Case Study: How Cooinda Cut Performance Admin by 93% and Transformed Staff Recognition

Background

Cooinda is a regional aged care provider that experienced rapid growth, nearly doubling its workforce from 75 to 150 staff members in just over two years. This expansion brought significant challenges: cultural shifts, process inefficiencies, and the mounting pressure of meeting Australia's Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards.

Naomi Taylor, Operations Manager, and Dana Unicomb, Quality and Capability Coordinator, faced the daunting task of stabilising HR, training, and performance management processes while addressing a critical issue revealed in staff surveys: employees consistently reported they did not feel recognised or valued.

With registration audits looming between November and February, and staff satisfaction plateauing despite improvement efforts, Cooinda needed a solution that could deliver both efficiency and genuine impact.

The Challenge: Doubling in Size, Drowning in Admin

Manual, Time-Consuming Processes

Before Ausmed Perform, performance management consumed 10-15 hours per week of administrative time. The process involved manually scheduling appraisals in spreadsheets, printing and distributing paper forms, chasing staff to complete pre-work, following up with managers to conduct reviews, scanning completed forms back into systems, and re-entering data and action items into separate spreadsheets.

"I was spending like 10-15 hours a week just chasing appraisals, scheduling them, sending out forms, scanning them in. Now? Barely an hour a week." - Naomi Taylor, Operations Manager

Compliance Risks

Annual appraisals consistently bunched towards December, colliding with leave periods and creating last-minute compliance stress. With strengthened standards requiring robust evidence of performance management (Action 2.9.7), Cooinda needed a system that could demonstrate compliance easily during audits.

Lack of Staff Recognition

Despite conducting regular staff satisfaction surveys, employees reported they didn't feel recognised. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) for staff recognition had plateaued, and feedback wasn't being actioned systematically.

"The main thing that the staff were telling us was that they didn't feel recognised. So we were really excited about Ausmed because we could get the appraisal system on there but then also use some formal way of giving feedback." - Naomi Taylor

Ad Hoc Performance Tracking

Performance issues, medical certificates, and staff records were scattered across spreadsheets with unreliable filters. Spelling errors in names created duplicate entries, and there was no confidence that complete records existed for any individual employee.

"We used to run performance logs in a spreadsheet. No one screws up your filters now. If you spell the first or last name wrong, your filters don't work. When I'm looking at someone's performance, I'm confident that everything's there." - Dana Unicomb, Quality and Capability Coordinator

Ineffective Probation Management

There was no consistent system for ensuring new staff received timely probation reviews at the four-month mark, creating risks for early identification of performance or cultural fit issues.

The Solution: Shifting from Chasing to Coaching

Cooinda implemented Ausmed Perform in 2024 to digitise, automate, and embed accountability across their performance management system.

Automated Appraisal Cycles

The team digitised their annual appraisal process and used a creative workaround for probation: backdating enrolment dates by eight months so that staff automatically received their probation review at four months, then annual reviews every 12 months thereafter.

Manager Accountability

Team leaders took ownership of scheduling and completing appraisals rather than relying on HR to chase them. This shift embedded performance management into day-to-day leadership responsibilities.

Feedback Blitz

Cooinda launched a "feedback blitz" when first implementing the system, encouraging supervisors and staff to use Perform's recognition tools. The goal was simple: ensure every staff member received at least one piece of genuine, timely feedback.

"We really did a blitz when we first got access to the system to make sure everyone felt recognised and knew the system was there and where to find the feedback. At least everybody gets something that was still genuine, timely, all the right things." - Naomi Taylor

Perform Notes

Perform Notes replaced fragmented spreadsheets with a centralised, auditable system for recording performance issues and concerns, positive recognition, medical certificates, and incident records. This eliminated filter errors, duplicate entries, and the risk of incomplete records.

"Say when you're doing it in Excel, if you spell the first or last name wrong then your filters don't work. This stops that from happening. So when I am looking at someone's performance, I'm confident that everything's there." - Dana Unicomb

Purposeful Appraisal Questions

Implementing Perform gave Cooinda the opportunity to review and redesign their appraisal questions, ensuring they were purposeful and yielded actionable insights about staff capability and development needs.

Data-Driven Training Decisions

Self-assessment responses revealed strong demand for specific training. Cooinda analysed the data and identified a trend: many staff wanted more guidance on palliative care, specifically care of the body after death.

"We definitely looked at the training requirements... a lot of people were reaching out for palliative care training, specifically care of the body after death. That prompted us to create our own internal policy and procedure." - Naomi Taylor

The Results: 93% Time Savings, 100% Staff Coverage

Before Ausmed Perform	After Ausmed Perform
10-15 hours weekly on admin	Less than 1 hour weekly (93% reduction)
Staff felt unrecognised	190+ pieces of feedback across 39 staff in 3-4 months
Manual spreadsheet tracking	Instant audit readiness with digital records
No data for training needs	Data-driven capability development
Year-end compliance crunch	Automated scheduling throughout the year
HR chasing managers	Managers own their team's appraisals

93% Reduction in Administrative Time

Performance management administration dropped from 10-15 hours per week to less than one hour per week, freeing HR to focus on strategic priorities rather than chasing paperwork.

190+ Pieces of Staff Feedback in 3 Months

Across just 39 staff members in the first three to four months, Cooinda recorded over 190 pieces of feedback, averaging more than one per staff member per month. This represented a fundamental shift in recognition culture.

Compliance Confidence for Audits

With registration audits scheduled between November and February, Cooinda now had digital, auditable records ready to demonstrate compliance with Action 2.9.7.

"From a compliance standpoint, I think it would be much easier for someone to come in and go, 'Oh yeah, tick that box, that looks really good.' The commission will ask for access to your digital system rather than printing everything like last time." - Naomi Taylor

Manager Capability Development

Older managers who initially found the digital shift challenging became confident users of the platform. Ausmed provided training sessions, and supervisors embraced the tools for appraisals and feedback.

"We have some managers that are a little bit older. Changing from a form which they're used to in their whole career to then filling out their manager assessment... that was probably a little bit overwhelming. But we haven't had any issues since." - Dana Unicomb

Improved Payroll Efficiency

Medical certificates uploaded directly into Perform Notes streamlined sick leave authorisation, saving additional hours during fortnightly payroll processing.

"When I go to authorise the paid sick leave, it's all now in the one spot rather than me looking through file explorer and it's not there. That process is a lot quicker." - Dana Unicomb

Targeted Workforce Capability

Data from appraisal self-assessments directly informed training strategy. When staff indicated a need for palliative care training, Cooinda developed an internal policy and procedure on care after death, distributed it to staff, and addressed a genuine capability gap.

Staff Engagement

While Cooinda plans to remeasure staff satisfaction after their recent outbreak period, early feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

"We had a lot of staff members when we were first putting out the feedback say, 'Oh, that was really great.' Even someone was like, 'Oh, I couldn't reply. I didn't know how to acknowledge that I got this feedback.' Staff wanted to acknowledge the feedback they were getting." - Naomi Taylor

The system's user-friendliness exceeded expectations. As Naomi noted: "Staff completed their self-reflection who we thought would need help, and we were shocked. That's how user-friendly it is."

Key Success Factors

Pilot Partnership

As a pilot customer, Cooinda provided feedback that directly shaped product development. The Perform Notes feature was inspired by their original CSV spreadsheet system.

"Being part of the pilot was really interesting. It was really nice that we got to give feedback and that feedback was really received. Changes were made that reflected our needs. We've been a part of a lot of things and given feedback a lot of times... it's just like, 'Oh yeah, we'll pass that on to the development team.' But it was really nice to be able to give feedback and for that to be actioned." - Naomi Taylor

Practical Implementation

Rather than waiting for perfect systems, Cooinda used creative workarounds (like backdating enrolment dates for probation reviews) to make the platform work for their immediate needs.

Manager Engagement

By shifting ownership from HR to team leaders, Cooinda embedded performance management into leadership practice rather than treating it as an administrative burden.

Final Word

"If you feel like you've plateaued and there's nothing else you can do, this is such a great digital way to get efficiencies but also be really impactful. Really look at where your HR staff are spending their time and how long those things take. Look at what your staff are saying - like, we want to be recognised, we want purposeful conversations with our managers. There's such an opportunity with your overall NPS score or staff recognition, how they feel valued. We gained time back while also creating purposeful conversations where staff feel recognised." - Naomi Taylor, Operations Manager