Digitising care – even when no one has time for it

‘We don’t have time to save time’ – this sentence perfectly sums up the dilemma faced by many care facilities.

With daily overtime and nursing staff juggling documentation, phone calls and patient care, digitalisation seems like an additional stress factor.

Problem: If you don’t change anything, you’ll stay stuck in the rat race.

Anyone who manages a care facility knows this daily routine all too well: last-minute changes to the duty roster, holiday requests, sick notes and arrangements for cover pile up every day. Working hours are still documented by hand. In German care homes and services, working with paper, endless Excel lists and improvised communication is still common practice.

Yet modern care software solutions can provide noticeable relief from day one – if you know which features really help.

The consequences of analogue and improvised processes are serious:

• Lack of transparency: Excel lists and timesheets can easily be lost or manipulated, errors often go unnoticed and lead to dissatisfaction or even legal problems.
• Cumbersome holiday management: Holiday requests are filled out by hand and forgotten in circulation. Approvals are unnecessarily delayed.
• Poor duty rosters: Shift schedules on paper or in mailboxes are confusing, rarely up to date and take a long time to create.
• Absences cause chaos: Last-minute absences are difficult to cover flexibly, and finding replacements by telephone is a tedious process.
• Administrative and legal risks: The Working Hours Act now stipulates that digital time recording is mandatory. Without complete and transparent time recording, fines and legal uncertainties may arise.

Recognising reality: What does ‘always doing it this way’ cost us?

• Time loss & queries: Care workers spend hours correcting duty rosters, clarifying absences or passing on changes – by telephone, email or handouts. These queries seem harmless, but they add up every day.
• Errors & legal risks: Manual planning leads to accidental overlaps and breaches of break or working time regulations. Legal regulations (working time legislation, rest periods, etc.) are more difficult to comply with if there are no automated checking mechanisms in place. Digital duty rosters help to avoid errors.
• Motivation problems & staff turnover: Employees who are constantly improvising, who never know for sure when their next shift is or whether their working hours are being recorded correctly, are less motivated – and more likely to change jobs. In times of nursing shortages, this is a cost factor that should not be underestimated.
• Costs due to inefficiency: Paper, printouts, manual adjustments, rework – all of this is administrative effort without added value. Studies show that digital staff scheduling and time recording bring significant efficiency gains.

In times of staff shortages, skilled worker turnover and increasing cost pressure, each of these points poses additional risks for the team and the entire institution.

Practical example: Time travel at the ‘Haus an der Linde’ retirement home

Haus an der Linde, an institution with 90 employees, handled duty scheduling, time recording and absences purely manually until 2024. The administration grew steadily, as did the frustration within the team:

Before digitalisation:

• Around 25 hours per month spent on shift planning and corrections
• Several holiday requests per week were ‘lost’ or processed late

The digital transformation: After the introduction of a digital HR system, all employees were able to record their working hours via an app. Duty rosters were published online and automatically adjusted to individual requests. Holiday and absence requests were submitted digitally, approved and scheduled without conflict. Spontaneous gaps were filled within minutes by targeted push notifications to available colleagues.

The measurable result after a few months:

• 70% less time spent on planning and post-processing
• No more lost requests or forgotten corrections
• Higher satisfaction among employees and management
• Improved compliance with legal requirements

Solution: Digital tools for time recording, absences and duty scheduling

Modern software solutions radically simplify shift planning, time recording and absence management and are specially designed for everyday care work.

Digital time recording:

• Employees clock in and out on the move via an app, on a PC or at terminals – even when they are out and about or in different buildings.
• All times, breaks and overtime are automatically documented, overtime balances are made visible and transferred to payroll accounting.
• Manipulation and paperwork are eliminated – every change is transparently traceable.

Holiday and absence management:

• Holiday requests are submitted digitally and processed automatically, including a real-time overview of approved and pending requests.
• Absences (e.g. illness or training) are recorded centrally; the system automatically suggests replacements.
• Employees can view their holiday account online at any time.

Automated shift and duty scheduling:

• Duty schedules are created according to predefined rules (e.g. qualifications, preferences, working time regulations) or optimised automatically.
• Shift changes are sent to all team members with a single click; short-term gaps can be filled immediately using suggestion functions.
• The planning software detects conflicts and double bookings at an early stage, significantly reducing errors and queries.

Real-time evaluations and compliance:

• All working hours, deviations from the plan, as well as holidays and absences are available for evaluation at the touch of a button, even for the works council or external auditors.
• Legal certainty: Digital time recording complies with GDPR and labour law, including audit-proof documentation and verification functions.

Recommended action: Digitise – but realistically and step by step

What decision-makers need to know and do:

Experience shows that digitalisation is successful when it is designed as a process and firmly anchored in everyday life. These are the most important steps:

1. Identify needs, define priorities: Ask your team where the current time pressure is greatest – duty scheduling, time recording, documentation or communication? Select a specific pilot project.
2. Choose the right solution: Review offers, test demo versions and choose providers with industry experience and support.
3. Involve employees from the outset: Involve your team at an early stage, promote digital pioneers (‘digital leaders’) and motivate them with measurable interim goals.
4. Introduce gradually, measure success: Start with one system and expand when it is established – always accompanied by practical training.

Small, quick wins in particular show that digitalisation is not just an investment, but a way to break free from the cycle of overload.

Conclusion: Gain freedom – shape the future

Those who start digitising processes today are creating space for what matters: better care, satisfied employees, less stress.

Take the first step: request a no-obligation software demo or flyer and discover how simple digital solutions can revolutionise your shift planning and time management – for care that gives everyone more freedom.