Moving From Manual to Online Rostering: A Thorough Guide

Asha Neil

Written on 31 October, 2022
digital-scheduling
Upgrading to digital rostering tools can save time, improve worker satisfaction and help you stay compliant. What’s more, with self-onboarding, you can often make the switch in a matter of minutes.

If you’re considering transitioning to online rostering, keep reading. We’ll explain everything you need to know, from the business benefits you’ll see to preparing for the changeover.

Why Use Digital Rostering Software?

An online roster offers a wealth of benefits for client and workforce management, not to mention that it will make life much easier for your admin team.

Time Savings

Manual rostering is immensely time consuming. You can spend hours on the scheduling process, building shifts and ensuring that every employee and client is rostered correctly. Digital tools, however, will allow you to create rosters in minutes and duplicate them with a click of a button. Automated rostering saves time and stress.

Less Human Error

Automated scheduling isn't just quicker and easier. It's also more accurate. You'll never have to worry about a typo wreaking havoc on your roster, a shift being labelled with an incorrect date, or accidentally assigning a client to the wrong staff member. 

Since workers’ SCHADS award details can be inputted into the software, you can also rest assured that your schedules and payroll will match up. 

More Control

Online rostering offers the best of both worlds: automation will save you time, while the advanced features will give you the control you need over your rosters. Drag-and-drop rostering makes manual edits easy. You can also build teams for group schedules and set specific shifts to recur. 

The split shifts feature means you can assign multiple clients and services to an individual care or support worker’s shift. Plus you can click on specific clients and employees to see their weekly roster. In turn, this will allow you to confirm that staff receive all the shifts they need, clients are receiving the services they’re entitled to, and your roster is efficient and fully costed.

Easier Updates

With manual rosters, amending an already published shift can quickly create confusion. Not only do you need to redo parts of the roster, but you have to alert everybody to the changes and hope that they see them in time. One ill staff member can lead to hours spent checking employees’ availability and chasing up confirmation of new shift times.

Digital rostering simplifies this, however. You’ll already have staff members’ availability built into the system, while push notifications make it easy to alert employees to a change in their roster. They won’t need to constantly check their email since they can quickly view their rostered shifts via the app. 

Whether team members want to swap shifts, take on extra hours, or call in sick, it’s no longer an administrative headache.

Improved Staff Satisfaction

Digital tools will enable you to build rosters that suit your employees' needs as well as your company's. Many employees, especially if they're hourly workers, have to balance their work with other commitments such as caring for their family or their studies. A modern, digital system will support this by allowing your workforce to input their availability and check their shift times on the go.

Better Integration 

Online rostering systems won't just help with employee scheduling. They can also support you in award interpretation, compliance, accounting, payroll, billing and more.

Look for software that integrates with your existing business processes. With the right program, it will be easy to record hours worked and per-shift expenses in real-time. You'll also be able to add different services and clients to shifts and automate payroll and invoice creation.

Greater Compliance 

Whether you need an electronic record of service delivery or confirmation that employees were assigned their breaks, digital rostering programs can support your business in staying compliant. It provides the perfect paper trail, whether it's the SCHADS award or NDIS rules you're working with.

What to Do Before Switching to Online Rostering

Making the switch from manual to automated rostering is relatively simple. However, there are a couple of steps you should take first:

Select Your Software Carefully

Outline exactly what you need from your workforce management software, from essential features for rostering to an intuitive interface or affordable pricing. Then, sign up for a free trial so that you can test how well the program will meet your needs.

Check the Employee Experience

Many companies make the mistake of picking software based solely on how easy it makes managing rosters for their admin team. However, your frontline staff also need to use this tool. Check to see if the software comes with a dedicated app for them, as well as how it handles staff availability and schedule notifications.

Set the Software Up Correctly

Take full advantage of the program by setting it up completely. Add award details and NDIS prices, if relevant. Upload your employee documentation. Set key data to track. A well-designed rostering system is easy to set up, and doing it properly saves time later on.

Rostering Software That Will Make Workforce Management Easy

Switching to digital rostering tools is a quick and simple process. Once you’ve found the right tool for your business, you can start using it in mere minutes.

What's more, you and your team will rapidly notice the benefits, from time saved to improved efficiency, happier frontline staff and a better quality of service.

ShiftCare’s rostering software makes rostering a pain-free task. It can automate a roster in minutes. It also offers drag-and-drop technology, group schedules, recurring rosters and split shifts so that you can add multiple clients to a workers’ day.

With per-client and per-worker views, it’s also easy to check that draft rosters work for everybody: employees, clients and your bottom line. Plus, ShiftCare integrates with common software and comes with an array of client management and compliance tools.

To discover how it can simplify rostering while improving your processes, try ShiftCare for free.

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