Southern Cross Care QLD
)
Key takeaways
)
Hear how Southern Cross Care QLD are experiencing greater flexibility and autonomy with Humanforce
Watch their story to learn more.
About Southern Cross Care
Southern Cross Care Qld is a not-for-profit organisation that has been providing vital aged care services to Australians for more than 40 years. Since its establishment in 1979, the organisation has grown to employ more than 1300 staff, serving approximately 1500 people across 13 aged care facilities and five retirement villages. Southern Cross Care Qld also offers home care services to more than 2000 people across metropolitan and regional Queensland.
Challenges
From the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety in 2018 and the recommendations made in its 2021 report, to the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing staff shortages, the aged care industry has faced significant challenges over the past decade.
Since joining the organisation in 2020, Adam Priest, Head of People and Culture, has helped Southern Cross Care Qld navigate through the complex aged care operating environment. A key component of this has been the HR technology used.
Southern Cross Care’s existing rostering system could not keep pace with the demands being placed upon it. “We had a rostering system that was at end of life,” Priest explains. “It had done an ok job of rostering for our aged care facilities, but it hadn’t kept up with the growth in our organisation and the changes in our industry.”
Priest knew that any solution chosen had to be able to provide key information to staff who were always on-the-go via a mobile app but would also give them greater flexibility and autonomy around hours worked. That meant having the ability to pick up extra shifts as and when desired.
He was also keen to reduce the admin burden. “We wanted to reduce the burden on our admin staff, many of whom were spending most of their days trying to fill shifts, swapping rosters around and creating future rosters,” Priest says.
The solution: Why Humanforce?
Priest had used Humanforce in another organisation and had enjoyed that experience. As a Registered Nurse with experience running aged care facilities himself, Priest knew what was required from a frontline worker and manager perspective.
“I’d worked directly with the staff at Humanforce, I’d gone through the transition from on-premises services to Humanforce Cloud, so I had some comfort in knowing what the Humanforce suite could do,” he says.
Six Humanforce solutions and features appealed to Priest.
1. On-the-go accessibility
Southern Cross Care’s employees and managers need mobile access to everything they require to do their jobs well.
“What made it easy for me to decide that Humanforce was right for us was the Humanforce Work App,” Priest says.
Using the app, employees can check their roster and shift times, bid on shifts, view their leave balance and apply for leave, and communicate with their manager – to mention just a small number of features. Meanwhile, managers can make shift offers and change rosters, check attendance, and approve timesheets and leave requests on-the-go.
2. Rostering & Scheduling
Humanforce’s Rostering & Scheduling solution has helped to streamline Southern Cross Care’s rostering process, while also improving visibility and reporting. Priest explains:
“It’s a simple process for setting up rosters, updating or changing rosters and creating rolling rosters for the next fortnight,” he says. “It has also given us greater visibility and reporting functionality.”
As an example of the reporting functionality, Priest appreciates that his team can produce reports showing what percentage of their master rosters are covered by permanent staff.
“Well over 95% of our master rosters are filled with staff who have contracts for those hours, who know when they’re working. So, staff have confidence that they can book an appointment with their dentist in three months’ time on a Thursday because that’s their day off. And they know that’s going to be their day off because we have them set up in the master roster.”
The Rostering & Scheduling solution has also added greater flexibility to staff. “If someone has other responsibilities, as most of our staff do, they may only be able to commit to working three days a week. However, if they’ve got a bit of extra time and want to pick up extra shifts, it’s easy for them to do that. The shift notification comes through the mobile app and with one click of a button they can pick that shift up.”
3.Time & Attendance
Working in tandem with the Rostering & Scheduling solution is Humanforce’s Time & Attendance solution. Priest says the clocking features in particular appeal to his workforce. “It enables us to send messages to staff. So, when someone shows up for their shift, they clock in, that information is received and they see that, and when they clock out, the app reminds them of when their next shift is going to be.”
He adds that this is important, because staff may on occasion forget that they have picked up an extra shift. “You were at home, the shift came through, you confirmed that you could do it and you’ve accepted that shift offer – but then it slips your mind. So, the reminder that your next shift is actually tomorrow is handy,” Priest says.
Staff also benefit from greater visibility: they know what they’ll be paid. “When they do a shift, the app tells them what hours they worked and how that’s going to be paid,” Priest says. “At this time when cost of living is a real issue for our staff, being able to understand what shifts they’ve worked and what money is coming in has been really helpful.”
4. Qualifications Management
Southern Cross Care Qld uses Humanforce’s Qualifications Management feature to track qualifications, vaccinations, and other essential work-related certifications. As an industry serving vulnerable Australians, this is critical. Priest cites the example of ensuring Registered Nurses have up-to-date qualifications to fulfill mandatory care minute requirements – and indeed the Humanforce system will not allow anyone to be rostered unless their qualifications are up-to-date and valid.
Humanforce is also used by Southern Cross Care to keep tabs on when things like police checks expire, and other training certifications such as dementia care training.
“We’ve also of course have gone through COVID-19 vaccinations, and we have ongoing flu vaccinations,” Priest says. “We can track all of that in Humanforce. It sends reminders to our staff about when things are due, well ahead of time.”
5. HR management (Humanforce HR)
Humanforce’s HR solution has been used by Southern Cross Care Qld to consolidate all employee information in one place, digitise paper-based processes, and obtain deeper insights from employees.
“We’ve developed digital workflows in Humanforce HR to systemise all of our paper-based processes,” Priest says. “All of our people-related information sits in the Humanforce system – everything from their qualifications to changes in their position over time, their pay rate, their performance management data, and training and education information.”
Southern Cross Care also uses Humanforce HR's Employee Engagement functionality to do pulse surveys of the workforce every two months. “We’ve gathered some fantastic data that tells us exactly what we’re doing right and what we need to improve,” Priest says.
6. Financial wellbeing (Humanforce Benefits)
Humanforce Benefits suite offers a range of financial wellbeing tools, benefits, and education for employees. For Southern Cross Care Qld, the most appealing feature of the Benefits suite has been the ability to provide workers with access to earned wages – a feature that is used by 60-70% of their staff.
“If a staff member needs extra funds for a particular event and they’ve already worked several shifts, they can jump on the Thrive app and have a percentage of those funds transferred straight away, instead of waiting until pay day.”, Priest says.
This functionality also improves shift take-up rates. Priest explains: “I’m likely to spend more money on holiday than I would at home. So, if I want to pick up a couple of extra shifts on the Thursday and Friday before I go away, I can do that and then have that paid on Saturday so I can head off on my holiday with a bit of extra money.”
Such flexibility has also helped the company’s payroll team. “In the past our payroll team has struggled if our pay day happened to fall directly after Christmas, say on Wednesday, but the Monday and Tuesday have been public holidays. Being able to adjust that pay day because staff have already got access to their money if they need it earlier, has been a fundamental game-changer.”
Results
Priest says the implementation of Humanforce has improved communication with staff, reduced employee turnover, and saved time and resources by automating tasks such as rostering and timesheet approvals. Key results have included:
1. Time savings and process improvements
“Almost immediately, Humanforce offered time savings. In our first pay fortnight just at one of our sites alone there were over 300 shifts that were filled by pushing out available shifts through the mobile app.
“That’s 300 shifts that someone didn’t need to make phone calls for and we didn’t need to look for agency workers. In addition, our staff were able to pick shifts that they wanted rather than shifts that we were begging them to do. It has resulted in a significant reduction in time to fill shifts[SV1] [IH2] , and that has been replicated every fortnight for the last four years.”
There’s also been time saved in the processing of timesheets, thanks to easier verification that someone rostered to work has shown up on time and stayed for the time expected of them. Priest explains that if staff sign in at the right time, according to their roster, and then sign out at the correct time, that timesheet is automatically processed, and their manager doesn’t need to do anything. “For more than 80% of all the shifts we do – that’s thousands of shifts each fortnight – the timesheets are automatically approved.”
Just as important is ensuring that people are remunerated correctly and that the right penalty rates and allowances are paid. “The HumanforceAward Interpretation Engine that was set up and built as part of implementation helps to ensure we’re paying our staff correctly,” Priest says.
2. Reduced employee turnover and increased satisfaction
Impressively, the employee turnover rate at Southern Cross Care Qld has decreased from 40% four years ago, to 17% in mid-2024, and sits as low as 4-5% at certain sites.
“That’s meant a huge reduction in recruitment and training just by being able to keep our staff,” Priest says. “Was that all because of Humanforce? No, we’ve done lots of things to reduce that turnover. But it’s all been underpinned by the data and feedback that’s coming through from the Humanforce tools.”
He adds that other contributors to the turnover reduction have been early access to earned wages and being able to offer greater autonomy around the shifts worked, which has enabled people to build work around their lives instead of the other way around.
Employee satisfaction has also improved. Responses to two pulse survey questions asked every eight weeks have steadily improved over time. These two questions are: ‘How happy are you at work?’ and ‘How likely would you be to recommend Southern Cross Care Qld as an employer to family and friends?’ (the employee Net Promoter Score or eNPS).
“Our eNPS sits on average at about 42, up from sitting in the 30s 18 months ago. Five years ago, it was in the 20s,” Priest says.
Research suggests that in the health industry, a reasonable score is anything positive. “The average score is -7 in the health industry,” Priest says. “We’re really pleased it’s sitting in the 40s now.”