How Rise Health helps an educational institution improve their employee experience
Client Stories 5 minute read

How Rise Health helps an educational institution improve their employee experience

Megan Orr | April 6, 2023

For teachers and staff at Nelson Waldorf School, their focus is on creating a unique and enriching learning experience for their students. Rise helps them to better accomplish their mission by providing all-in-one benefits, HR, payroll, and scheduling and time tracking.

What Nelson Waldorf’s team loves about Rise:

  • Truly all-in-one solution for Benefits, Payroll, HR and scheduling
  • The Rise platform being 100% free with Rise Health addition
  • Saving time and money by consolidating their technology stack from 3 platforms down to 1
  • Rise Health empowers employee recruitment and retention

Nelson Waldorf school is an educational institution for students grades K-9 in Nelson, British Columbia. The Waldorf or Steiner style of learning is based on the principles of engaging the head, heart, and hands—or thinking, feeling, and doing. 

Previously, Nelson Waldorf used QuickBooks to manage their HR, payroll, and time tracking. As Executive Director of Nelson Waldorf Lesli Lancaster explains: “QuickBooks wasn't integrated. And so, I had to sign into three different programs, just to complete payroll, and then I had to transcribe everything from QuickBooks Desktop into QuickBooks Online. Payroll probably took me five hours to do. Being able to have everything in one spot has totally changed everything.”

The school needed a solution that was truly integrated to meet their unique requirements. “Quite frankly, Rise was one of the only ones that offered scheduling, payroll, and HR all-in-one. Many of the other platforms I looked at, you had to pick and choose,” says Lesli. 

“The biggest draw of Rise in the first place was the all-in-one platform. That’s really what I was looking for.”

Lesli invested a lot of time evaluating systems that could meet all of their needs at Nelson Waldorf within one platform. What she found was a lot of mixing-and-matching available and nothing else truly all-in-one. 

“It's a hardship for smaller organizations like ours with limited budgets to pay for multiple mix-and-match piecemeal systems that are necessary to run the organization, costing $500 or $600 per month. The biggest draw of Rise in the first place was the all-in-one platform. That's really what I was looking for,” continues Lesli. 

Having benefits, HR, payroll, and time off tracking all within Rise has made the biggest difference for Nelson Waldorf and Lesli. “Entering and tracking data in separate systems previously was just way too burdensome for an organization our size to manage,” she recalls.

Now, with Rise for their benefits, payroll, HR, and time tracking, Lesli says it takes her less than two hours to do everything—including setting up new staff for group health benefits. 

“We get way more for our money with Rise.”

When it comes to benefits, Lesli talks about how the staff, even those who are “not very techie”, got the hang of using Rise Health right away. After self enrolling in benefits through Rise Health, employees were able to use the benefits app to submit claims and check coverage easily. 

Lesli knows that they’re getting their money's worth with Rise Health. “Compared to the other quotes we were considering, Rise’s was just way, way better. We get way more for our money with Rise,” she explains. 

Not only is Rise Health cost-effective for Nelson Waldorf, but it’s an appealing addition to working at the school that Lesli believes will play a significant role in both recruitment and retention. She notes how “having a really strong benefits package is essential to us being able to attract qualified teachers”.

“Being able to save money on both our software and benefits costs is huge for us.”

Lesli says that “Rise Health was easy to set up and the staff love it”. Typically, the benefits offered by private schools are less than those offered by public schools. She continues: “Rise Health is providing all of the benefits that make us comparable to public school offerings and makes us much more competitive in the labor market. That, and it's easy to use.”

She also says that “Rise Health adds this other element of value to having a job here. If people are considering leaving, that's kind of one more thing they're going to lose. It definitely adds another consideration to their decision whether to stay or leave”.

“The scheduling component is something that is unique to Rise and is hard to get in another system.”

In particular, Lesli found that scheduling and time tracking (STT) wasn’t something that was typically included—or even available at all—with most other platforms. As she explains: “The HR system and time tracking has been hugely helpful for us. With a school, managing sick days, days off, and making sure that classes are covered is so critical to success. We can instantly see all of that in Rise”. 

Lesli also mentioned that Nelson Waldorf is interested in utilizing Rise performance management, as regular performance reviews are a part of the Ministry of Education’s requirements for educators. With Rise Performance, Lesli and her team will also use the goals application to set and keep track of their learning and development initiatives. 

“I’ve recommended Rise to other associations, because you really don’t know what you’re missing out on until you have it,” Lesli concludes. 

Learn more about how our people management solutions could help you and your team. Book a personalized demo of Rise today.

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