How better people management systems can help aged care organisations thrive

The Vice President and Head of Revenue for ANZ of a cloud-based human capital management software platform explains how the technology has the potential to boost efficiency, visibility and employee experience in aged care.

Is your aged care organisation finding it challenging to fill rosters, stay on top of labour costs and ensure employees are paid correctly?

For many aged care providers, the answer is yes.

That’s hardly surprising, given the nature of the enterprise. Delivering the high-quality, 24/7 care older Australians require and deserve is a complex undertaking. It necessitates maintaining a sizeable workforce of full-time and casual aged care workers to staff residential facilities and provide in-home support.

The sector is heavily regulated, with legislated care ratios and hours, and mandatory requirements, such as the round-the-clock presence of registered nurses.

And the healthcare and human services modern awards governing employees’ remuneration and entitlements are complex industrial instruments. Calculating wages correctly for employees working irregular shift patterns and overtime is no easy feat.

Managing large teams with a mishmash of systems

That’s particularly the case for aged care providers whose human capital management departments are operating in manual or semi-manual mode. In 2026, a surprising number still are, including several that employ upwards of 10,000 workers.

Disjointed legacy systems and processes are common, with some organisations maintaining standalone applications for recruitment, onboarding, rostering, time capture, award confirmation and payroll.

Having a piecemeal IT ecosystem in place makes it difficult to maintain visibility over operations and outgoings. For example, it can be difficult to determine in real time whether you’re sticking to budget or overspending on wages and overtime. That absence of insight tends to mean you’ll be unable to ‘course correct’ until weeks or months later, when the books are balanced.

If hours worked need to be transferred manually from your sign-in system to your payroll application, the risk of human error is ever present. It’s accompanied by the risk of staff being incorrectly paid, if you don’t use payroll software from a vendor that invests in keeping its platform up to date with the latest changes to industry awards.

Payroll discrepancies can be costly and damaging for organisations, if they’re not recognised and rectified quickly. Since 1 January 2025, intentional underpayment of wages and entitlements has been a criminal offence under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), applying to employers who deliberately underpay their staff; one which can attract large fines and even jail time for egregious and serial offenders.

From confusion to clarity and cost savings

Replacing standalone HR and payroll systems and processes with a single, cloud-based human capital management (HCM) platform can reduce many of these risks and help your organisation optimise its workforce planning and management.

Ideally, you’ll opt for one that enables you to harness the power of AI to create rosters that comply with workplace health and safety regulations, legislated staffing ratios and mandated daily care hours, while minimising unplanned overtime.

Choose a solution from a vendor that’s committed to staying up to date with changes to the industrial awards in force in Australia and you can be confident your staff are being remunerated at the right level for their experience and responsibilities.

Meanwhile, utilising the same platform for time capture and payroll will reduce the risk of those wages and entitlements being calculated incorrectly.

Making the switch won’t only provide you with unprecedented visibility and control over all aspects of the HCM function. You’ll also be able to slash the sum your organisation spends licensing and supporting multiple specialist applications.

Streamlining recruitment and training

Moreover, having the right HCM platform in place will enable you to streamline many aspects of the recruitment and onboarding processes, from the intake and review of CVs to the recording and analysis of preliminary video interviews prior to candidate shortlisting.

And once new recruits are onboarded, your HCM platform can be used to summarise their skillsets and keep track of their training status. That’s a genuine boon, given the federal government’s heightened focus on quality care and compliance.

Empowering your employees on the frontline and in the office

You’ll also be able to engage more effectively with employees, while lightening the load for your people and culture team.

Rather than having to lodge enquiries about their leave balances or to request shift swaps, aged care workers will be able to ‘self serve’, and receive information directly and approvals handled efficiently through the system. That’s empowering for them and an efficiency gain for your organisation.

Not having to spend hundreds of hours a year processing such requests can free your P&C specialists up to perform more value-adding tasks — think strategic workforce planning, talent development and performance management.

Tapping into your alumni worker network

The aged care sector is perennially short of good staff and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. An ‘alumni network’ makes it easier to re-hire former workers — and others in their networks — but, historically, maintaining one has been an impractical proposition for all but the largest of providers.

With the right HCM platform in place, it need not be. HR software can be used to obtain employees’ permission to contact them after they finish up and to send regular bulletins advising them of job openings at your facilities.

Optimising your aged care operations in 2026 and beyond

Providing high-quality care to older Australians who rely on aged care organisations calls for a strong, reliable frontline team. Deploying a single AI-powered HCM platform will make managing yours simpler, safer and more cost-effective, right across the employee lifecycle. If optimising your operations is on your agenda for FY 2027, it’s an investment well worth considering.

*Rob Husband, Vice President and Head of Revenue for ANZ at Dayforce.

Top image credit: iStock.com/Jacob Wackerhausen