How Lifeways modernised rostering, boosting employee engagement by 23% and cutting agency reliance by 77%

In 1995, Jerry and Susan Bereika established Lifeways Group to provide independence to adults with complex health needs. They aimed to develop a new healthcare service model that would allow underserved adults to enjoy healthier, independent, more dignified lives.

The Bereikas’ efforts quickly picked up steam. By 2005, they had supported more than 600 people. Twenty years later, the organisation has expanded to include more than 1,000 locations, 4,000 people supported, and 10,000 staff members across three countries.

The core mission of Lifeways remains the same, but service delivery has evolved alongside the adult social care sector. In 2022, Lifeways launched a Transformation Plan to invest in the systems, training, and software platforms that lead to exceptional care. This investment would include a solution for digital rostering, which would streamline and simplify the company’s unique scheduling needs.

Part of the Transformation Plan included identifying and eliminating inefficiencies. A logical first step was to move away from physical rostering and embrace an automated system that could keep up with the team.

Lifeways Chief Transformation Officer Amanda Brooke explains the company’s desire to shift away from their old model.

“We knew there were inefficiencies, but we couldn’t identify [all of] them from our pen-and-paper approach,” she says. “We needed a solution that would digitise our data and give us oversight over the way we operate.”

One of these challenges included time-consuming scheduling practices. Staff members had to create paper rosters, record start times, and duplicate them across multiple systems. The additional steps led to wasted time and effort for staff and limited oversight for service and location managers.

Limited visibility and inaccurate time forecasting forced Lifeways to rely heavily on agencies. “If we look back to 2022, you’ll see our agency usage was at 10.5%,” Amanda says. “The more we can reduce our agency usage, the better and more consistent staffing we can provide, which supports the people we support even more.”

Lifeways was looking for a modern rostering system that offered:

• Central data oversight

• Fast, automated scheduling processes

• Simpler and more accurate billing

These measures would empower staff and enable the organisation to better respond to the dynamic needs of people living with complex conditions.

Lifeways looked at several solutions, all of which met their well-documented requirements. What made Deputy stand apart — and what was so crucial to a successful transformation — was how easy it was to use for frontline teams.

“Deputy has been a key step in our transformation journey,” Amanda says. “The rollout across all of our services was incredibly successful. I’m very pleased to say that we have realised the benefits that we forecast at the outset.”

Improved time savings and efficiencies

The team scored an early win during the Deputy pilot, when a manager needed to address staff shortages for certain services. Addressing these shortages would ordinarily have taken most of the day. Deputy enabled him to complete the roster in the time it took to make a cup of tea. By the time he returned to his desk, nearly all the shifts had been filled.

Since the complete deployment, managers have continued to reclaim time.

“We’ve seen efficiency increases among all of our managers just by removing double-key entries into multiple systems,” Amanda says. “That has saved our managers a huge amount of time to spend with people, not just systems and paperwork.”

Simplified payment and scheduling

The adult care industry rarely operates like a nine-to-five office job — and Lifeways had to adjust scheduling capabilities to accommodate the nontraditional hours. 

“On any given day, one of our support workers could be working with up to nine different people,” Amanda says. “We wanted the ability to have a shift broken down into multiple 'micro-shifts' to simplify scheduling for our teams whilst meeting our billing requirements."

Deputy help them to create these smaller blocks of time, which allow the company to bill effectively for single shifts worked throughout the day.

“The Deputy team was willing to help us design this. They have been very collaborative and open to discussion about the way that we work, ensuring that the differences that come with the social care sector can be covered through the application,” Amanda says.

 Lifeways also appreciates how Deputy actively collaborates with customers, listens closely, and is committed to setting the gold standard through app and web experience.

Reduced reliance on agencies

With better visibility and more predictable rosters, Lifeways has reduced their agency usage and labour costs. The support from Deputy has contributed to an agency usage drop from 10.5% to 2.4% from 2022 to 2024.

“This is a fundamental shift," Amanda says. "It aligns with our overall organisation shift to move to more digital platforms and have our data structure set up in a way that optimises the way that we work.

Increased employee engagement

Lifeways has also seen its employee engagement increase by 23%. The ability to better accommodate the team has supported this improvement and led to a happier workforce.

The Lifeways leadership team has plans to expand their partnership with Deputy and collaborate on additional projects around rostering, timesheeting, and potentially broader functionalities, such as ways to become and remain an employer of choice.

With manual rostering headaches behind them, the Lifeways team can now focus on creating meaningful impact for thousands of families.