District Snapshot

District Background

District

Farmington Municipal Schools, Farmington, NM

FTE

~1,800 total
(711 teachers)

Products & Solutions

Connected Frontline People Suite Recruiting & Hiring Frontline Central Absence Management Time & Attendance

Before Frontline	After Frontline
Before Frontline No advance onboarding prep: HR couldn’t reliably review documents ahead of time; onboarding sessions ran 1–2 hours.	After Frontline Shorter onboarding: Typical onboarding time dropped from ~2 hours to under 1 hour.
Before Frontline Paper scattered + missing forms: Documents lived across offices/cabinets and forms could “go missing.”	After Frontline Centralized records: HR uses Frontline Central as a single location to pull files together quickly.
Before Frontline Paper timesheets (audit risk): Some overtime was tracked on signed paper timesheets, raising consistency/Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) concerns.	After Frontline More compliant timekeeping: Swipe in/out kiosks improved confidence in accurate hours/overtime and Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) compliance.

Farmington Municipal Schools is a K–12 public school district in Farmington, New Mexico, serving the Four Corners region. With a four-person HR operations team managing everything from recruiting and onboarding to substitute coverage, employee records and time-keeping compliance, efficiency is not an option.  It is how the work gets done.  Mari McClanahan, HR Operations Manager, shared how Farmington shifted from paper-heavy routines to a connected HR workflow that is easier to manage and easier to maintain.

A small HR team, stretched by manual onboarding and scattered records

Mari’s team was managing the full onboarding experience largely through in-person paperwork and manual file prep. Even when applicants had attachments in the recruiting system, HR wasn’t consistently able to review documents ahead of time, so all the work began when the employee arrived for the onboarding appointment. As Mari put it, “there was no prepping really involved” before the hire sat down with HR.

That lack of upfront preparation created predictable bottlenecks. New hires were handed a packet and worked through it in real time, while HR simultaneously reviewed credentials and tried to ensure required forms were completed correctly. Mari noted onboarding appointments often ran long: “an hour, hour and a half, sometimes two hours.” For a district with steady hiring volume and a lean HR team, those lengthy onboarding appointments reduced throughput and left little room for other HR priorities.

Records management added another layer of friction and risk. Paper forms were maintained in multiple locations across the district. Benefits documents might be in one office, other forms in another cabinet, and personnel files elsewhere. That decentralized structure made it harder to confirm whether an employee file was truly complete—especially under audit pressure.

And when paper drives the process, paper also disappears. Mari described a common scenario: forms being moved from HR to payroll or another department and never resurfacing. “Let’s face it: forms go missing,” she said. The result is avoidable rework such as tracking down documents, asking employees to resubmit items, or trying to reconstruct a file when time is already tight.

Outside of onboarding and records, the district had two additional operational pain points: substitute coverage and timekeeping.

On the substitute side, engagement was still heavily tied to phone calls, even as substitute expectations changed. Mari’s team observed a clear move toward app-based communication with Frontline, as substitutes became less responsive to phone outreach. That shift matters because substitute fill rates and speed depend on how quickly jobs reach the right people and how easily substitutes can accept assignments.

On the timekeeping side, an audit identified gaps in how overtime was being tracked for certain hourly groups, including custodial and maintenance. Supervisors were using paper timesheets, and employees often signed without a clear, validated record of hours and overtime. Mari described what they needed to move away from paper time sheet filled out by the supervisor. The district needed a more consistent process aligned to FLSA expectations.  

Implementing the connected Frontline People Suite across core HR operations

To address these challenges, Farmington implemented core components of our connected Frontline People Suite—Recruiting & Hiring, Frontline Central, Absence Management, and Time & Attendance—with a clear operational goal: reduce manual handling, centralize records, and strengthen consistency across workflows without adding headcount.

Recruiting & Hiring + Frontline Central became the foundation for modernizing onboarding and strengthening record completeness. Farmington moved onboarding packets and forms into digital workflows, enabling HR to send required paperwork in advance and review submissions before appointments. For Mari’s team, this shifted onboarding from “paper intake while the person sits at the desk” to a more prepared, structured meeting, allowing time to get to know new hires on a personal level.

Digitizing onboarding also reduced the downstream workload of scanning, shredding, and physically filing paperwork. Mari emphasized how operationally important it was to move quickly between documents and systems: having access to transcripts, applications, and forms in one workflow removed delays and eliminated manual steps that used to consume HR time.

Just as importantly, Frontline Central provided a centralized system for critical employee documentation. Instead of relying on a single paper copy that could be misplaced while routing through departments, Farmington could store key forms in one place. Mari described the practical value this way: “Having everything in Frontline Central is a reliable backup where I can retrieve any required documents.”

For audit readiness, centralization changed the district’s ability to confirm file completeness. Being able to “download and drop them all in one place” made it easier to ensure employee files were complete when needed.

Absence Management addressed substitute engagement with a more modern communication model. Because substitutes can manage their profiles online and through the mobile app, they can set availability, choose preferred schools, and update preferences without HR making manual changes. This helped reduce administrative updates and made it easier for substitutes to respond quickly to open jobs. Farmington saw substitute engagement move strongly toward app-based notifications; Mari’s team estimated that only about 25% of substitutes still relied primarily on phone calls.  

Time & Attendance was used to address both consistency and compliance. Farmington implemented swipe in / swipe out kiosks for employee groups that required more reliable tracking. This reduced dependence on paper timesheets and improved oversight of overtime practices. Mari connected the change directly to compliance needs: they needed a system that would “keep us in compliance with federal FLSA rules.” She also pointed to a key outcome that matters to K–12 operations leaders: confidence. With clearer, auditable time records, “everybody felt more confident” that timekeeping was being handled correctly.

Going forward: expand what’s standardized and keep reducing repeat work

With core workflows connected, Farmington’s next phase is to expand and standardize additional HR processes through digital forms and workflows building on what they already moved online (including benefits-related documentation and recurring acknowledgments). The long-term goal is operational consistency: fewer exceptions, fewer missing documents, and fewer cycles of “re-collecting” forms supported by centralized employee records in Frontline Central as the dependable source of truth.

What Mari would tell other districts

Farmington’s takeaway is practical and grounded in staffing reality: digitizing onboarding and centralizing records takes upfront effort, but it reduces repeat work for years. Mari’s advice to peers is straightforward: “Don’t let the initial setup discourage you because it absolutely changes how much your HR team can accomplish with the time and the staff you have.”