions into one platform, providing:

Integrated Scheduling and Payroll

Roosted connected Blue Star’s shift scheduling directly to payroll reporting, eliminating the need for manual reconciliation.

"The integration of billing and scheduling has put us in a different category of how we function day to day."

Targeted Communication with Tags and Filters

Blue Star leveraged Roosted’s tagging system to categorize officers by location, employment status (active or retired), credentials, and more - making it easy to notify the right people for each assignment. This shift enabled the team to operate more strategically, replacing reactive, manual work with an efficient, scalable process.

‍

<span style="display: none;" fs-none-element="span-none">Roosted's Impact</span>

{{impact-box}}

A Seamless Link Between Scheduling and Payroll

Before Roosted, payroll involved extensive manual data entry, cross-checking, and last-minute corrections. With Roosted’s scheduling and payroll integration, that process became fast, accurate, and reliable.

"Our payroll’s been relatively flawless since using this system."

By connecting scheduling directly to billing and payroll, Blue Star eliminated the risk of errors and freed up valuable time across the team.

Streamlined Communication and Job Assignment

Roosted’s tagging and filtering features allowed Blue Star’s supervisors to streamline how they filled shifts - especially in urgent or high-demand situations. Instead of sending out mass texts or one-by-one messages, they could target communications based on specific criteria.

"We wanted to be able to set up these tags so that we could blast out to anyone that didn’t fall into that bucket."

By segmenting officers by availability, employment status, and location, Blue Star ensured that their communications were focused, efficient, and effective - a key difference compared to their earlier, manual methods.

The tagging system doesn´t just help the operations team - they also empowered Blue Star’s officers. Workers can use tags to highlight the type of assignments they are interested in, making it easier for supervisors to match the right people to the right jobs and for workers to access the opportunities they wanted.

A Sustainable, Scalable Operation

The shift to Roosted allowed Blue Star Security to eliminate operational bottlenecks and position themselves for sustainable, long-term growth.

"We always got by with Google Calendars, but the integration of billing and scheduling has changed how we operate."

By centralizing their processes and improving how they communicate and assign work, Blue Star Security not only reduced administrative workload and improved accuracy - they positioned themselves to grow without limits. With Roosted’s scalable platform in place, the team can continue expanding their workforce, respond faster to client demands, and confidently manage a large, dynamic roster without adding operational strain. Roosted has become a critical part of their long-term strategy to deliver professional, reliable security services at scale.

‍