No More Weekend Payroll: How Russell County Public Schools Gave Time Back to Its Team

Before Frontline	After Frontline
Manual, fragmented onboarding and HR workflows: New hire checklists passed hand-to-hand with no tracking. Files stalled with no visibility into bottlenecks.	Digital, trackable onboarding: Staff gained real-time visibility into onboarding progress. New hires onboarded more smoothly with fewer missed steps and greater HR confidence.
Time-consuming, error-prone payroll process: Hundreds of timesheets had to be compiled manually. The payroll clerk often worked weekends and holidays to meet deadlines.	Payroll time reduced by 8–10 days monthly: The payroll clerk now finishes ahead of schedule and no longer works during time off, improving work-life balance and process accuracy.
Inefficient paper contracts: Contracts were typed, printed, signed twice, and mailed.	Contracts streamlined: Contracts are housed in one system with status tracking and electronic signatures.

In 2022, Russell County Public Schools in rural Virginia was stuck in a workflow time warp. The central office, nestled across three small towns and responsible for managing over 1,000 employees, was drowning in paper. Contracts, onboarding, payroll, open enrollment — it was all manual. “All onboarding was paper. Everything was on paper,” said Brooke Webb, Director of Finance, who had just joined the district and was still new to the K–12 world. 

Brooke didn’t walk into a crisis, exactly, but the situation was unsustainable. When onboarding a new employee, she explained, “I had a printed checklist, and at the top of the checklist was a little box with probably eight names on it. After I was done with it, I would check my name off and physically give it to the next person. You had no idea where the file was held up. It was a game of running to each person on the checklist. And I just couldn’t do that.” 

The inefficiencies weren’t limited to onboarding. Contract renewals were fully manual, and payroll was its own saga. “All of our part-time staff clock in. We used a program that did not speak to our payroll system,” Brooke recalled. “Our payroll person would write down the employee ID number, their job number, everything she pulled from the system. She would have to compile hundreds of time sheets from all of the schools.” 

The manual process took at least 10 days every month and often meant working through weekends and holidays. “She’s a saint. If it had been me doing payroll, there are a lot of people who wouldn’t have gotten paid.” 

After one grueling summer managing turnover and chasing folders instead of finalizing budgets, Brooke knew a change was needed. “That was when I said, ‘Enough is enough.’” 

An Overwhelmed Office, a Window for HR Reform

The arrival of a new superintendent and fellow directors gave Brooke the backing she needed. 

Her superintendent saw the burden firsthand. “She said, ‘Okay, what do you need? What would help you?'” With support secured, Brooke started looking for answers. 

She turned to her regional finance group and learned that many of her peers used Frontline for much more than managing absences. What stood out most was the idea of bringing everything under one umbrella — something that they lacked before. “There was a login for this system, and a login for that system, and they never know which login or who to contact. It was just very confusing. Something very important to me was that we housed everything in one location.” 

Choosing Frontline: A United HR Vision

Russell County had already been using Frontline Absence Management, so when it came to expanding into Time & Attendance, Recruiting & Hiring, Central, and Professional Learning Management, Brooke didn’t hesitate. “I said, ‘I just don’t think it makes sense to use something else. I know we’re not changing Absence, so let’s just go all in on Frontline.'” 

Brooke gathered buy-in through collaboration. She brought in stakeholders from other departments to weigh in. The central office team, many of whom were seasoned enough to retire any time, was understandably cautious. But Brooke framed the change not as a disruption, but a legacy: leaving the job in a great place for the next person in the role. 

A Staggered Rollout with Steady Support

Brooke rolled out the full suite in phases: Recruiting & Hiring came first, followed by Central, then Professional Growth, and finally Time & Attendance. Each implementation had one constant: Brooke was in the trenches, uploading staff rosters, learning alongside her colleagues, and asking for help when needed. 

“Everybody we have worked with has been wonderful,” she said. “They were very good to hold my hand through the process and be very patient with me, knowing that I was working on implementing multiple platforms at once.” 

Recruiting & Hiring proved a fast win. “It was super easy to implement. We really liked that there were so many templates already available. That just made our lives easier.” 

Before using Frontline, contracts were manually typed, printed, signed twice, and mailed. Now, they live in Frontline Central, are electronically signed and returned, and are easy to track. Open enrollment? No more forms lost in school mail. “Now I can prove that either yes, it was [submitted], or no, it wasn’t.” 

Compliance, Efficiency, and HR Empowerment

Frontline’s team helped streamline compliance training — and found that the district had been assigning more than was needed. Now, staff spend about 14 hours on the training, rather than 25 hours. “That was a huge deal. Our employees were ecstatic.” 

Time & Attendance was more complex due to the district’s unique scheduling and policy quirks. Brooke paused and resumed the implementation when needed, and leaned on Frontline for customization. It eventually fit, and the results have been stunning. 

Taking Time Back

The most striking result? Time. Payroll processing shrank by 8 to 10 days every month. “Susan, our payroll clerk, took spring break off the entire week,” Brooke shared. “She didn’t come in a single day. That right there showed us that this was working.” She no longer worked weekends or holidays, either. “She’s able to take her breaks. I have not seen her come in on the weekends. For her, it’s life-changing.” While in the past they rushed to get payroll to the bank on time, now they’re five days early. 

Brooke got her summer back, too. “I am the Director of Finance, but I also handle all onboarding for employees. I do contracts, all the insurance for all of our employees and the county. So, it has given me time to do my other jobs. I was able to get my budget completed a couple weeks earlier, and I was able to sit down and file so many things that had been waiting. It has been nice to not feel so rushed. I’m not working as late anymore.” 

The change wasn’t just visible in leadership. Staff across the district saw it. New hires had smoother onboarding. HR had visibility into where files lived. Employees could access and submit forms on their own. Fewer questions. Fewer missed steps. More confidence. 

“They can always see their record of what they’ve submitted,” said Brooke. “We get that a lot around tax time: ‘Can you send me a copy of my W-4? You didn’t take any taxes out.’ I’m like, ‘No, I can’t. But if you go here, you can look for it yourself.'” 

Lessons for Districts Still on the Fence

Change didn’t come without some resistance. But it brought results. Brooke credits that to leadership buy-in, ongoing support, and a patient, people-first approach. Her advice to districts implementing new software: provide support to those for whom you’re changing things. Communicate. Let them know you’re there to help. Be patient. Be present. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from the vendor. 

And for other districts still stuck in paper, considering Frontline? “Just go for it, honestly. As long as you have buy-in from your supervisors around you, that’s all you need.” 

Today, Russell County isn’t just keeping up. It’s moving forward with clarity, confidence, and a lot less paper.