Ranch Ehrlo Society: How a Saskatchewan non-profit transformed scheduling for 1,000 staff
Ranch Ehrlo Society is one of Saskatchewan's largest non-profit providers of developmental services for youth, adults, and families. Operating across three cities with nearly 1,000 staff, Ranch Ehrlo partnered with Workforce.com to replace manual scheduling with a mobile-first platform — transforming shift coverage, timesheet accuracy, and manager workload across every location.
Overview
Ranch Ehrlo Society began with a single decision in 1966, when Dr. Geoff Pawson opened a group home in Saskatchewan for six boys who needed a chance to be understood, counselled, and supported. Nearly six decades later, that first home has grown into one of Canada's most established non-profit providers of youth and family developmental services — supporting 260 families, youth, and adults across Saskatchewan through a network of programmes spanning group living, family treatment, foster care, affordable housing, counselling services, inner-city recreation, and independent education.
The organisation's work is rarely straightforward. "Most people come to the Ranch with a history of complex trauma, including abuse, neglect, violence, addiction, and poverty," says Malcolm Neill, Vice President of Strategy & Organizational Development. Malcolm has been with Ranch Ehrlo since 1988, playing an instrumental role in shaping the organisation into what it is today.
"People do as well as they can," he adds. "And if they can't do well, part of our treatment goal is to change the environment, work on the relationships, and get them involved in positive activities so they can succeed."
Challenge
Ranch Ehrlo's workforce of nearly 1,000 employees fuels its reputation for high-quality care across Saskatchewan. But managing a workforce of that size across multiple cities, residential programmes, and 24/7 shift coverage is demanding — and their legacy scheduling and time-tracking software was making it harder than it needed to be.
"Our major challenge is one of labor and human resources," says Malcolm. "It's about making sure we have enough staff with the right skills to work with a young person."
The old system made it difficult to find optimal staffing levels or reliably adjust coverage when things changed. Between a cumbersome user interface, an unreliable backfilling process, and no mobile access to schedules, short-staffed situations were common. For a care provider running residential programmes around the clock, that's a significant risk.
"Somebody wouldn't show up for a night shift, and we couldn't easily replace them in the old system, so another staff member or the manager would need to stay behind — and now we owe overtime," reflects Kayleen Nemanishen, a configuration analyst at Ranch Ehrlo.
After seven years of unsuccessful negotiations and configurations with their existing vendor, Ranch Ehrlo decided it was time to find a different workforce management partner. The decision wasn't just operational — it was mission-driven. "It's better for the staff, but it's also better for the kids," says Malcolm. "When staff don't have to focus on scheduling errors and issues, they are freed to spend their time and energy where it matters — building relationships with our youth and families."
Solution
With workforce management issues affecting every level of the organisation, Ranch Ehrlo approached the decision by asking a simple question: what do the people doing the work actually need?
"They wanted to be able to flip into an app, ask for time off, switch shifts, and adjust things in a much more intuitive way with their thumbs," shares Malcolm.
But the solution couldn't only serve frontline staff. Scheduling managers needed to build and edit shifts quickly, with access to live employee data on labour costs, work hours, variances, and qualifications. The platform had to work for direct care workers, residential managers, and head office teams alike.
The final and arguably most important requirement was integration. Ranch Ehrlo needed their new system to connect directly with UKG (formerly UltiPro), which they use for HR and payroll. "Any scheduling improvements would mean nothing if they existed in a vacuum," the team reasoned — timesheet and employee data needed to flow seamlessly between systems so no employee information, pay calculation, or compliance record was ever out of sync.
12 week implementation
240 youth & adults served
3 cities across Saskatchewan
Results
To support people in crisis, the people doing the supporting need the right tools. Ranch Ehrlo recognised this and partnered with Workforce.com to strengthen its operations at every level — from executive visibility down to the direct care workers handling night shifts in residential programmes.
"We're much nimbler now in making sure that if children need more support, we know how to allocate staff to help them," says Malcolm.
Since going live on Workforce.com, Ranch Ehrlo has continued delivering the same quality of care — only now without the administrative friction that used to get in the way. Here's where the impact has been clearest:
12-week implementation across multiple sites
Workforce.com delivered Ranch Ehrlo's implementation in 12 weeks — including UKG integration, site-by-site configuration, and team training across their operational footprint. For a multi-location care provider with complex staffing requirements, that's a fast rollout.
"It was a quick turnaround from when we first met to finally going live — we didn't waste much time, and we didn't lose momentum," shares Kayleen.
The Ranch Ehrlo team saw progress with each milestone, building confidence in the system as features were configured and integrations stood up. "It was really nice to feel like there was a knowledge transfer going on during implementation," Kayleen reflects. "I felt confident going into the launch date, knowing I could make any changes I needed."
Ease of use at every level
Coming off a complex legacy system, Ranch Ehrlo needed a platform that direct care workers could actually pick up and use without days of training. Workforce.com was built for exactly that kind of environment — mobile-first, intuitive, designed for frontline shift workers and their managers.
"I've heard from several staff since we've started how easy [Workforce.com] is to use, how easy it is to schedule staff, how clear it is to see if you have the right coverage, and how simple it is for staff to submit their time," says Kayleen.
Seamless HR & payroll integration
Workforce.com sits at a critical connection point in Ranch Ehrlo's software stack. Employee data flows directly from UKG into Workforce.com for scheduling and time tracking, and approved timesheets flow back to UKG's payroll system through a custom integration — meaning scheduling decisions and payroll outcomes stay in sync automatically. For Canadian organisations running payroll through UKG or similar systems, this bidirectional integration eliminates the manual reconciliation work that normally slows pay cycles.
Reliable shift coverage
Ranch Ehrlo's scheduling managers now work with a full set of shift planning tools and live workforce metrics — schedule filtering, best-fit sorting, shift bidding — that make determining staffing needs across every team and every location straightforward. In residential care, where night shifts and weekend coverage can make the difference between a programme running smoothly or closing early, reliability isn't a nice-to-have.
"It's very clear if we need to find additional coverage to fill a vacant shift," says Kayleen. "We have the security of knowing that no matter where, we're going to have proper coverage to take care of people."
Wage & hour variance tracking
Ranch Ehrlo can now track the gap between scheduled and actual hours worked down to individual shifts, pinpointing exactly where and when labour spend is running over plan. For a non-profit managing tight budgets across multiple funded programmes, this kind of visibility directly supports both financial stewardship and provincial reporting.
"There was no real way with our old system to compare variance," says Kayleen. "With Workforce.com, it's super apparent — if somebody works 30 minutes longer than scheduled, it shows right on their timesheet."
For nearly 60 years, Ranch Ehrlo has strengthened families across Saskatchewan. Through decades of growth, expansion, and evolution, the mission has held steady.
"We strive to help our youth, adults, and families live their best lives by reaching their full potential and we continue to make improvements, so we deliver the most effective programs and services," says Malcolm.
Choosing to reinforce the operational backbone of the organisation — including workforce management — is part of how that mission stays deliverable at scale. A reliable scheduling platform isn't the headline, but it's what keeps the headline possible.
"You could look at Workforce.com as just a scheduling app. But I think when you zoom out, what it ensures is that we are providing care and services for people in a reliable way," reflects Kayleen.
For Canadian non-profits, care providers, and multi-site organisations facing similar challenges — managing large shift-based workforces, integrating with UKG or other HR platforms, keeping labour costs aligned with funded budgets — Ranch Ehrlo's transformation offers a working blueprint. Workforce.com supports Canadian organisations with scheduling, time and attendance, and HR integration built for shift-based teams, with compliance support for provincial employment standards across every region Ranch Ehrlo operates in and beyond.
"You could look at Workforce.com as just a scheduling app. But I think when you zoom out, what it ensures is that we are providing care and services for people in a reliable way."
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