Case Study
One System to Manage Absences and Track Employee Time
How Alexandria Township relieved pressure on the business department and simplified payroll.
District Background
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Location
Pittstown, New Jersey
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K-8 Enrollment
460
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Employees
85
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Product & Solutions
Most employees in small, rural school districts have a wide array of responsibilities, and Jennifer Myers, Assistant to the Business Administrator at Alexandria Township School District, is no different. Among those tasks are payroll, benefits, and finding substitutes to cover teacher absences.
Jennifer remembers the days when classified employees would submit paper timesheets — and she doesn’t miss them. “Before, they would have timesheets in each head custodian’s office. They would hopefully remember to fill them in, and I would have the head custodian double check to make sure everyone was where they were supposed to be. He would sign off on it and then I would collect it — but inevitably someone would forget to sign or say, ‘Oh, he had a sick day,’ so I couldn’t really see the whole thing. It was a lot of running around and trying to piece it together.”
Even though the district has relatively few employees, it still took Jennifer hours to track people down and clarify questions about their timesheets. She would start several days before the timesheet deadline to make sure she could get them done on time. “It was frustrating to not be able to find people and to constantly be running, and there were so many more responsibilities in our office that I didn’t really have the time to chase after everyone.”
Clearly, it was time to look for a better way.
Choosing Frontline’s Time and Attendance
Alexandria Township decided to find a software system to help with time tracking, and choosing one turned out to be easy. “We had been with Frontline with Absence Management, so I knew the customer support is awesome. Working through everything with them was really easy,” says Jennifer. The district completed the Frontline Absence & Time solution, adding Time and Attendance as a custom-designed companion to Absence Management.
“It’s just so much easier with this system.”
Jennifer Myers
– Assistant to the Business Administrator
Faster Payroll
Now, rather than taking multiple hours over the course of several days to chase people down for timesheets, she only needs 30-40 minutes to run payroll. “I can dedicate more time to the other aspects of my job. I don’t feel as crunched. It’s not as hectic each pay.”
Jennifer says that staff also find the system much easier than using paper timesheets. “You swipe in, you swipe out, and I can calculate that instead of, ‘What time did I come in?’ It’s part of the routine and it makes tracking better for everyone.” Staff can also see their hours in the system so there are no surprises.
Time + Absence: 2 Sides of the Same Coin
Because Time and Attendance is joined at the hip with Absence Management, when a staff member enters an absence in the system, that’s reflected in Time. Jennifer says this is especially helpful for tracking leave and ensuring that employees are paid correctly for paid time off. “The facilities manager came over today and said, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you that so-and-so needed a day.’ As soon as he tells me that, I can put it in the Absence side, and it goes to Time, so I know to count that time. Instead of it being no hours, that counts for him as a day.”
That visibility also prevents Jennifer from seeing a blank spot on a timesheet and wondering where someone was that day. “The absence just flows right in, and that lets me know what’s going on.”
Together, Absence Management and Time and Attendance keep the district in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act and other labor laws. Jennifer can monitor when someone is close to exceeding 40 hours within a week. If anyone does, Time makes it easy to ensure they’re paid correctly for overtime.
Alexandria Township also recently added Frontline Central as well, which not only helps with onboarding, contracts, and other employee records, it also serves as a hub that connects all of the district’s Frontline systems. “It’s helpful to have everything together and to be able to pull from the different parts. But they’re all similar, so you’re familiar with them. They just work together so nicely.”
“Frontline saves me time and energy.”
Jennifer Myers
– Assistant to the Business Administrator
Robust Support
When Jennifer does need help, she knows where to go: Frontline’s client success team. “It’s been wonderful. From the start, I wasn’t familiar with the system at all, and they were very patient with me, explained things so I could understand. There’s always somewhere I can also go to pull up an article to help. But if I put a ticket in, the response time is phenomenal — they get right back to me. And they keep on it until we resolve the problem. They’ve been amazing.”