Does the thought of manually having to do your aged care staff rostering each week send shivers down your spine?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Manual rostering is something that many aged care providers continue to struggle with every day. It’s time-consuming, it’s mentally taxing, and it’s easy to make mistakes.
However, there is a solution:
Digital rostering using shift scheduling software.
Nowadays, there are several great digital roster tools for aged care that you can use to streamline your weekly scheduling and significantly reduce the burden of your aged care workforce management.
Today, we’re going to explain exactly why switching from manual to digital rostering is the key to staff optimisation and helping you manage aged care shifts efficiently.
What are the most common problems with manual rostering?
Look, we get it. As an aged care provider, you likely already have a long list of reasons why manual rostering is the bane of your existence. Perhaps they even align with many of the ones we see every day as well.
Here are just a few of the most common issues we typically see with doing your scheduling the old-fashioned way:
Missed shifts and shift gaps
Manually rostering and updating the weekly schedule can make it easy for shifts to get missed by staff, especially if changes were made that they weren’t aware of or forgot about.
Likewise, some shifts may accidentally get overlooked altogether in the scheduling process, leading to shift gaps and unhappy clients.
Staff burnout
With manual rostering, tracking staff hours consistently can be difficult.
Some staff may end up being under-scheduled, while others can find themselves with a workload greater than what they can handle – ultimately leading to a lack of fair rostering, low morale and burnout.
Compliance issues
Some clients require a higher level of care than others, but a manual roster can make it difficult to track and assign the staff with the right qualifications to these shifts. This can open you up to problems with compliance down the road.
Similarly, tracking and managing staff hours, overtime and allowances in line with the SCHADS Award can be equally difficult when you’re still using a manual roster as well.
This can make regular audits a highly stressful time for you.
So, now we understand the pitfalls of manual rostering, let’s consider the solution.
How digital roster tools for aged care improve both compliance and coverage
Making the switch from manual to digital rostering for aged care can open up a whole new world of possibilities for aged care workforce management.
Not only does it help to dramatically reduce the time you spend each week on scheduling and staff optimisation, but it also makes it much easier to stay compliant and help maintain a high level of satisfaction for both staff and clients.
Many digital roster tools for aged care offer advanced features you can’t get if you’re still using Excel or Word for scheduling, such as:
- The ability to set up recurring shifts
- Live availability oversight
- Real-time SCHADS Award validation and alerts
- Automatic open shift assignment
- Shift matching to pair complex clients with the right staff
- Integrated invoicing tools
- Staff mobile app for easy access and management of schedules
Essentially, these are the bare minimum key features you should be looking for when searching for the ideal digital rostering software for your business.
Consider this example of a successful adoption of digital rostering in aged care:
XYZ Aged Care is a care provider based in Brisbane. They had been using manual rosters for years, but the cracks in this system slowly got worse over time.
Both staff and managers had become frustrated with the workload, clients were getting annoyed when no one would show up to their appointment, and they were toeing the line with compliance and constantly stressing about the next audit.
That’s when they decided to switch to a dedicated shift scheduling software solution.
In just a few short months, the care managers at XYZ Aged Care had noted a 30-40% reduction in the time they spent on rostering each week. Not only that, but their staff were finding it much easier to view and manage their schedule and availability from their phone, which led to a marked decrease in missed shifts. The real-time SCHADS Award Interpretation also meant that compliance was back sitting at a high level.
Most importantly, client satisfaction dramatically improved since the introduction of digital rostering. Participants were once again getting the right care from the right staff when they needed it most.
Sounds perfect, right?
So, what’s the best shift scheduling software to help you manage aged care shifts efficiently?
ShiftCare makes switching from manual to digital rostering in aged care both simple and effective
When it comes to digital rostering and aged care workforce management, ShiftCare has changed the game for providers around the country.
What was once a tedious and frustrating task, scheduling with ShiftCare is as easy as simply dragging and dropping to create and manage rosters for your staff.
With recurring shifts and a single dashboard providing you with a complete overview of your team’s availability, assigning the best people to your clients has now never been easier.
Plus, with the addition of our real-time SCHADS Awards Interpretation, Shift Board, Support Worker app and intuitive collaboration and communication features, you can have complete confidence that all aspects of your aged care staff rostering are running smoothly all day every day.
Unlock the power of digital rostering for your aged care workforce with ShiftCare today
ShiftCare is an easy-to-use care management platform designed to streamline day-to-day operations and reduce administration burdens for NDIS providers, as well as Aged Care and Disability Support services.
Boasting powerful and intuitive features, ShiftCare offers key solutions to improving care management, rostering, HR, invoicing, compliance and so much more, enabling you and your team to focus on delivering a higher standard of personalised client care.
So, if you’re looking for the best shift scheduling software to help with staff optimisation and digital rostering in aged care, ShiftCare has got you covered.
Book a demo or get in touch with our team today to discover how ShiftCare can revolutionise your care management and give you back more time for what truly matters.
