6 min read
A care group with central business departments supporting care homes and services across multiple regions. The Payroll, Recruitment, Compliance, and HR teams each handled a high volume of requests from care home managers and staff, but none had a structured system for receiving, tracking, or resolving those requests. Communication was scattered across email inboxes, phone calls, WhatsApp messages, and corridor conversations.
Service: Tech Consulting Care sub-sector: Residential, supported living, specialist care
Every central department was drowning in unstructured requests. A care home manager needing a payroll correction would send an email to the payroll team's shared inbox. A follow-up would come via WhatsApp a few days later. A phone call would chase the same issue the following week. At no point was the original request logged, assigned, tracked, or time-stamped.
The same pattern repeated across every department. Recruitment queries from hiring managers arrived by email and were forwarded between team members with no record of who was responsible. Compliance queries about policy interpretation were answered by phone with no audit trail. HR requests for contract changes, absence records, or disciplinary guidance were managed through individual inboxes that only one person could access.
The consequences were predictable. Requests fell through the gaps when the responsible person was absent or overwhelmed. Duplicate requests created duplicate work because nobody could see that an issue was already being handled. Urgent and routine requests received equal priority because there was no triage. Managers across the care homes had no visibility of whether their request had been received, let alone when it would be resolved.
For a care provider, some of these requests carry real consequences. A payroll error means a care worker is not paid correctly. A delayed DBS check means a new starter cannot begin working with vulnerable adults. A compliance question left unanswered means a care home may be operating outside policy. These aren't administrative inconveniences. They affect care delivery, staff wellbeing, and regulatory standing.
Perhaps most critically, there was no audit trail. When a compliance-sensitive request was raised - a GDPR query, a safeguarding concern, a whistleblowing report - the only record was an email thread in someone's inbox. If that person left the organisation, the record went with them.
We implemented a ticketing system across all four central departments, configured to match each team's specific workflows while providing a consistent experience for the care home managers and staff who submit requests.
Each department received a dedicated request portal where managers and staff can submit requests through structured forms. The forms capture the right information upfront, reducing the back-and-forth that previously consumed so much time. A payroll query asks for the employee name, pay period, and nature of the issue. A recruitment request asks for the role, location, and urgency. The right fields for the right department.
Every submitted request is automatically assigned a reference number, timestamped, and routed to the appropriate team member based on the request type. Requesters receive an immediate confirmation and can check the status of their request at any time without needing to chase by email or phone.
Within each department, requests are visible to the whole team on a shared dashboard. If the assigned person is absent, a colleague can pick up the request without any handover delay. Team leads can see the full queue, identify bottlenecks, and redistribute work as needed. Priority levels ensure that time-sensitive requests (a pay correction before the next payroll run, a DBS query holding up a new starter) are surfaced above routine enquiries.
We configured automated escalation rules so that requests approaching their response deadline are flagged to the team lead. Requests that breach the deadline trigger a notification to the department manager. Nothing can sit unnoticed in a queue.
Reporting dashboards were built for each department, showing request volumes, average resolution times, most common request types, and trends over time. For the first time, the organisation could see which departments were under the most pressure, which request types consumed the most time, and where process improvements would have the greatest impact.
Every internal request across Payroll, Recruitment, Compliance, and HR is now tracked from submission to resolution. There are no more lost emails, no more requests that only one person knew about, and no more chasing to find out what happened to something submitted weeks ago.
Response times are visible and measurable. The organisation can see how long each department takes to resolve different types of requests and identify where additional resource or process changes are needed. This data didn't exist before. Decisions about team capacity and process improvement were based on feeling rather than evidence.
The audit trail has been particularly valuable for the Compliance and HR teams. Every compliance query, every policy interpretation, and every sensitive HR request now has a documented history: who raised it, when, what the response was, and who handled it. For an organisation subject to CQC inspection and employment regulation, this visibility matters.
Care home managers report a noticeably better experience. They submit a request, receive a confirmation, and can check progress without chasing. The frustration of feeling ignored by head office - a common complaint in multi-site care organisations - has reduced significantly.
The reporting has already driven operational improvements. Recurring request types that appeared frequently (the same payroll query, the same compliance question) were identified and addressed at source through updated guidance, FAQ documents, and process changes. The ticketing system didn't just track problems. It revealed patterns.
Ticketing system deployed across Payroll, Recruitment, Compliance, and HR · Every internal request tracked from submission to resolution · Response time visibility for the first time · Recurring issues identified through reporting · Audit trail established for compliance-sensitive requests
Related service: Tech Consulting
When a care home manager raises a concern about a pay error, a compliance question, or a recruitment delay, they know it has been received, assigned, and tracked. The central teams that support frontline care delivery are now accountable, visible, and measurably responsive. Care homes get the support they need, when they need it.