An Irish locum agency running a multi-country nursing operation on WhatsApp and spreadsheets
Hollilander is a healthcare recruitment and staffing agency based in Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. As an HSE Tier-2 approved supplier, Irish public hospitals can use Hollilander to fill locum and agency shifts without a separate procurement process — a significant accreditation that comes with strict compliance obligations.
Their operation is more complex than a typical agency. They source nurses locally, recruit from across the EU, and run a full overseas nurse recruitment pipeline from India — handling visa processing, documentation, Garda vetting and NMBI registration for each nurse. At the point we were engaged, all of this was managed manually. Shift allocation by WhatsApp and phone. Timesheets on paper. Availability tracked in spreadsheets. Payslips generated and emailed individually.
Their nurses — many of them international, spread across Irish counties — had no central place to find shifts, submit timesheets or track their earnings. The booking team spent the majority of their time on admin that a properly built platform should handle automatically.
Five operational problems costing Hollilander time, money and compliance risk
-
Shift allocation entirely by WhatsApp and phone
The booking team manually messaged nurses one by one to fill shifts. No visibility of who was available, no confirmation system, no audit trail. Last-minute cancellations left hospitals short-staffed with no fast way to find a replacement.
-
Paper timesheets with manual payroll processing
Nurses submitted paper timesheets weekly. The ops team manually compiled hours, calculated holiday pay and generated individual payslips — a process that took days and introduced errors at every step.
-
Overseas nurse onboarding tracked across email chains
International nurses (India, EU) required Garda vetting, NMBI registration, visa documentation and right-to-work verification — all tracked manually with no single view of each nurse's compliance status or where they were in the onboarding process.
-
Nurses had no visibility of their earnings or payslips
International nurses had no way to track weekly earnings, view historical payslips or understand their holiday pay entitlement — creating admin queries and trust friction with the booking team.
-
No county-based visibility for scheduling across Ireland
Hollilander places nurses across multiple Irish counties. The booking team had no way to filter available staff by location — requiring cross-referencing of multiple spreadsheets to find the right nurse for each shift.
One project. Two complete products. One connected backend.
Most staffing platforms are built for one user type — either the agency or the worker. Hollilander needed both sides built simultaneously, with real-time data flowing between them. A nurse's availability on the mobile app feeds directly into the agency dashboard. A shift approved by the booking team appears instantly on the nurse's phone.
Worker Mobile App — iOS & Android
Full nurse-facing app: shift browsing and requesting, weekly availability setting, digital timesheet submission, earnings dashboard with PDF payslips, compliance document upload, holiday pay tracking and direct chat with the booking team.
Agency Web Dashboard
Complete ops platform for the Hollilander booking team: live dashboard, staff profiles and ranking, county-filtered availability view, shift approval workflow, client management, invoicing, holiday payouts and full audit logs.
Payslip & Earnings Engine
Weekly payslips auto-generated from approved timesheets. Nurses see a full earnings chart, payslip history and holiday pay accrual in the app. PDF payslips downloadable at any time — eliminating all manual payslip generation.
Irish Compliance Framework
NMBI pin, Garda vetting, right-to-work, visa documentation and HSE Tier-2 shift records — all tracked and managed in the platform. Holiday pay accrued automatically per Irish employment law. Full audit trail per shift.
County-Based Availability View
The agency dashboard shows nurse availability filtered by Irish county for any selected week — with photo, name, day/night preference and specific available dates. Downloadable as a weekly list for scheduling planning.
Multi-Role Admin & International Recruitment
Separate admin accounts for the Ireland ops team and the India recruitment team — each with appropriate access. Three nurse onboarding flows built in: local Irish, EU and overseas, each with the correct compliance document requirements.
Designed for international nurses using their phone between shifts
The nurse mobile app was the most critical design challenge. Hollilander's workforce includes nurses from Ireland, across the EU and from India — many new to the country, with varying familiarity with the agency's processes. The app had to be simple, clear and trust-building from the first screen.
Shifts & Availability
Browse open shifts, set weekly availability by day or night, apply in one tap. Instant notification when confirmed by the booking team.
Earnings & Payslips
Weekly payslip breakdown, earnings chart, payslip history and holiday pay accrual. Download PDF payslip any time — full transparency, no emails needed.
Timesheets & Documents
Digital timesheet submission after every shift. Compliance document upload and status tracking. Everything in one place — no paper, no email chains.
Two products built in parallel — live in 18 weeks
Irish healthcare compliance and workflow mapping
Deep dive into HSE Tier-2 requirements, NMBI, Garda vetting, Irish employment law (holiday pay) and the three nurse pipeline types — local, EU and overseas. Documented every manual process from shift booking through to payslip generation.
Weeks 1–2Shared data architecture — the foundation for both products
Built the backend first — staff profiles, compliance documents, shift records and payroll data as a single source of truth that both the mobile app and web dashboard consume in real time. Getting this right first made building both surfaces faster and cleaner.
Weeks 3–5Worker mobile app — iOS and Android
Full nurse-facing app built: onboarding with compliance document upload, shift browsing and requesting, timesheet submission, earnings dashboard with payslips and PDF generation, support chat and holiday pay tracking. Fortnightly demos with the Hollilander team throughout.
Weeks 4–11Agency web dashboard — full ops platform
Complete dashboard for the Hollilander booking team: staff management, county-filtered availability view, shift approval workflow, client management and invoicing, holiday payouts, role-based admin for both the Ireland ops team and India recruitment team, full audit logs.
Weeks 8–15Staff onboarding, data migration and go-live
Existing nurse profiles migrated into the platform. All 47 active staff guided through the app onboarding flow. Parallel running with the old WhatsApp process for one week, then full cutover. Platform live August 2025.
Weeks 16–18What changed from day one of going live
Paper timesheets — from go-live
Every nurse submits digitally through the app. The ops team approves from the dashboard. Payroll processes from confirmed timesheets — no manual compilation, no transcription errors, no chasing.
County availability across all of Ireland
The booking team filters available nurses by Irish county for any given week — seeing name, photo, day/night preference and available dates instantly. What used to take multiple calls and spreadsheets now takes seconds.
Managed in one compliance dashboard
Local, EU and overseas nurses all onboard through the same app — with compliance document requirements automatically presented based on nurse type. NMBI, Garda vetting and visa documents all in one place for the first time.
Payslip transparency for every nurse
Every nurse sees their weekly earnings, historical payslips and holiday pay in the app. International nurses who previously had zero payslip visibility now have complete transparency — reducing admin queries and building trust.
"Hollilander needed a platform that could handle nurses from three different countries, comply with HSE Tier-2 requirements, give their booking team real-time visibility across all Irish counties — and give their nurses a proper mobile experience with full payslip transparency. That's not a problem any off-the-shelf software solves. We built both sides from scratch and had them live in 18 weeks."
Built for GDPR compliance and Irish healthcare requirements
Both products share a single Node.js + PostgreSQL backend deployed on AWS EU infrastructure — ensuring GDPR compliance and low latency for Irish users. The mobile app is built in React Native for simultaneous iOS and Android deployment from a single codebase.