Graham Care
The Planday Blog spoke to Will Graham, Digital Transformation Manager at Graham Care. He joined the business in 2017 and led the implementation of Planday and will share how Planday helps them run their purpose-built care homes by heart.
Graham Care:
About Graham Care
The Graham Care Group was founded in 1996 and has been run as a family business ever since. The company counts seven locations across the south-east of England and is home to hundreds of people with nursing needs the help of more than 600 highly skilled employees.
Will Graham
Digital Transformation Manager
Graham Care
“In such a highly regulated environment as ours Planday simply makes it easy for us to manage HR and staff documentation, which is important.”
Digitisation is the key to high standard delivery
Looking after people with great care in a safe and personalised matter is at the heart of Graham Care’s business. Making sure they have the right staff to look after residents’ individual needs and care is central to the organisation’s vision.
“We aim to provide residents with enough space for their friends and family to come and visit, and most importantly make sure they have a home for life”, Will Graham tells The Planday Blog.
25 years ago, Graham Care could only house 40 residents, but over the decades business has grown rapidly and is moving away from converted buildings to a care suite concept with new purpose-built homes. This will give the residents larger units and get nursing care within their homes while staying close to friends and family.
It’s safe to say that Will knows the business inside and out. He even lived in one of the care homes for two months to understand the experience on the ground. He believes that the key to success is to be found in digitisation.
Will has introduced a lot of systems over the years and Planday has been the kind that has helped his business run smoother and didn’t cause any complaints from employees.
“For Graham Care to succeed we were on the lookout for a slick, app-based system and a solution that can support a complex set of requirements and regulations,” Will says.
“In such a highly-regulated environment as ours Planday simply makes it easy for us to manage the HR and staff documentation, which is important.”
“Of all the systems we have used, Planday has had the most universal acceptance rate across all users and it has transformed our business from an administrative perspective.”
Clear staff communication makes the work easier
Graham Care employs more than 600 staff across several locations, and a strong and stable messaging system is essential to enable its employees to always stay connected, catch up quickly and keep an overview of important conversations.
“Communication has been a big improvement for us. Before we used to just send text messages, but we didn’t have the force read and answer options. With Planday it’s now possible to do so and our staff members can easily read every message on their phones as they go,” Will says.
Besides being able to communicate swift and easy on the go, getting an online solution that connects easily with their other digital systems has made Planday a perfect fit for Graham Care.
“We were looking for an app-based solution where our employees can look at their shifts, payslips and everything else whenever they want. Planday also has a good messaging system with force reply and force read,” Will says.
“Planday has also made payroll a lot easier since all holiday settlement is integrated reducing the processing time for payroll by a half”.
Open API’s and integration make business better
Adopting the principle of real time compliance management has only been possible because of Graham Care’s digital transformation and their investment in digital systems. Will appreciates Planday’s ability to integrate with open API’s thus improving staff efficiency, reducing operating costs.
“Nowadays we are finding that especially in businesses like ours, you have several specialists in their own areas, so it makes sense for us to make use of all these systems and enjoy them all together through the open API’s. That’s why we are keen to have partners who are willing to share and open their API” , he elaborates.
Will says digitising Graham Care’s workforce collaboration has helped unlock its full potential. By implementing Planday several parts of their business have become a lot more hassle-free for both managers and staff. Now payroll, holiday and HR management are all interconnected.
“It’s much more convenient for both our managers and staff now. They can easily get an overview of the worked hours, the staff members are able to see their pay slips directly on their phone and they can request holidays without using paper sheets any time,” Will says.
“The schedule gives you a clear overview of whether you are short or over in terms of staffing, and that has helped to make things work efficiently”.
70% of our operating costs is staffing, so Planday has helped us be more efficient. If you get that working well then that does really affect the bottom line”.
Want to know how you can make your day work?
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See how Planday can help you improve staff and cost efficiency with smarter communication, better staff management and easy payroll by integrating to the systems you already use.
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