Saskatchewan Teachers Federation Sees 141% Return on Investment with OnBoard

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The Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation, a professional organization for over 13,000 teachers employed in PreK-12^th grade schools, has inspired and supported teaching and learning excellence in public education for more than 80 years. Their board, comprised of over 100 members, 40 different committees, and numerous sub-committees, needs to operate efficiently to effectively drive the strategy and goals for the organization.

The Challenge:

Prior to 2018, all committees were creating paper binders and shipping them before each meeting. The process of compiling all of this material was not only time consuming, but information was often lost, and late updates were hard to manage. The organization sought out a digital solution to reduce printing and shipping costs, improve business processes, and create more efficiency that would allow staff to spend time on more important tasks.

The Solution:

After evaluating options, Saskatchewan Teachers Federation purchased and implemented OnBoard because it was a universal platform, accessible by every computer and mobile device. They anticipated real savings by cutting out paper and reducing overhead. Saskatchewan decided to role out the solution to one committee to start with, their pension and benefits committee, comprised of 14 people. It was a sight to behold when those committee members began buzzing around the solutions with ease. They experienced real-time savings, and the tool’s accessibility resulted in a quick expansion to other committees.

“OnBoard is easy to use and allows us to reduce our carbon footprint. The tool is always getting better and the team as Passageways has been very helpful from the moment we signed on,” said Dorian Rachubinski, Saskatchewan Teachers’ Business Analyst.

The Result:

Within months, the organization was no longer creating paper binders and shipping them – saving time in compiling the books, shipping costs, and salary costs for staff time that was previously allocated to these tasks. No more lost documents or reprints needed.  Printing and shipping costs have been eliminated. In their first 4 months, STF estimates they have saved over $30,000 in shipping and printing, saved 22,000 pages (almost 3 trees), and secured an additional 134 labor hours from their staff. They are projecting a first year’s savings of over $115k in printing and shipping alone. Looking toward the future, they estimate an additional $300k of indirect cost savings related to time and labor cost for both administrative staff and board members and over $1million in cost savings over a 3 year period. That’s a return on investment of 141%

Board members find the solution easy to use and experience a time savings of their own of about one hour per month. Mobile access from anywhere, on any device, has been huge for adoption. Administratively, the ability to set things up on the fly has tremendously reduced the time and energy needed in planning for emergency meetings or in the meetings themselves.

Meetings now flow more smoothly with OnBoard and Saskatchewan plans to expand the product to utilize OnBoard’s voting capabilities and more.

“We love that OnBoard has the opportunity to grow with us as our needs and usage grow,” says Rachubinski.