'Rostering' or 'Service delivery'

The Disability/Aged Care sector has always had a focus on 'rostering', but is it 'over-weighted' in this age of consumer-directed-care, should the view for solutions be broader?

The first question I often get from disability and aged care service providers is 'can you do rostering'? Of course, but the question is almost always focused on the internal compliance requirement of putting staff in a location and paying them right. Thats important I appreciate, very important, but is it the right focus in this era of quality of care scrutiny and client choice/churn. If we dare to think of our carer staff as a 'strategic asset' to satisfy and retain customers at the point of care, we become less concerned about their timesheet, but look to maximise the whole 'service delivery' customer engagement are they best enabled to do that? Is there strategic or customer value to have a roster and pay right on award? I'd challenge it doesnt.

I can hear the howls, 'rostering is critical to provide the staff to care for customers!'. Of course we must staff a facility to the right level of care, and ensure people are paid right and traditional rostering/T&A systems generally can do that at varying degrees of elegance, less so for home care scenarios. But paying people right is mostly a hygiene function for any business. Shouldnt the focus be on our customer-facing carers as a strategic asset for customer service and retention? And if so, dont we want them to be more digitally empowered to provide care and a great service, than just to keep their timesheet?

'Service Delivery' or whatever you call it, is the frontend of the business, where the carers are face to face with the customer, its the 'moment of truth' for quality of care and customer satisfaction. That makes it a key strategic function for service providers, heck its what the business is there to do! But its important to appreciate that the front-facing workers, besides being paid and trained, need to be empowered and enabled to maximise that interaction, a real 'moment of truth'.

I understand that traditionally the 'roster' was the key, as revenue and customer retention was largely locked in govt funding schemes... we just had to get the staff on shift... but thats not the case now. Disability and Aged Care customers have choice of spend and 'Service Delivery', that 'face to face' customer event, should be a strategic asset for service providers, to ensure customer acquisition and retention.

Of course we need rosters, and award/EA compliance, thats the cost side of the workforce, and employers have little control on that, but revenue is driven by the services delivered, how good they are, how efficient, and how happy the customer is... maximising the ability of the workforce to do that is critical.

This is not new, other industries like mobile salesperson, mortgage brokers or maintenance technicans as examples have specific mobile digital tools to do their job in the field. Healthcare service providers (Disability and Aged Care), especially with the growing @home market, need to look at this workforce management issue. 'Tooling' of frontline carers to better perform their job, at the point of care, provides a higher strategic value to a service provider than a digital timesheet. Its what happens in between clocking-on and clocking-off that adds value.

Disclaimer: I currently work at Skedulo which has enabled me to get this insight. Of course Skedulo helps address this challenge by providing a service delivery scheduling solution, so go ahead and call me biased, but I still think service providers need to recognise with new business-models, the field-based 'service delivery' function is THE strategic asset to securing their customers satisfaction. We still need 'time and attendance' to pay staff right of course, no argument, it's just not strategic to grow and secure customers.