Deputy and Harvard Kennedy School’s The Shift Project awarded WIN Challenge grant for three-year fair-scheduling research project
To reduce gender inequality through fairer, more predictable work schedules.
San Francisco, United States. 09 October, 2026 — Deputy and The Shift Project at Harvard Kennedy School have been named among 18 recipients of the Workplace Innovation Now (WIN) Challenge, for a three-year research project to reduce gender inequality through fairer, more predictable work schedules.
The project, Reducing gender inequality with schedules that work, brings together Deputy, Harvard and Columbia University to turn fair-scheduling research into technology that businesses can use at scale.
Unstable hours and last-minute roster changes make it difficult for workers to plan their income, care and family life, with the impact often falling hardest on women. While Fair Workweek laws provide important protections in some jurisdictions, the project will bring evidence-based scheduling practices into the workforce technology employers use every day.
Deputy will build new scheduling tools and AI capabilities that help managers create rosters around when people can actually work and what they need to balance outside work. Then test them with Deputy customers to see whether giving people more stable, predictable hours improves wellbeing and retention, whilst also helping businesses run better.
“Scheduling is often treated as an operational task, but it shapes whether people can make work fit around the rest of their lives,” said Star Levandowski, SVP Operations & People at Deputy. “This work gives us the opportunity to build fair-scheduling science into the technology managers already rely on to run their businesses. Our goal is to make greater stability and predictability practical at scale, and to demonstrate the value for workers and employers alike.”
“Research has shown that unpredictable schedules create real hardship for hourly workers and their families,” said Daniel Schneider, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Co-Director of The Shift Project. “This project brings rigorous research together with the technology that shapes scheduling decisions every day. By testing new approaches with businesses in the real world, we can generate evidence on how to improve jobs while supporting stronger business outcomes.”
“Schedule instability is not simply inconvenient. It can undermine economic security, particularly for women and families with the least room to absorb last-minute changes,” said Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat, Mallya Chair in Women and Economics at Barnard College, Columbia University. “This project will help establish what it takes to make more predictable work the norm, and evaluate the benefits for workers, employers and the broader economy.”
The WIN Challenge is led by Aspen Digital, a program of the Aspen Institute, and supported by Pivotal, a group of organizations founded by Melinda French Gates. It is a $60 million grant competition focused on discovering and scaling transformative solutions that help women thrive and everyone win in a rapidly changing workplace.
About Deputy
Deputy is the intuitive, people platform built specifically for shift work. Trusted by over 1.5 million shift workers and 390,000 workplaces in more than 100 countries, Deputy brings together AI-powered scheduling, compliance automation, accurate payroll and mobile-first communication to help businesses run more efficiently and teams feel empowered. Discover more at www.deputy.com
