How Much Time, and Money, Is Your Care Home Wasting on Manual Processes?

If you are still mapping out timesheets and rosters with a pen and paper, it might be time to consider a new way of working. As a business owner or manager, your time is incredibly valuable. How much of it are you currently spending on paperwork that could easily be automated?

At Ascot Residential Homes, scheduling was difficult for everyone, too. The weekly rota was published on a laminated form, with an accompanying “gap list” showing staff where shifts were available. It wasn’t working.

“People would put their signature next to the gaps, but never show up because they either forgot or changed their mind,” says owner David Tanner.

Even when the business moved to spreadsheets and a clocking-in system, visibility was still problematic. Staff couldn’t clearly see how the hours they worked translated into pay. In an industry that traditionally has high staff turnover, this is one of the “little things” that can make the difference between people leaving or staying.

Confusing timesheets led to messy payroll. ”It was quite literally the most laborious exercise you could ever imagine,” says David.“We were manually drawing up the hours of a schedule two or three times a day, adding up total hours each week, and cross-referencing against pay rates.”

Using Deputy transformed scheduling and payroll at Ascot Residential Homes. “I asked the person in charge of scheduling what she would do if we took Deputy away. She had a two-word answer: ‘I’d resign!’”.

Once timesheets are approved, Deputy integrates with various payroll systems. Since Deputy was implemented, time spent managing payroll at Ascot Residential Homes has reduced from 160 hours to 8 hours.

"We've been making good use of the time and money we save using Deputy," says David. "The hours we save go back into extra pay and staffing."

St Joseph's Hospice is a charity organisation that cares for people with end-of-life care and palliative needs. Deputy has helped the hospice save money on using agency workers.

"Deputy has helped us in the way of cost-saving - reducing our agency use and utilising more of our temporary workers, like staff nurses and healthcare assistants, says Su San Chan, Head of HR at St Joseph's Hospice.

"It's saved us a lot of time contacting candidates and opening the shift out through the app. It's saved at least half-a-day or a day's work calling around temporary workers."

Introducing Deputy at Aspen Hill Village quickly began to make a difference.

Since implementing Deputy, Aspen Hill Village has saved up to £5,000 monthly with accurate timesheets. Aspen Hill Village had previously used a paper-based system to manage staff timesheets and schedules. It was down to the line manager to record all employees’ hours and to create schedules for every one manually. Completed timesheets were then manually added into a central system, creating inevitable errors. And as if that wasn’t difficult enough, managers then had the complexity of overtime rates to deal with, which consumed more precious time.

Moving away from a paper-based system for recording time and attendance immediately reduced the number of errors, with staff now clocking in using tablets. With Deputy’s scheduling capability, Aspen Hill Village could automate rotas, saving line managers hours of tedious admin work.

And the benefits continued. Aspen Hill Village uses Deputy to integrate staff timesheets with its payroll system, reducing the number of errors during monthly payroll and automating overtime rate calculations. Admin staff now only have to field one or two payroll queries each month, rather than the 39 that they typically received with the old manual system.

All of this means more efficiency and better management. “On timesheet inaccuracies alone, Deputy saves us between £2,000-£5,000 each month,” says Director Navjot Singh. “And it makes everything so much more visible and easy to manage. We use Deputy’s customised access levels so that line managers can create shifts and central managers can have an overview of everything happening.”

Deputy has become the employee scheduling software of choice for businesses that know the value of time. Find out how much time and money you could save by using Deputy’s free Scheduling ROI Calculator.

Stop wasting time on tedious tasks and start your free trial today to keep your labor costs low and your margins healthy.