About ermha365

For over 40 years, ermha365 has provided a lifeline to people facing complex mental health and disability issues, providing psychosocial outreach, case management services, carer support and more. 

As ermha365’s business grew and evolved, they encountered mounting difficulties in integrating their administrative and scheduling software with other systems they relied on. 

They needed a solution that would not only streamline their administrative tasks, but also enable them to focus on their core purpose to empower individuals and communities facing life’s toughest challenges to overcome adversity and thrive. 

Interview with

Giuseppe Prestia,
IT Systems Manager
ermha365

Casey Hynes,
Operations Manager
ermha365

The Challenge

The main reason for looking for a new system was to improve Rostering and Time Attendance (RTA), according to IT Systems Manager at ermha365, Giuseppe Prestia. 

“We used to ship our RTA data at the end of the fortnight for payroll purposes. We would push it through our award interpreter and then it would go to payroll,” says Giuseppe. 

“Our award interpreter is very good, but the problem was that the award interpretation was not live.” 
This meant that in order for their award interpreter to “talk” to their scheduling software, the team needed to implement a series of highly manual processes that could take days to complete. 

Casey Hynes, Project Manager at ermha365, speaks about the reality of what this looked like for people completing RTA. 

“Every time there was a change, it was challenging for us to move with that change. We had to find workarounds to try and meet the needs,” says Casey. “It was very time consuming and data heavy.” 
“We had a lot of people doing very mundane jobs to try and fix the gaps that our system had,” Casey continues. 

Ultimately, the time came for ermha365 to explore a modern option that could streamline their operations and save staff time completing menial administrative tasks. 

“We just needed to move on to bigger and better things,” says Casey. 

The Solution

“I was tasked with finding a system that would give rosterers the right information to know how rostering will affect the award and breaches of the award,” Giuseppe explains. 

The answer? AlayaCare’s Integrations and API solution. 
AlayaCare provides several REST APIs that enable IT teams and developers to access, modify and report on data and integrate it with 3rd party solutions. 

ermha365 implemented AlayaCare Integrations to facilitate an exchange of information between AlayaCare’s scheduling system and ermha365’s award interpretation software. 

Giuseppe explains that his team completed an extensive review before landing on AlayaCare as their software of choice. 

“It was a bit of a no brainer for us to choose AlayaCare as it matched everything we already had,” says Giuseppe. “And we were very, very happy with the outcome.” 

Casey agrees. “We were really reassured, and it’s been demonstrated, that AlayaCare is a system that will continue to develop and shift to meet the needs of the work that we do in an ever-changing environment.” 

Giuseppe says that the intuitive design of AlayaCare was a bonus for their team. 

“We love the modern user interface,” he says. “And the single sign-on – it’s amazing. Amazing.”  

The Result

After implementing AlayaCare’s integrations, the team at ermha365 quickly noticed the impacts. 

“Payroll used to take us a day, now it takes us a couple of hours.” says Casey. 
This is largely thanks to the automation of overtime monitoring via their API solution. This solution saved them 12 hours per week in report preparation, feedback, support and identifying and addressing errors. 

Additionally, they reduced their exposure to risk due to Less than Required Break (LRB) violations from a peak of 34 per fortnight to zero. 

Rostering has also dramatically improved, with a 40% reduction in time spent creating a roster, and staff filling shifts at least 50% more quickly. 
Finally, there has been an 84% decrease in staff overtime costs as a differential. 

But the biggest benefit of AlayaCare, according to Casey, is knowing they have a system that will adapt to the ever-changing environment of mental health and disability. 

“Having stable APIs, having the ability to have a system that is going to adapt to change, it’s just invaluable for us because the industry we work in changes so frequently and quickly. To know we’ve got the backing of a system and the people working there to enhance it as need be is a no-brainer.” 

The result is a product that supports the whole team at ermha365. 

“To sum up the benefits of AlayaCare in one sentence: A happier workforce,” says Giuseppe.