Running a care home group means making hundreds of staffing decisions every day. And when your systems can’t keep up, the pressure lands on your managers, payroll teams, and ultimately your residents.
In a recent conversation with the Head of Technology at a leading care group and Jeremy Hudson, we talked about what changed when an 80-home provider moved from a legacy rostering setup to QCS Rostering and a group dashboard. and a group dashboard.
The problem: a legacy system that stopped moving
The Head of Technology’s group manage circa 80 care homes. Their rostering system was aging and couldn’t evolve with the business.
That created two ongoing headaches:
- Too much manual effort near the end of payroll, with head office fixing issues late in the month
- Bulky time and attendance terminals that used fobs. They broke, repairs were costly, and fobs regularly went missing
When your tools add friction, people create workarounds. That’s when mistakes creep in.
A practical win: time and attendance that staff actually use
The first change was simple, but powerful.
Instead of fobs, staff use a tablet device with multi-factor authentication built in to clock in and out, and record breaks. It’s lower maintenance for the service, and easier for staff on shift.
It also removes common failure points:
- No lost fobs
- Fewer device issues
- Less cost and disruption when equipment needs attention
The rostering shift: right people, right place, right day
Once time and attendance became easier, the bigger benefit came from day-to-day rostering control.
The Head of Technology described the focus clearly: staying safe and compliant by making sure the right staff cover the right areas, on the right days, with the right hours.
The team could also:
- Spot gaps across the week faster
- Support shift swaps
- Send out open shifts to staff through the app
That last point matters, because it changes how providers respond to short-notice gaps.
Agency spend: why “advertising shifts” matters
Agency cover is expensive. Everyone knows that. But many providers still fall back on agency because it feels like the quickest option.
With app-based shift advertising, the Head of Technology saw homes using less agency than before. He didn’t quote a specific figure (it varies by home and recruitment pressure), but the change was noticeable in practice.
Payroll: fewer end-of-month panics, more “fix it as you go”
In the legacy setup, managers sent separate reports for sickness, annual leave, and overtime. Some items sat in spreadsheets. It all landed late, and it all needed checking.
With digital rostering, the team could keep records up to date in real time. The Head of Technology highlighted a few changes that made the biggest difference:
- Sickness, annual leave, and overtime sit in the system, already recorded
- Weekly checks help teams correct errors while they still remember the details
- A trial payroll run report helps spot issues before payroll day
- Opening and closing weeks supports controlled changes, without losing oversight
The result? Less last-minute stress when payroll needs to go out.
Something else changed too: homes that had used the system longer needed less support. The Head of Technology said he received fewer calls as teams learned to correct issues weekly and built better habits.
Why they chose QCS Rostering: “the right balance” that does the job
The group explored the market.
- Some established systems felt complex and expensive
- Some newer tools looked good but didn’t offer much depth behind the scenes
QCS Care Management felt like the right balance. It supported the work they needed to do, while staying easy to navigate.
Role-based access controls also helped. The group could remove pages and functions for different users, so staff saw a simpler experience that matched their job.
Paying people more accurately: fewer disputes, fewer queues at the office door
Payroll accuracy isn’t a “nice to have”. It affects trust.
The Head of Technology described a familiar picture from the old world: staff lining up to say their hours were wrong, followed by time-consuming investigations to work out what happened.
With the new approach, accuracy improved when teams entered data correctly and used the system’s checks. Real-time updates and weekly reviews were the difference.
Group dashboards: visibility across 80 homes without digging
Once you operate at scale, “logging into a home” 80 times isn’t workable.
The Head of Technology explained how the group dashboard helped in very practical ways:
- Faster access to each home, without scrolling through a long list
- Staff search at group level, which helps when external checks come in (for example, Home Office queries asking whether someone works for you and where)
- Federated hours reporting across all homes (care hours, kitchen, domestic), run weekly or twice weekly
- Budget control, by comparing planned hours (example: 500 care hours) against actuals
- Oversight of sponsored staff, checking hours and roles, and spotting issues early
For group teams, that means fewer surprises and faster action when something looks off.
Key takeaways for care home groups
If you’re thinking about digital rostering or dashboards, these are the themes worth paying attention to:
- Remove friction at clock-in
- Shift fill needs to be quick. In-app shift advertising helps you rely less on agency
- Weekly checks beat monthly fixes
- Group dashboards unlock scale. Reporting and staff searches should not require 80 separate logins
What this really means for care groups
When you run one home, you can carry a lot in your head. When you run 80, you can’t.
The providers who scale well aren’t just working harder. They build systems that reduce friction, surface risks early, and give managers clear oversight without chasing spreadsheets.
Digital rostering and group dashboards aren’t about replacing people. They’re about backing them up. Weekly checks don’t create more work, they prevent it. Fixing small issues as you go is far quicker than untangling a month’s worth of mistakes. Payroll runs smoother. Managers stay in control. And leaders can see, clearly, that the right people are in the right place, at the right time.
That confidence matters; it protects your residents, supports your staff and it strengthens your inspection story.
If you’re reviewing your rostering or group reporting, now is the time to ask a simple question:
Is your system helping you stay in control, or slowing you down?
If you’d like to see how QCS Rostering supports growing care groups, we’re here to show you.
