How to Use Open Shifts to Solve Chronic Understaffing in Aged Care

Key takeaways

• Open shifts let aged care facilities broadcast vacant shifts to qualified internal staff before resorting to expensive agency workers

• Qualification guardrails help you fill gaps with appropriately skilled care workers while supporting care minute targets

• Facilities using open shift systems can reduce agency reliance and give staff more control over their hours

• The right rostering technology makes open shifts work at scale across multiple locations and shift types

You've probably noticed that no amount of careful rostering fixes the core problem: there simply aren't enough aged care workers to go around. The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) projects a shortfall of 110,000 aged care workers over the coming decade. That gap isn't closing any time soon.

The Deputy Big Shift Report 2026 AU confirms this from the ground level. The healthcare sector is facing workforce capacity constraints, not demand constraints. Hiring has slowed while termination rates have declined. Businesses are moving from a "hire to grow" model to an "optimise to grow" model.

In practical terms, this means you can't recruit your way out of the problem. Aged and disability carers represent the single largest projected increase in employment to 2030, according to Jobs and Skills Australia employment projections. Yet the available pool still falls short of demand.

Care minutes add regulatory pressure

Since 1 October 2024, residential aged care facilities must deliver an average of 215 care minutes per resident per day, including 40 registered nurse (RN) minutes. When someone calls in sick or leaves mid-shift, you don't just have an operational gap. You may fall below applicable care minute requirements.

Traditional roster-and-hope approaches leave gaps that get filled by agency staff at two to three times the cost of your own workers. These are common shift rostering challenges that compound when you're managing 24/7 care operations. The Support at Home program is also shifting workforce demand toward in-home and community care, stretching the available pool even thinner.

You need a faster, cheaper way to fill shifts with qualified people who already know your residents.

What open shifts are and how they work in aged care

An open shift is an unassigned shift that you publish to eligible staff. Instead of working down a phone tree or sending group texts, you broadcast the vacancy to everyone who's qualified and available. They claim it from their phone.

Think of it as a shift marketplace inside your own workforce. Staff see available shifts, check the details (time, location, role), and decide whether to pick them up. You keep control over who can see what.

Two models for claiming shifts

There are two common approaches:

• First-come-first-served: The first eligible person to claim the shift gets it. This is fastest for urgent gaps.

• Manager approval: Staff express interest, and a manager selects the best fit. This works better for roles requiring specific experience or continuity of care.

Why aged care adds complexity

Generic open shift tools might work for retail or hospitality. Aged care rostering is different. You need:

• Qualification filters so only staff with current AHPRA registration, medication competency, or specific certifications can see the shift

• Fatigue management rules that prevent someone from claiming a shift if they haven't had the minimum rest period

• Role-type matching so you're filling an RN gap with an RN, not just any available body

In Deputy, you can tag each team member with their qualifications and set eligibility rules. When you publish an open shift, only staff meeting those criteria receive the push notification. Everyone else never sees it.

How open shifts help you meet care minute targets

Care minute mandates are the regulatory pressure point that keeps aged care managers up at night. You need an average of 215 care minutes per resident per day, with at least 40 of those delivered by a registered nurse.

When a staff member calls in sick at 5 a.m., your care minute calculations start dropping. Every hour that shift stays unfilled widens the gap between your actual staffing and your target.

Speed matters

The traditional approach to filling a shift looks like this: a coordinator starts calling through a list of casual staff. They leave voicemails. They wait for callbacks. On average, this process takes 45 to 60 minutes, and that's if someone answers.

With an open shift broadcast, you publish the vacancy and every eligible staff member gets a notification on their phone simultaneously. The shift can be claimed in minutes rather than an hour.

Filling the right role type

Care minute targets aren't just about bodies on the floor. You need the right mix of RNs, enrolled nurses (ENs), and personal care workers. If an RN calls in sick, replacing them with a care worker doesn't help your RN minute count.

Qualification-based eligibility filters solve this. When you create the open shift, you specify the role type and required qualifications. Deputy only shows the shift to staff tagged with those credentials. This approach to healthcare team rostering helps you maintain the right skill mix without manually checking certificates.

Tracking hours by role

Beyond filling individual shifts, you need visibility into whether your staffing levels support your care minute targets across the day, week, and reporting period. Rostering tools that track hours by role type can help you surface potential gaps before they become reporting issues, giving you time to act rather than react.

Cutting agency costs with an internal shift marketplace

Agency staff can cost two to three times an internal worker's hourly rate. For many larger aged care facilities, agency spending can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. That's money leaving your organisation for workers who don't know your residents, your systems, or your protocols.

Open shifts give you a way to tap your existing casual pool and part-timers who want extra hours before picking up the phone to an agency.

The poly-employment advantage

Here's something working in your favour: ABS data on multiple job-holders shows nearly one million Australians hold multiple jobs. Deputy research shows 72% of Gen Z shift workers in Australia are poly-employed, working across two or more employers.

Many of your casual and part-time staff are actively looking for more hours. They just need a convenient way to find and claim them. An open shift broadcast, delivered straight to their phone, gives them that convenience.

Building a relief pool

The smartest aged care operators build a dedicated relief pool of casual staff specifically for open shift coverage. These workers:

• Have current qualifications and clearances

• Know your facility, residents, and protocols

• Are available on shorter notice than agency workers

• Cost a fraction of agency rates

When you combine a healthy relief pool with instant shift broadcasting, you reduce the situations where agency staff are your only option. AI shift planning can also help you anticipate gaps before they open up.

The Deputy Shift Work Index for Services remains 22% above pre-2023 levels, indicating that shift-based work in healthcare continues to grow. Having an internal system to distribute that work among your own team puts you ahead of facilities still relying on phone calls and noticeboards.

Setting up open shifts that actually get claimed

Getting open shifts right takes more than flipping a switch. Here's how to set them up so staff actually claim them.

Step 1: Tag staff qualifications

Before you publish a single open shift, make sure every team member has their qualifications recorded in your system. This includes:

• AHPRA registration (for RNs and ENs)

• First aid certification

• Medication competency

• Manual handling

• Any facility-specific training requirements

In Deputy, you can add qualification tags to each staff profile. This becomes the foundation for eligibility filtering.

Step 2: Set eligibility rules

Eligibility rules determine who can see each open shift. At minimum, set rules for:

• Correct qualifications for the role

• No overtime breach (weekly or fortnightly maximum hours)

• Minimum rest period between shifts (check your applicable Award)

• Available hours in their employment agreement

These rules run automatically. Staff who don't meet the criteria never see the shift, so you don't waste time declining claims from unqualified workers. Accurate time and attendance management underpins this by tracking cumulative hours against award limits.

Step 3: Create the shift

When you create an open shift, include:

• Role type (RN, EN, care worker, support staff)

• Start and end time

• Location (ward, wing, or facility for multi-site operations)

• Any special notes (resident-specific requirements, handover details)

The more detail you include, the more confident staff feel about claiming it.

Step 4: Publish and notify

Once you hit publish, all eligible staff receive a push notification on their mobile device. They can review the shift details and claim it in a few taps.

For planned gaps (approved leave, known vacancies), publish the open shift one to two weeks ahead. For same-day absences, publish immediately to reach available staff fast.

Step 5: Choose your claim model

Decide whether shifts auto-assign to the first eligible claimant, or whether a manager reviews and approves claims. For urgent gaps, auto-assign is faster. For complex care situations, manager approval gives you more control.

Two tips for better uptake

Cap claims per person per week to distribute hours fairly across your casual pool. This prevents one keen worker from claiming every shift while others miss out.

You can also complement open shifts with a clear shift swap policy so staff can trade assigned shifts among themselves before a gap even opens.

Set a freeze window for non-urgent shifts. For example, no claims within 24 hours of shift start for planned vacancies. This gives staff time to plan while still allowing immediate claims for same-day emergencies.

Protecting your team from burnout while filling gaps

Open shifts should give your team more choice, not more exhaustion. If the same eager workers always pick up extra shifts, you're accelerating burnout in your best people.

Set maximum hours caps

The Aged Care Award and the Health Professionals and Support Services Award set maximum ordinary hours and minimum rest requirements. Build these into your open shift rules so the system won't offer shifts to someone already at their limit.

For example, you might set:

• Maximum eight hours for a day shift

• Maximum 10 hours for a night shift

• Minimum 10-hour break between shifts

• Weekly cap on total hours per employee

Deputy can surface fatigue and overtime alerts before shifts are published, flagging staff who are approaching their thresholds. This keeps you informed so you can make decisions before someone works into unsafe territory.

Give staff genuine control

The beauty of open shifts is that staff choose whether to claim them. Nobody is forced into extra work. They see what's available, check their own schedule, and decide.

This is different from the old model of calling casuals and putting pressure on them to say yes. When staff have genuine control over their extra hours, they're more likely to stay with your organisation long-term.

Keep open shifts as the exception

Predictable, stable rosters should be the foundation. AI-assisted demand forecasting can help you build those base rosters with confidence, so open shifts stay the exception. Open shifts handle the exceptions: sick leave, unexpected absences, short-notice demand changes. If you're relying on open shifts for 30% or more of your weekly hours, that's a signal you need more base staffing, not more open shifts.

Conclusion

Aged care understaffing isn't a problem you can solve with better phone lists or bigger agency contracts. You need a system that matches qualified internal staff to open shifts instantly, at scale, and with guardrails that protect both your care minute targets and your team's wellbeing.

Your action checklist:

• Tag every team member's qualifications in your rostering system

• Set eligibility and fatigue rules before publishing open shifts

• Publish open shifts to all qualified staff simultaneously

• Monitor uptake patterns and redistribute hours fairly

• Build a dedicated casual relief pool for surge coverage

Deputy's open shift tools help you broadcast vacancies to qualified staff in seconds, support care minute visibility through role-type tracking, and surface potential fatigue issues for manager review.

Try Deputy for free and see how open shifts can help your facility fill gaps faster, reduce agency costs, and give your team more control over their hours.

FAQs

How do open shifts work in Deputy for aged care facilities?

You create an unassigned shift with the required role and qualifications, then publish it. Eligible staff receive a push notification and can claim the shift from their phone. You can set it to auto-assign or require manager approval before the shift is confirmed.

Can open shifts help my facility meet care minute targets?

Yes. By helping managers fill staffing gaps more quickly with appropriately qualified staff, open shifts can support workforce planning aligned with care minute requirements. Employers remain responsible for meeting applicable regulatory obligations. Qualification filters help you fill the specific role you need, not just any available worker.

How do I stop unqualified staff from claiming aged care shifts?

Set qualification filters when creating the open shift. Only staff tagged with the correct certifications (such as AHPRA registration or medication competency) can see and claim the shift. Everyone else won't receive the notification.

Do open shifts reduce agency costs?

Many organisations use open shifts to help reduce reliance on agency workers, depending on workforce availability. Using internal staff may reduce reliance on agency workers and associated costs, depending on your operational needs.

How far in advance should I post open shifts?

Post as early as possible to maximise uptake. For planned gaps like approved leave, post one to two weeks ahead. For same-day absences, publish immediately so available staff can respond fast.