School HR Can Have Freedom While Staying Connected

Being connected doesn’t mean relinquishing your control. Even though it’s common for school district HR to operate separately from school Finance, there’s still so much they depend on each other for.

When you have the right processes and systems in place to support your efforts, you can connect HR and Finance at all the optimal touchpoints while empowering each department to manage their unique data.

You can swim in the same pool without sharing the same goggles.

HR and Finance share a lot of data, but each look at the information through totally different lenses. It’s a mistake to try to force either department to use a system or process that wasn’t designed specifically for their unique workflows.

If strong enough practices are in place, you can create a workflow where HR can own compensation and benefit information while Finance still controls funding, budget and payroll processes. Connect school HR and Finance using a system with the following:

• A K-12 specific chart of accounts as its foundation
• Configurable pay structures that support instructional/classified/administrative staff compensation & payroll
• District specific organizational management that facilitates district-wide and campus-specific positions
• Separate job role from job title and allocate unique PCNs, locations and permissions for position control that works for K-12

All of this works together to provide complete control and transparency to all sides of the school district business office. Beyond that, when information is in real-time and accurate it becomes trustworthy. Not only does this improve the working relationship between HR and finance, but it also elevates the trust between employer and employee.

Trust and transparency across a district can be as exciting as 4^th of July fireworks.

It’s a widely known challenge that school district staff are often skeptical of the how, what, when and why behind their paychecks.

When school administration processes prioritize transparency, the business office isn’t the only group to benefit. That information can then be shared at the employee level and then a teacher, who’s also a coach can finally understand exactly what they’re being paid and when. Eliminating the stress of waiting for a physical envelope to make its way to their inbox to address any questions or concerns, when it’s ultimately too late.

This is why school districts are reconsidering just how divided the responsibilities across HR and Finance can and should be. School administrators are finding that automating embedded digital workflows with role-based responsibilities and notifications is connecting HR and Finance at all the most important points in their processes.

You can fortify district-wide operations with flexibility and accountability.