Pembroke School

When Margarita Strouzas joined Pembroke as their Director of People and Culture, she quickly saw that the systems in place weren’t really fit for purpose, and the school already knew it.

“To begin with, there was a lot of data cleansing to do. We had about 110 ‘departments’ in the old system that we were using, and we got that down to about 38 or 40. It just would have been how people at different times were putting in information.”

Beyond data challenges, one of the biggest areas requiring improvement was recruitment and onboarding. As Margarita explains, “contracts were done on a Word document and are either emailed out or potentially sometimes sent through Adobe Sign. Actually being able to run them through a system where there’s a formal approval process where our Principal can see them would be huge.”

Due to their unique nature, Pembroke has a variety of staff who wear several hats across multiple roles, making tracking, paying and reporting a complex task.

As Margarita adds, “We have quite a robust environment. So it’s not uncommon for a teacher or a professional services staff member to also be doing shifts in the Boarding House or to be a basketball or soccer coach. We needed them to be able to have multiple roles in the system.”

Payroll was a major pressure point too. As Margarita tells us, “currently, someone on the staff is manually paying our staff. I’ve often contemplated how it feels for that person.”

The school knew it needed a system that could automate processes, integrate with payroll and adapt to the unique complexities of a school workforce, all without overwhelming staff and distracting from their mission to deliver world-class education to their students.

To further complicate matters, Pembroke was dealing with a deeply embedded paper-based culture.

For Pembroke, the real value of ELMO has been how naturally it has slotted into daily life. “When we fired up the new system, no one was calling me to say they couldn’t log in or didn’t know where to find things. That was really fulfilling, it meant we’d made the right call,” says Margarita.

Recruitment is now faster, easier and more transparent, with proper approvals built in so positions receive the right sign off before being advertised. Shortlisting happens without endless back-and-forth emails, and hiring teams follow a consistent, clear process.

The system also reflects the way schools actually work, accurately recording staff with multiple roles. HR Core now provides Pembroke with a single, secure home for all employee data, certificates and training records, reducing duplication and making reporting far more reliable.

Looking ahead, Margarita is eager to bring Performance and Learning online to streamline probation, appraisals, 360 reviews and compliance training, while creating clear pathways for professional development.

She also praises the ongoing support from ELMO’s consultants. “Any time we’ve had a query, we’ve had an answer or at least someone saying, ‘I’ll find out and get back to you,’” she says. “We have had some really great consultants who have been supporting us…probably keeping us to task sometimes too. The transition has felt like a genuine partnership.”

To add to their support, Pembroke has also chosen to include quarterly sessions with a customer success manager. “I thought it was probably good for us to be able to have a scheduled check-in point for burning questions or if there were things that had evolved in the school,” Margarita tells us.

For Pembroke, ELMO is not just a new HR and Payroll system – it’s a smarter, more accountable way of working that frees up HR to focus on what matters most: supporting the school.