How a disability provider cut rostering admin by 60% — and improved carer retention

Background

A disability support provider with 45 carers and 22 active NDIS participants. Two experienced coordinators. A rostering system built on Excel and WhatsApp that had served them since they registered in 2019.

When one of their coordinators went on extended leave in 2024, the organisation's operational fragility became visible. The replacement coordinator could not navigate the inherited spreadsheet. Client jobs were missed. Carers received conflicting information. The director spent three weeks firefighting before the situation stabilised.

They came to Teiro with a clear brief: "We need something that is not held together by one person's memory."

What they were dealing with

The roster was a shared Excel workbook with separate tabs for each week, colour-coded by coordinator convention. Carer availability was tracked in a separate sheet that was updated inconsistently. When the primary coordinator was absent, interpreting the colour scheme required asking her — which was problematic when she was on sick leave.

Carer communication happened through a combination of a WhatsApp group (for general announcements), individual SMS (for specific shift confirmations), and phone calls (for anything urgent). There was no record of who had been told what, when. Disputes about whether a carer had been informed of a shift change were common and unresolvable.

Qualifications were tracked in a third spreadsheet — first aid expiry dates, police check dates, NDIS Worker Screening clearances. The spreadsheet was accurate approximately 80% of the time. The 20% inaccuracy was discovered during a pre-audit review when two carers were found to have expired first aid certificates and one had an NDIS Worker Screening check that had lapsed six months earlier.

The incident register was a shared Word document. It had 7 entries in the previous 12 months. A review suggested the actual number of minor incidents was significantly higher; most had been handled verbally and never written up.

The transition

The organisation implemented Teiro over a four-week period in February 2025.

Week one and two: Data setup. Carer profiles, qualification records, and client information imported. The coordination team worked with Teiro's onboarding support to map their existing roster structure into the system.

Week three: Parallel running. Both the old spreadsheet and Teiro were maintained simultaneously. This surfaced several data inconsistencies — a carer whose qualification file had different expiry dates in the spreadsheet versus the original certificates. The parallel period was frustrating but valuable.

Week four: Go-live. Carers were onboarded onto the mobile app. The WhatsApp group was retained for social communication but explicitly removed from the shift notification workflow.

Results at twelve months

Rostering time reduced from 18 hours to 7 hours per week. The automated conflict detection, carer availability overlay, and one-click notification meant the coordinators were spending time on actual coordination decisions rather than data entry and manual checking.

Carer retention improved noticeably. The previous year, the organisation had lost 12 carers. In the twelve months following implementation, they lost 5. While multiple factors were in play, exit interview data from the carers who left identified scheduling and communication issues less frequently than in prior years.

Zero qualification compliance gaps at their 2025 certification audit. The automatic expiry tracking and alert system meant the compliance gaps that had existed in the spreadsheet era were proactively resolved well before audit.

Incident documentation increased — which was a good thing. With an easy-to-use mobile incident reporting tool, minor incident documentation increased from 7 entries in the preceding 12 months to 31. This was not an increase in incidents; it was an increase in the proportion of incidents being captured. The quality team now had meaningful data to work with.

The organisation is no longer dependent on one person's knowledge. When the primary coordinator took planned leave at the end of 2025, their replacement was able to work effectively in the system from day two. The cover period that had been a crisis in 2024 was, twelve months later, a non-event.

What the coordinator said

"I spent most of my first year in this job recreating what the previous coordinator kept in her head. Now the system holds it. I can see where every carer is, what their qualifications are, who is available, and what is coming up — without having to ask anyone or find the right version of a spreadsheet. That feels like the job should feel."

All details have been edited to protect operational confidentiality. The outcomes described reflect the actual experience of a Teiro customer. [Book a demo to see Teiro in action](/demo).