An Efficiency Revolution at Erlanger-Elsmere

Background

As a small district, Erlanger-Elsmere School District has six schools, and relationships and operational efficiency remain top priorities. Jennifer appreciates the personal touch. “Here, I get to know every single person I onboard — every single person,” she says. “I help them with their insurance. I know when they’re having babies. It’s very small. It feels like a family and not so much like a corporation. That’s what I love about it.”

With eight years of experience in school districts, plus her private-sector background, Jennifer focuses on process improvement and software solutions. In her role at Erlanger-Elsmere, she confronted paper-based systems that slowed her daily tasks. She had to fix onboarding bottlenecks and ensure compliance with regulations. At first, the work was anything but digital.

“When I came here to Erlanger, they were doing everything on paper. They were still using paper time sheets. They were still doing paper enrollment for health insurance. If you wanted to change your address, you had to fill out a form, bring it to the board office, and then wait for it to be processed. It was overwhelming.”

Onboarding Like It’s 1999

Jennifer describes a cumbersome onboarding process. New employees received thick paper packets. They often forgot forms — which could delay their start dates.

“We’d give them a packet of 20 sheets — direct deposits, tax forms, policy procedures. They would take it home and bring back only eight sheets of paper,” Jennifer remembers. “It was just a mess. I thought, ‘How is anybody doing this?’”

Data entry errors often crept in. Jennifer and her small team shuffled folders back and forth, risking misplaced documents and wasted time: “We were onboarding all these people—stacks and stacks of paperwork and folders. Things were getting misplaced. You’re shifting all these files back and forth, and things get lost, they get paper-clipped to other stuff or get shoved under something. A lot of mistakes were made.”

Turnover during summer 2021 added extra strain. Jennifer was the sole HR staffer, trying to manage the demands of a busy season, and twenty percent of the district’s staff left. “We have six schools, and we lost three principals.”

In addition to stress, paper-based processes also created financial drain. Overtime pay and work reallocation across departments cost the district money when they could least afford it.

Frontline Offered a Different Way

Jennifer had used Frontline in other districts, and knew it was powerful. Erlanger-Elsmere was already running Frontline’s Absence Management and Time and Attendance, and Jennifer liked the idea of a single login for multiple HR functions. “I circled back to Frontline and found there were many solutions. I thought, we have 700,000 emails and passwords to remember — if we can have one login and it all goes together, that’s great.”

Onboarding and Employee Records

Implementing Frontline Central removed mountains of paperwork. Jennifer replaced more than two dozen paper forms with digital versions. “Originally, it was all on paper — something like 26 forms. We’d give someone a folder and say, ‘Take this home, fill it out, bring it back.’ Then they’d return with pieces missing. So, we created digital forms within Central.”

Onboarding speed increased, cutting weeks to days. “What used to take weeks, if the employee didn’t understand, now takes us a couple of days. We just call and say, ‘In your Frontline account, you’ve still got three forms. You need to jump in and get them done.’ And they just do it.”

Jennifer crafted user-friendly workflows for form completion. She even automated notifications for IT, so new employees get their district email right away. “It’s made things incredibly simple on the user side,” she says. And it has the added benefit of letting new hires get started in the classroom sooner.

Enrolling in health insurance is now easier, too. “That process used to involve big, complex paper forms that looked like 1990s tax documents. People always filled them out wrong. We took the same form and used Central’s PDF overlay option to create a simpler experience. Now employees just answer a few questions, and their answers populate the complex form.”

Jennifer says that having employees enter their own data reduces duplicate data entry and the chance of errors and typos. “The employee enters their own information. They apply for a job, get interviewed, and I move them through the hiring process. They go from Recruiting & Hiring into Central, and they’ve created their own personnel file. They’ve put in their name, address, Social Security number, date of birth — everything. Then they go through all the new hire paperwork, entering what they want for their W-2 and Kentucky state tax. The employee puts in their information once, and I export it from Frontline into our financial system. No more entering it 12 times and risking mistakes.”

With electronic personnel files, Jennifer loves how easy it is for the office staff and for employees to access information. “The beautiful part is there’s no filing. If I want to attach something to an employee’s file — say Ryan requests a day off without pay — it goes directly into his file. I don’t have to find Ryan’s physical file in a cabinet. It’s there. It doesn’t get lost or misplaced.”

Measurable Benefits

Cost Savings

In addition to faster onboarding and greater efficiency, Jennifer says that Frontline has resulted in significant cost savings. By enabling the HR office to handle tasks more quickly, Erlanger-Elsmere saved the cost of an entire salary, opting to reinvest in kids’ education rather than backfilling a position when a staff member retired.

“Onboarding, which used to take one and a half to two weeks, now takes just two days,” Jennifer says. Previously, she would work long hours over the summer to onboard new employees, which cost the district overtime wages — but no longer. “They were paying my salary and overtime rates to process all that paperwork, which they no longer have to do because it’s so efficient. Even if we lose 65 people in the summer, it happens quickly. It’s so efficient that they’re no longer eating the cost of my overtime rate.”

Overall, Jennifer says the cost of Frontline Central has paid off multiple times. “Once you’re through that first year, it pays for itself in the long run.”

Time Savings

“Frontline has helped me achieve maximum efficiency,” states Jennifer. “I come from a background in process improvements. The goal is to do as much as possible, as accurately as possible, as quickly as possible, to get the most bang for your buck — whether in salaries, software, or something else. Frontline has helped me achieve that: maximum efficiency.”

Onboarding time dropped by 80%. Steps that once took weeks now take days, or even hours. “The options are endless. The onboarding process went much faster, and we felt the improvement immediately. The long-term efficiency benefits are even more impactful.”

Teachers’ contract renewals go more quickly as well. Printing contracts through a mail merge used to take weeks. “We’d print them, sort them, deliver them to schools, have everyone sign, send them back, resort them, make sure we had everything, and file them away. It was a nightmare.” Now, employees can access their paperwork from anywhere in the world and sign contracts electronically. “95% of contracts are completed within a week. That’s impossible in most districts. Other districts ask, ‘How are you doing this?’”

Error Minimization

By letting employees enter their own data, the district avoids errors. Tax forms, payroll information, and addresses sync from one platform to another. This step ensures data stays correct and easy to update.

Improved Employee Experience

Jennifer says she has received positive feedback from new hires. “People have told me, ‘This is absolutely painless compared to other districts. It was great. I uploaded everything and, boom, I was done in a day.’” And that, of course, makes Jennifer’s job more pleasant. “When the experience is better, employees are in a better mood when I deal with them.”

Access to contracts, forms, and records gives staff more control. “As we’ve brought people on over the years, they’ve started in Frontline, worked their careers in Frontline, and retired in Frontline. It’s become a huge blessing.”

Unanticipated Benefits

Once Jennifer mastered Frontline Central, she extended it to many other areas. “We’re using it for much more than onboarding now. Before, employees had to fill out a PDF, email it back, and hope it didn’t get lost in email. Working out of email is horrible.”

She now handles field trip requests, fundraising forms, and unpaid leave in Central. “Once you’re familiar with how to create a form, it’s really user-friendly. I can create a basic form, set up the workflow, and have it all squared away in 15 minutes.”

The system also makes remote work possible for the HR office. This helps during weather events or emergencies. “I need to be able to access this anywhere in the world. During weather events, the superintendent says, ‘Do not come in. I don’t want anybody to get hurt. You need to work from home.’ Frontline has really allowed that.”

Conclusion

Frontline’s solutions reshaped HR processes at Erlanger-Elsmere School District. Jennifer Mahon’s drive for improvement combined with the user-friendly platform to save time and money. She eliminated extra paper, streamlined onboarding, and reduced errors. She now has the bandwidth to work on tasks she enjoys.

From new hire forms to contract renewals, each HR step now flows with less friction. Jennifer says she would choose Frontline again, without hesitation: “If I ever find myself in another district suffering from the same inefficiencies, I would do it again. I would do it again and again.”