Make Applying Easy

Before Frontline	After Frontline
Slow, paper-heavy hiring process. Applications took up to two hours, required duplicate data entry, and relied on paper packets, office visits, and in-person background check forms. Principals complained hiring “took forever.”	Application time cut from 2 hours to 20 minutes. Duplicate questions removed, and candidates described Hart County as “the easiest and smoothest” district to apply to.
Inefficient contract and onboarding workflows. Mailing contracts to 400+ employees created weeks of delays. HR spent hours chasing signatures, tracking progress, and scheduling on-site paperwork sessions.	1,000+ employee hours saved annually. Automated forms, reminders, and digital contract distribution are replacing manual follow-ups and paper chases. HR now tracks progress in real time.
Rising turnover with limited staff capacity. Post-COVID turnover spiked to 50–60 hires per year (vs. 12 before), but Hawkins couldn’t hire more HR staff. Manual processes created bottlenecks.	Scalable hiring and onboarding without adding headcount. Digital workflows streamlined recruiting, onboarding, and internal transfers, effectively adding “half a job” in capacity while protecting against knowledge loss.

Matthew Hawkins didn’t expect to become the HR lead for Hart County Schools. He was less than a year into his role as Finance Director when the HR director stepped up to superintendent, and suddenly, he found himself managing both jobs. With six schools spread across a rural county, principals were voicing frustrations: hiring took too long, paperwork piled up, and turnover was rising. The mandate was clear: modernize broken processes, and do it all without hiring more staff. 

When Turnover Meets Paper Forms, Everything Slows Down

The district has seen higher turnover since COVID, requiring 50 to 60 new hires a year compared to a dozen before. Paper processes made it worse. A job application could take two hours to complete, asking for the same information on multiple forms. Once principals recommended a candidate, the process fell back to paper packets, office visits, and background check forms that had to be completed on site. Hawkins recalled, “We would have to set up an appointment with the potential new hire to come in and pick up their packet. And then they would need to take that packet and fill out some paperwork on site so we could get their background checks started. It was just a lot of back and forth.” 

The delays multiplied. Mailing contracts to 400+ employees each July meant chasing responses for weeks. Principals complained that HR “took forever.” For Hawkins, the logistics were a headache. “Honestly, we were doing everything on paper. We didn’t have time to do everything on paper, but we were doing everything on paper.” 

He knew simply adding more people wouldn’t solve the problem. The only option: fix it with technology. 

Why Hart County Doubled Down on Frontline

Hawkins looked at two other vendors, but neither was a fit. One had poor support that left districts stranded when issues came up. Another didn’t integrate with PSST and MUNIS — the payroll systems Kentucky districts depend on. Hart County already used Frontline Absence Management, Time & Attendance, and Recruiting & Hiring, so sticking with Frontline felt obvious. “We really liked the Frontline tools we had, so it made a lot of sense to stick with the Frontline tools because it’s one platform for everything,” Hawkins said. 

First Fix the Process, then Automate the Paperwork

Although the district already used Frontline Recruiting & Hiring, the hiring and onboarding processes were not set up to take advantage of the benefits the system offered. Hawkins and his team began by “tuning up” Recruiting & Hiring with help from Frontline. They removed duplicate data requests and trimmed the application time from two hours to 20 minutes. Candidate reactions were immediate. “We had two new teachers who had applied to multiple counties, and they said that ours is the easiest. It’s the smoothest process to apply of the several counties that they had applied for, which filled my heart with joy.” 

Internal transfers got even easier. “There’s an internal applicant form that’s a one-pager now. And so every single person inside the district that’s moving jobs is in love. They’re just like, ‘Oh, you make it so easy.’” 

Next came onboarding and forms through Frontline Central. New hires now receive a single email link, enter their information once, and watch it pre-populate required forms. Automated reminders replace hours of manual follow-up. HR can see the status in real time, tied to each employee’s profile. And by spring, contract distribution will become a “click of a button” instead of a summer-long paper chase. 

Professional Learning Management is next on Hart County’s list of Frontline solutions to implement. Teachers will upload certificates from external PD sessions, and HR will automatically run reports to see who has not met the hourly requirements instead of reconciling spreadsheets by hand. “That alone is going to be worth hours and hours of somebody going employee by employee, asking, ‘Did they sign into this PD?’” 

From Two Hours to Twenty Minutes (and a Lot Fewer Emails)

The results came fast. Applicants praised the new process. Internal staff loved the one-page transfer form. Hawkins estimated that Frontline Central alone would save about 1,000 employee hours a year — “half of a job,” in his words. And that doesn’t even count the savings on postage, paper, and copier use. “Honestly, a thousand hours might be conservative.” 

The biggest shift was in momentum. “We’re changing things in real time, and from an efficiency standpoint, we can’t ask for any more than that. We’re making alterations and improvements in real time. I love it. Just can’t say enough good things about the Frontline staff we’ve worked with. I’ve got to keep shouting them out. They’re just unbelievable.” 

Digital Workflows Paid for Themselves 

At a time when budgets are tight, software delivered efficiency without adding staff. That mattered. “I knew we were never going to solve it with manpower, so let’s solve it with a product we’re already using.” The digital workflows also protected against knowledge loss as longtime staff retired, eliminated 40-minute drives for paperwork, and opened Hart County up to candidates beyond its borders through K12JobSpot. 

The payoff was clear: smoother hiring, faster onboarding, and measurable time savings, all without expanding headcount. Hawkins put it plainly: “We’ve been super pleased with the way everything’s going so far. Our state fall human resources conference is next week, and everybody that asks me, I’m saying, ‘We use Frontline. We love it. I have not had a bad experience with anything yet. If you’re looking for a solution, I would highly recommend it.’”