Ensuring Educational Excellence by Offering Teachers a Helping Hand

Giving students a stellar education with limitless opportunities for academic and personal development—that’s the goal for BASIS Educational Group (BASIS Ed). The company provides comprehensive school management, HR, finance, IT, and marketing services to the BASIS Charter Schools, which educate more than 20,000 students in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and Washington D.C.

“We began in 2009 with just two campuses in Arizona, and today we support 38 schools,” explains Cody Roth, Vice President, Human Resources and Talent Acquisition at BASIS Ed. “We are now looking to expand further, especially in Texas where we aim to reach around 40 to 50 locations.”

Rapid growth brings new challenges, especially for HR. Complex employment regulations in multiple states, school funding challenges, and acute skills shortages in the education sector make it increasingly tough to compete for talent and retain the best teachers.

For BASIS Ed, the solution to these headaches is a strong focus on operational planning and analysis, and on giving employees all the support they need to fulfil their potential. Recognizing efficiencies is a crucial component of this successful strategy and Paylocity has provided essential tools in this regard.

The Challenge

A Tough Labor Market Puts More Pressure on HR

With an alarming rise in talented teachers leaving their jobs during the school year, BASIS Ed looked for new ways to drive engagement and help employees achieve their goals.

Overcoming a Shortage of Talent
There is a scarcity of teachers in the United States—especially Arizona, where BASIS Ed has 22 campuses. “The race for talent has led to increased employee turnover during the school year, which can negatively impact students,” adds Cody. So, to minimize the risk of losing talent, BASIS Ed aims to go the extra mile to support teachers, especially new starters.

Tracking Training for Thousands of Employees 
Every school has mandatory employee training for all staff, including first- aid, CPR, and non-violent crisis intervention. Previously, BASIS Ed tracked attendance by handing out forms for employees to sign at the end of each session. Manual paperwork and the resulting data entry slowed down team members, making it harder to efficiently demonstrate compliance with internal and external requirements.

Ensuring Efficiency and Accountability
Resources are limited and every school has a strict budget so it’s essential BASIS Ed can access comprehensive data regarding staff at all campuses.

The Solution

Ensuring Every Employee Feels Fully Supported

BASIS Ed uses Paylocity to connect with new hires, support existing talent, automate essential HR tasks, and gain deeper insight into data points that support employee retention.

Building a Two-way Feedback Loop with Employees
Paylocity’s Surveys module plays a key role during onboarding across BASIS Ed locations. The company sends surveys to new hires after 14, 30, and 60 days to check whether they need extra support from managers. BASIS Ed also runs surveys with long-standing teachers to check in on their comfort and satisfaction in their current roles. And, after bringing in a new leader at a location, BASIS Ed regularly runs surveys to pick up feedback and helpful pointers from faculty.

Digitalizing Prior Manual Processes
BASIS Ed also uses Surveys to track attendance at in-person trainings. Rather than paper forms and manual signoffs, the company sends out a survey for employees to confirm attendance or absence, with email reminders to encourage prompt responses.

Generating Deep Insights Into Complex Operations
With Insights & Recommendations, BASIS Ed keeps a close eye on organizational performance. HR analysts can prepare dashboards offering a deep dive into recent employment trends. “We can run reports for all facets of our business. Paylocity makes it simple to manage complex organizations across multiple jurisdictions,” notes Cody.

Streamlining Everyday HR Management
BASIS Ed uses Paylocity’s Human Resources for day-to-day HR work, such as setting up records for new hires and changing details of existing employees. With Employee Self-Service, employees now have 24/7 access to their pay stubs, HR and tax documents, and benefits handbooks, and can request paid time off (PTO) with a few clicks. The Paylocity Mobile App comes in handy, too, with Time Collection providing an easy way for hourly employees to clock in and out.

The Results

Boosting Success

Paylocity is an intuitive and efficient tool that BASIS Ed uses to support its efforts to improve talent retention rates, meet regulatory requirements, and hit budgetary objectives to offer a stronger experience for students.

Cutting the Risk of Employee Turnover
Promptly addressing the issues that challenge new and returning teachers helps reduce the risk of turnover—which in turn ensures a consistent learning experience for students and increases their chances of academic success. Survey feedback also enables BASIS Ed to identify high-performing teachers and campuses to replicate best practices at other locations.

Maintaining Compliance with State Regulations
In-depth tracking of attendance at mandatory trainings helps BASIS Ed ensure every staff member has the skills and certifications they need for their work. “We can quickly pull a report to ensure we are hitting our targets for each state,” says Cody.

Making Smarter, Data-Driven Decisions
In-depth tracking of attendance at mandatory trainings helps BASIS Ed ensure every staff member has the skills and certifications they need for their work. “We can quickly pull a report to ensure we are hitting our targets for each state,” says Cody.

Cody concludes: “Paylocity has helped us to grow and evolve as an organization. Our Paylocity contacts provide resources and demos that are interesting and valuable. We’re looking forward to the next chapter of the partnership.”