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Watch the recap to discover 5 strategies to get over 78% employee engagement here

At Beekeeper, we have worked with many companies in hospitality that have faced these challenges and succeeded. We spoke with two hospitality leaders to get their perspectives on specific strategies that have helped improve communication.

Our panelists were:

• Andrada Parschiv, VP of Hospitality, Beekeeper
• Melissa Lombardo, Director of Training and Quality, Conrad Hotels & Resorts
• Freddie Harmon, VP of Human Resources, Viejas Casino & Resort

In this webinar, we discussed: 

• Frontline workforce challenges
• How to improve communication
• Employee engagement strategies
• The secret to employee recognition

Let’s get a recap of the discussion:

Challenges and Trends in Frontline Work

From our experience working with frontline organizations, we knew that the macro trends fueling the labor shortage included:

• Rising costs due to inflation, putting pressure on employees to find second jobs or jobs that pay more
• Generational and cultural shifts in a global workforce that is younger and more diverse

This means that improving employee engagement is harder than ever.

We wanted to delve deeper into what are the biggest motivators and stressors for frontline workers today. 

In our Frontline Survey, we found that most managers and frontline workers are motivated by doing great work.

Andrada Parschiv, Beekeeper

As expected, staffing was one of the main stressors for both frontline workers and managers. And while managers were more concerned with keeping their teams engaged, workers were more worried about the health and safety of their families.

When we dug deeper into what drives retention, we found that the most effective strategies were:

• Recognition and acknowledgment
• Predictable and reliable shifts
• Competitive benefits

Employee Engagement Strategies

Effective communication is the core of a successful organization, but it’s not always easy to achieve and maintain in hospitality. We asked our panelists how they have managed to improve their communication strategies.

Before adopting Beekeeper, Viejas Casino & Resort was using traditional communication methods like email to reach their frontline workforce. But only 35% of their staff had email, and most of those employees were part of the leadership and admin teams.

With Beekeeper, Viejas has been able to:

• Ensure every frontline employee receives daily briefs, even when off shift
• Give employees access to policy and process information
• Drastically improve employee engagement 

Viejas was also able to digitize menial tasks so that employees can get them done quicker and focus on tasks with more added value. With Beekeeper’s Forms feature, they were able to make operations more efficient and free up time for both employees and managers.

At Conrad Hotels, pre-shift briefings are essential to smooth daily operations. Melissa Lombardo explained that employees were used to receiving all pre-shift information in one document. But for frontline employees who are constantly on the go, that could be hard to keep track of.

With Beekeeper, Conrad Hotels was able to digitize pre-shift information like operational details, VIP names, and service standards. Employees could then refer back to that information during their shifts by checking the app on their phones.

Another way Conrad keeps employees engaged with Beekeeper is by holding contests where employees can demonstrate daily standards. Below are examples of how employees have made the extra effort to stage guest beds.

“It really has sparked internal camaraderie because there’s such a unified pride for what people are able to do.”

Melissa Lombardo, Conrad Hotels & Resorts

Building a Successful Employee Recognition Program

Before adopting Beekeeper, Conrad Hotels had a peer-to-peer recognition program for employees to recognize each other for specific behaviors associated with delivering outstanding guest experiences.

Post-pandemic, they sought to breathe new life into the program with Beekeeper’s Forms. Not only did employee engagement increase, but the digitization process helped Melissa with tracking how employee recognition impacts the guest experience.

With Conrad’s new employee recognition program, Melissa was able to see a direct correlation between increased recognition and an increase in both the overall quality of service and the cleanliness of guest rooms.

“We have seen our communication and engagement metric scores in our team member surveys increase anywhere between two and five points.”

Melissa Lombardo, Conrad Hotels & Resorts

For Viejas Casino & Resort, digitizing the employee recognition program with Beekeeper has created a significant impact on company culture:

“What has happened that I never had imagined is the camaraderie that it’s built across departments because team members are recognizing other team members in other departments in such an impactful way that it’s bringing our teams closer together and creating an amazing culture.”

Freddie Harmon, Viejas Casino & Resort

Humanizing the Relationship with Your Employees

While the past few years have been difficult for the hospitality industry, some companies, like Conrad Hotels, have been able to achieve their highest levels of employee engagement. Melissa says that transparent and frequent communication was essential, especially during the pandemic when many employees were furloughed.

For Conrad Hotels, taking a holistic approach to communication and varying the kinds of information they post on Beekeeper has helped keep employee engagement at an all-time high. Not only do employees have vital shift information at their fingertips, but they can also access mental health resources and short training videos. 

Viejas Casino and Resort has also embraced the varied communication approach by making sure there are plenty of lighthearted ways employees can stay engaged on Beekeeper. Using the Streams feature to celebrate employees’ pets has proved to be a massive success. They’ve found that the familiarity employees have with other social media platforms translates well into engagement on Beekeeper, where they can like, comment and share posts.

Listen to the full webinar for more real-world insight into how hospitality organizations can keep their workforce engaged.

The post [WEBINAR] Hospitality’s Secret to Sky High Employee Engagement with Conrad Hotels and Viejas Casino & Resort appeared first on Beekeeper.

“We have to engage in a very people-driven service delivery. Without our people, without them being engaged and understanding the company, we can’t deliver. It’s people out there creating work zones and keeping people safe.”

– Chris Byerly, Director of Brand & Strategy at Flagger Force

One of the biggest challenges frontline organizations face is hiring and retaining employees. According to Deloitte, 71% of CEOs say that the labor and skills shortage is the biggest disruptor in 2022, up from 32% only two years ago. 

Factors fueling the shortage include:

• Accelerating technology adoption
• Generational and cultural shifts in expectations 
• Language barriers across a mobile workforce

These factors are making it harder than ever for companies to engage with their employees. For the traffic control company Flagger Force, keeping their highly dispersed workforce engaged in an industry known for high turnover was a challenge.

A recent webinar explored how Flagger Force created a strong employee referral program to address the labor shortage.

Panelists included:

• Charlotte Buffington, Head of Customer Success at Beekeeper
• Connor Hunsicker, Enterprise Success Lead at eduMe
• Tamara Palmer, Internal Communications Manager at Flagger Force
• Chris Byerly, Director of Brand & Strategy at Flagger Force

Let’s recap what we discussed.

Saving Money and Retaining Employees Through a Strong Employee Referral Program

When Flagger Force partnered with Beekeeper to relaunch their employee referral program, their goal was to use the platform to combine monetary referral bonuses with new hire mentorship.

“Our strategy was to create awareness and illuminate success stories around the people who we were bringing in through this referral program and how we were supporting them as newly hired employees.”

– Tamara Palmer, Internal Communications Manager at Flagger Force

The results spoke for themselves:

• Over 800 referrals, of which 30% were hired
• 100x increase in hiring rate
• $249,000 in annual retention savings

The new referral program successfully helped Flagger Force source and hire new talent. Not only was the company able to hire more employees out of a larger pool of referrals, those hires often stayed with the company longer than employees they hired through traditional methods they had used previously. At a time when new hire churn rates are at an all-time high in frontline industries, this increase in referrals and retention rates is huge. 

In fact, employees hired through the Flagger Force referral program stayed with the company an average of 50 days longer than employees hired through other methods.

This led to an estimated $250,000 in cost savings in terms of training and onboarding. And that doesn’t even take into account the revenue brought in by employees hired through the new referral program.

How Flagger Force Built a Roadmap to Referral Success

Flagger Force started with some referral program best practices that the company adapted to their own needs. Those best practices were to:

1. Market the referral program to the existing employee base using Beekeeper
2. Find program champions to take advantage of the referral program
3. Create strong participation incentives, like “hours worked” milestones
4. Leveraged promotion to advertise the program
5. Connected with employees after each milestone through one-on-one messages
6. Celebrated milestones publicly across the company

Celebrating a Program Champion: Ernest’s Story

We’ve talked about the metrics and business outcomes of Flagger Force’s referral program, but let’s look at an example of how it worked in practice through the lens of one special employee: Ernest McFadden.

Ernest’s achievement of referring four successful hires was only one of his contributions to the program. He also mentored new hires to support their needs so that they can achieve certain milestones. Not only did Ernest help other hires achieve their goals, he did so in a way that brought him benefits as well. 

This process created more opportunities for new hires to engage with the company early in the onboarding process, setting them up for success in the future.

The visibility of Ernest’s story and the impact he made were visible to other employees and leadership through Beekeeper. This created a model for others to follow and displayed the tangible, human results of the program.

Who Are Our Best Employees and What’s Their Story?

The leadership team at Flagger Force became aware that the referral program was also a great way to find talent.

“When you look at the people who are highly engaged in our platform–supporting people, telling stories, liking comments, etc.–those are often the people getting promoted and rising up in the company.”

– Chris Byerly, Director of Brand & Strategy at Flagger Force

Eugene Bougher, a field leader at Flagger Force, was part of an expansion team in North Carolina. In the 60 days he spent there, he took pictures of what was going on and shared the details of his experiences through Beekeeper. 

Eugene’s storytelling made him the voice of this expansion. When the leadership team was doing a corporate retrospective, they invited Eugene to participate. This eventually got Eugene promoted to field leader and he continues to be an active platform user to this day.

Continuous Learning: How Flagger Force Uses eduMe

Flagger Force continued to expand its employee referral program by using Beekeeper’s ability to integrate with other platforms. For Flagger Force, the integration with the highest impact was the mobile-based training platform eduMe.

One of Flagger Force’s biggest priorities is compliance and awareness around employee safety. With a dispersed workforce, the company wanted to enable continuous learning around topics of safety.

We want to make learning short and sweet so that employees can digest information and, ultimately, upskill themselves, do better when they’re at work, and become more productive.
– Connor Hunsicker, Enterprise Success Lead at eduMe

With eduMe, Flagger Force was able to create a digital microlearning strategy that delivered information in small segments on a continuous basis. Instead of one-time training sessions that often lead employees to forget what they learn, Micro Learning aids in long-term retention. eduMe also makes learning convenient by providing one-click access to learning in an app that employees are already familiar with.

Watch the webinar to hear more about how Flagger Force leveraged Beekeeper and eduMe to set their workforce up for success.

The post How Flagger Force Used Beekeeper to Save $250,000 Through Their Employee Referral Program  appeared first on Beekeeper.

Established in 1985, culture has always been a priority for Concord Hospitality, an owner, operator, and developer of hotels across North America that now has a portfolio that boasts over 150 properties and employs 5,600 employees across nine regions. 

But as Concord continues to grow, the leadership team always sticks to its mission as “a Great Place to Work for All.” But that meant the company needed a sure-fire way to connect with their entire workforce as they added new hotels and associates.

Learn more about our hospitality solution. Speak with a product expert today.

The company’s main goals were to:

• Be able to reach frontline workers who don’t have company email
• Make sure every associate received consistent messaging from the home office
• Connect the workforce to the company, culture, and philosophies to make them better owners and partners in the company

“Beekeeper Caught Like Wildfire” Concord Smashes Initial Activation Goals

After searching for the right communication solution, Concord Hospitality partnered with Beekeeper. The company intended to do a slow rollout of the communication app with a goal of reaching 50% activation in six months. “We started with a group of hotels right near our home office in Raleigh so we could reach them and be supportive of them right in our own market,” said Debra Punke, Concord Hospitality’s Chief Human Resources Officer. 

But after just the first month, word got out and Beekeeper “caught like wildfire.” After just three months, the company exceeded expectations and reached 75% activation.

Rooted in its mission to put people first, Concord Hospitality is committed to building a culture that connects with and celebrates everyone.

Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion with Inline Translation

When you have a diverse multi-cultural organization, removing communication barriers is essential. Beekeeper’s “Inline Translations” is enabling Concord Hospitality to translate content into employees’ preferred language with a simple click. Inline Translation supports more than 100 languages, and it empowers every single employee to communicate with one another. It minimizes the overhead for management to make content accessible for employees of all backgrounds and raises productivity and engagement. Inline Translation also promotes workplace diversity and a strong corporate culture rooted in connectedness.

“Beekeeper allows us to communicate to everyone without any barrier,” Punke said.

“This translation piece makes this tool powerful. We developed ‘Concord (C) Groups’ to share diverse cultures. Groups include C-Pride, C-Pets, C-Vets, C-Fit, C-Kids, and more. Here people can share stories, discuss best practices, and ask for advice on what matters to them most. C-Groups on Beekeeper help us connect to our associates and create a more compassionate workplace environment.”

Building Engagement 

“I can’t overstate the amount of importance we put on the engagement piece,” said Punke. 

That means associates connect with their colleagues on the Beekeeper app from Day 1. It’s an integral part of onboarding and orientation at Concord Hospitality. And with a workforce that represents 105 different countries, Concord uses Beekeeper’s inline translation feature to make sure everyone is included and engaged by enabling people to communicate in their preferred language.

Associates are encouraged to share a little about themselves on the platform. For example, on the company’s annual Share Day, associates volunteer with local organizations in their communities. Then, they post pictures of their community service on Beekeeper and bond over their collective experience of giving back.

Concord also uses the platform to celebrate associates, whether it’s for a great sales win or a stellar review from a customer. Having one centralized communication platform brings everyone together as one big family no matter what their location is.

“That’s what connects people and keeps them engaged, and helps drive our success,” Punke explained.

And a little competition never hurts! Concord gives awards to the associates and the regions most engaged on the Beekeeper app.

One-Stop Employment Shop

Concord has leveraged Beekeeper to create a one-stop employment shop with all of the company’s different systems in one place. Associates can share schedules and documents, onboard, get professional training, and access handbooks, policies, and procedures in a one-stop employment shop that’s in the palm of their hands. 

Concord also empowers associates with the information and tools they need to provide great customer service. By accessing their specific property stream, an associate can deliver recommendations to customers, whether it’s for a restaurant, a nearby fitness facility, or a park. 

Soon, frontline teams will be able to punch in and punch out with the new integrated time clock system Concord is developing.

Creating A Place for Everyone

Concord had been searching for the right communication app that could build on its commitment to an inclusive and connected workforce. They tried other tools, like a company intranet and Yammer, but quickly realized that they only reached people who had a company email address. For frontline associates, who make up the majority of Concord’s workforce, the company had to rely on face-to-face communication or notices posted next to time clocks.

Now, with a mobile-first communication tool, Concord:

• Reaches every associate from the home office to the frontlines
• Streamlines communication through a centralized hub for consistent messaging across the organization
• Can include every associate without language barriers thanks to inline translation 

Having a digital home where every single Concord employee is included has flattened the hierarchy by connecting the top of the organization with the frontline workers, and created a place for everyone.

Cultivating a Passion for Concord’s Purpose

Concord Hospitality is more than just a business. It’s a place where people are connected to one another, to the company, and to the core values:

Quality ★ Integrity ★ Community ★ Profitability ★Fun

But as the company continues to acquire new properties and build its workforce across North America, connecting new teams to those core values that drive Concord’s strategy can seem challenging. 

Having a centralized hub that everyone can access on their mobile device has solved this problem. Concord can easily align its workforce with its values and philosophy. This comes in handy when the company acquires a new hotel and a whole new team. 

As soon as they join the Concord family, they’re activated on Beekeeper and immediately connected to the entire organization for a seamless transition. 

“The goal was always to reach and share consistent messaging across the organization so that it would build that family-type environment that helps us to grow, no matter what size, and we always feel connected to the company and the purpose of the company.” 

Building Relationships are the Secret to Concord’s Success

Concord Hospitality uses Beekeeper for more than just business. The company created Concord Groups, or C Groups—a place for people to come together to share their culture, history, background, and even their passions. There are C Groups for the LGBTQ community, for veterans, for women, for parents and pet lovers, and to celebrate important events like Juneteenth.  “It creates compassion and energy and really drives relationships in our organization,” Punke said.

“The biggest advantage of this platform is the ability for each of us to see the other in a very authentic and transparent and real way, which is what creates relationships. And relationships and that kind of authenticity help us to be an organization that is full of innovation and ideas and success. And it’s driven by our frontline workers.”

Want to learn how to create a people-first organizational culture at your hotel? Join us for our upcoming webinar on building exceptional guest and employee experiences!

The post Putting People First | The Secret to Concord Hospitality’s Success appeared first on Beekeeper.

Beekeeper received this honor thanks to our partnership with Resorts World Las Vegas. The first integrated resort to be built on the Las Vegas Strip in over a decade, Resorts World Las Vegas opened in June 2021, featuring over 3,500 guest rooms and suites, an innovative, next-generation gaming floor, world-class food and beverage options, a 5,000-capacity theatre, distinct nightlife venues, a curated retail collection of designer and boutique shops and more. Today, Resorts World Las Vegas is a thriving part of the Las Vegas scene, employing over 5,000 team members. 

Prioritizing Frontline Communication

For too long, hospitality companies have relied on inefficient and outdated communication tactics to reach their frontline workers. These often included in-person meetings in the break rooms, communicating tasks verbally, and paper notices posted on bulletin boards (that honestly hardly anyone actually reads). 

Resorts World Las Vegas wanted a robust communication infrastructure to be woven into the design of their operation from the beginning.

As the company staffed up prior to opening its doors, Resorts World Las Vegas began to search for a communication solution in May 2020. By November, the resort team started  working with Beekeeper, which scaled along with its rapidly growing workforce. It also offered a level of security the company needed with so many workers sharing information on their personal devices. When the resort opened its doors in June 2021, employees were already up and running on the app and ready to welcome guests.

In a fast-paced industry where every second counts, having a mobile-first solution that facilitates real-time, enterprise-wide communication is a gamechanger.

Prioritizing their communication strategy with a productivity and collaboration app allowed Resorts World Las Vegas to:

• Avoid outdated communication methods altogether by opening their doors with a mobile communication system in place
• Build their workforce from the ground up with a tech-first culture of transparency
• Give workers real-time, direct access to performance-enhancing information 
• Create agile, secure, two-way workplace communication
• Facilitate digital signage capabilities throughout the property
• Share executive videos across the organization
• Empower employees with access to all of their personal information
• Bridge language gaps in their diverse workforce with automatic inline translation

Every employee is required to download Beekeeper onto their mobile device from the day they onboard with the company. But it’s not a hard sell. These days, digitally progressive companies like Resorts World Las Vegas always have a leg up in attracting talent. And a cute little mascot helps! Buddy the cartoon bee, helped to create a “buzz” around the app and inspire engagement. 

A Frontline-First Solution with Features Designed for Success

Frontline employees at Resorts World Las Vegas can easily find immediate support right at their fingertips with features like instant messaging, a digital document library and training materials, chatbots, push notifications, and updates from management about day-to-day needs and critical COVID requirements. 

Empowered with real-time, accurate information, employees are equipped to solve problems and provide superior customer service. For example, the cocktail waitstaff has the daily specials in their pockets, and guest room attendants can access upcoming events at the property

Resorts World Las Vegas is the frontline workplace of the future, with an almost entirely email-free operation.

RWLV has two main chat streams within Beekeeper. “Vibes” offers direct updates from company leadership about work-related topics, company changes and critical knowledge like COVID safety and operations protocols. “Culture of You” is an inclusive venue for team members to post kudos and coworker recognition, share successes and participate in the company culture. 

Smooth Communications from the Start

Resorts World Las Vegas has touted smooth communications processes since opening, with clear, direct messaging available to team members every step of the way.

99% of employees are activated on the Beekeeper platform largely consisting of new hires yet to be onboarded.) That includes over 4,800 direct employees,  and the company’s 1,900 outsourced employees, such as retail workers and lifeguards, who use their own dedicated Beekeeper channel that has information curated for their specific roles.

During its mass hiring process, there was a team photo booth where workers could hop in for a snapshot. All it took was for one employee to post that photo in the app and the floodgates opened. Employees jumped on the Beekeeper bandwagon and began sharing, connecting, and communicating. 

Not only is Resorts World Las Vegas one of the hottest spots to visit in Las Vegas, it’s one of the best places to work! We’re glad to be a part of the company’s journey and success, and excited to celebrate and share our Best Employee App recognition with Resorts World Las Vegas.

The post Resorts World Las Vegas’s Beekeeper Named “Best Employee App” by Ragan Employee Communications Awards! appeared first on Beekeeper.

Watch the webinar to learn how Built Brands created a compliant, culture-focused health and safety program.

Founded in 2018, Built Brands is a food manufacturing company that manufactures the world’s best tasting protein bar. . After being in business for just a few years,  Built Brands was named the official protein bar of NASCAR, and has partnerships with the US Ski and Snowboard Team, and the US Track and Field Team. Every day, the manufacturing facility in American Fork, Utah, produces hundreds of thousands of protein bars. This vertical trajectory to success is due in no small part to Built Brands’ frontline workers and the company’s commitment to creating a sense of community in the workplace. 

Beekeeper manager, RJ Bisaha hosted an in-depth webinar with Built Brands’ VP of HR, Shannon McQuarrie, and Director of HR, Shane Fisher to learn how the company has navigated the challenges of staying compliant amidst ever-changing health and safety regulations during the pandemic. 

RJ kicked things off with a few stats to help us get a lay of the land on frontline worker tech:

• Frontlines workers are 80% of the global workforce
• Less than 10% of frontline workers have access to digital tools 
• The cost of not providing frontline digital tools is $8,000 per worker

When the pandemic hit, Built Brands relied on text messages and word of mouth to reach their frontline team members. “We struggled to communicate with our teams,” according to Shannon. After looking at other options, Shannon was impressed with Beekeeper, which aligned with the company’s goals. 

Here are the top takeaways from our webinar with Built Brands.

1. Tracking Employee Health and Vaccination Status

Like most companies, Built Brands has had many different federal and state mandates to comply with throughout the pandemic. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act required companies to regulate paid sick leave for employees related to COVID-19. OSHA’s ETS, or Emergency Temporary Standard, regulated company policies on vaccinated and unvaccinated workers. With mandates constantly changing, Built Brand’s HR team had their work cut out for them. 

To be compliant, it was essential for Built Brands to track and document who got sick and who had received the vaccine since quarantine and leave rules varied depending on vaccination status. 

“Tracking and documentation is what matters to OSHA. Have you notified everybody? Has everybody responded? Do you have 100% compliance?” said Shannon. “Beekeeper is the one way we use the program in order to keep track of all of that information,” said Shannon. “Our employees know exactly where to go and how to put that information in themselves. It gets emailed to everyone on my team. And it allows us to download those results and be able to have that information right at our fingertips.”

2. Boosting Frontline Engagement 

While Beekeeper’s customers see an 85% average activation rate, Shannon set her sights all the way at the top. “This isn’t going to work unless everybody uses it,” she said. “It was very very important to me that everybody bought in.” Thanks to the gritty determination and all-hands-on-deck rollout strategy, Built Brands reached an activation rate of 100%. (Yes, literally every single person in the company!)

The company’s strategy included:

• Cultivating engagement with their managers. Shannon asked every manager to post about their teams to get their employees excited. 
• Creating a grassroots campaign. “Shane and my entire team were out on the floor having people download the app, showing them what it looks like and how to use it, and the cool features about it.” The HR team tracked exactly who was engaging with the app and followed up with workers who hadn’t logged in. 
• Free SWAG!. “If you downloaded Beekeeper onto your phone and uploaded a photo you got a t-shirt,” said Shannon. “Everybody wears them around our facility with pride.” To recognize employees who engage regularly with the app, Shannon gives away surprise gift cards. 

“It’s so cool now to go out and we see the people on the frontlines posting,” said Shane.

3. Creating a Dedicated Stream for COVID-19 Information

To manage and share critical information, Built Brands created a communication stream dedicated to COVID-related updates so workers could find it all in one place. HR shares links to policies, COVID resources, and three different forms—one for employees to report vaccination status, another to track if somebody takes time off to get vaccinated in order to comply with ETS laws, and a third to report positive COVID cases. 

Automating the collection of the team’s vaccination status and COVID exposure with Beekeeper forms has dramatically streamlined the process and made it more efficient. Workers can report a positive COVID test and upload their vaccination cards from their mobile devices instead of going into the HR office. 

“Our employees know exactly where to go and how to put that information in themselves,” said Shannon. “It emails to everyone on my team and it allows us to download those results and be able to have that information right at our fingertips.”

4. Making Information Accessible with Inline Translation

“Working in manufacturing, the majority of my team members don’t sit behind a desk. They’re not reading their email constantly. Being able to have something that can be easily accessible was really important,” said Shannon. With Beekeeper, Shannon has a single source of truth for employees to access all company policies directly on their mobile devices. 

With Built Brand’s diverse workforce, the company also needed a way that every team member could understand these complex policies and terminology around COVID-19. Beekeeper’s inline translation enables workers to select their preferred language, ensuring everyone can understand critical communication. It also helps employees feel valued and supported.

“The majority of employees don’t speak the same language as everyone else,” Shannon said. “So it was extremely important that I find a platform to communicate in the language that is most familiar to them.” 

5. Creating Training and Development Programs 

Shannon introduces Beekeeper to Built Brands team members on their first day at work. 

“When I onboard somebody for the first time, I show them what Beekeeper looks like and explain to them how we use it. I get their buy-in from day one.” And it works. Their newest employee logged into Beekeeper after only 10 minutes on the job to say, “I’m so excited to be a part of this team!”

With Beekeeper integrated into daily operations, Built Brands is also leveraging the platform to boost retention by creating growth opportunities for workers. “Now that we have people all in, we’re able to really use Beekeeper in our training and development programs,” said Shane. 

Shane uploads training videos and is able to track who watches them. These analytics allow him to see which workers are eager to learn and can grow within the company. 

“The more they see the investment the longer they’re going to stick around,” said Shannon. “The engagement side of this tool is going to help shape the future of our workforce.”

6. Make it Fun

Both Shane and Shannon shared their top takeaway tips for companies partnering with Beekeeper.

“Don’t be afraid to make Beekeeper your own. Make it fun!” Shannon said.  “We make Beekeeper fun. But it also allows us to accomplish the jobs that we need to do.” 

“Be united. That’s probably the number one thing that I’ve witnessed Beekeeper bring to us. The unity for our team is just incredible. It’s never been like this,” added Shane.

Discover more takeaways by watching a full replay of the webinar.

The post All In: How Built Brands Tackled the Challenge of Health and Safety Compliance Before and After COVID appeared first on Beekeeper.

Learn how Wireless Vision engages over 4,000 employees and boosts sales. 

But as Wireless Vision expanded, it needed a way to stay connected with every member of its growing workforce. The mobile retailer needed a mobile solution to reach its 4,000-strong field team. That’s when the company discovered Beekeeper, the mobile platform for frontline collaboration and productivity. 

Now, with a 95% Beekeeper adoption rate, Wireless Vision has a surefire way to scale operations and stay connected with its growing workforce.

Here are five ways that Wireless Vision leverages Beekeeper to build a workplace where communication is a key strategy for success.

1. Reduce Turnover

We’re in the midst of the Great Resignation which has added strain to frontline industries already plagued by a labor shortage. There are a million job openings in the retail industry alone. Employees are quitting in record numbers due to several reasons, like extreme burnout from the ongoing pandemic, a desire for greater flexibility, and, as McKinsey discovered, a desire to feel more connected to their workplace and be valued by their managers and the company. But so many companies don’t know how to bridge that disconnect.

The motto at Wireless Vision is “Passion for our People.” With a mostly millennial workforce, they wanted to bring communication to them. That meant leveraging a mobile-first solution. With Beekeeper, they build connections and partnerships throughout the organization. As a result, they’ve seen a jump in employee engagement and a year-over-year drop in turnover. 

“Celebrating and recognizing our employees is one of the things that we absolutely do best at WV. We love the ability to celebrate our employees through Beekeeper because we can celebrate them not only in their immediate department but we can celebrate them throughout our entire organization.”

– Yolanda Royall-Williams, Director of HR and Recruiting at Wireless Vision

2. Increase Sales

Like any retail operation, Wireless Vision is committed to boosting sales. But with a good part of their staff on the floor helping customers and not at a computer, it was hard to support them, especially spread out across 780 stores.

With Beekeeper, information is centralized in one hub and sales teams have immediate and direct access to all of the information they need to provide great customer service. With a single sign-on, sales teams can pull up information on the fly or use the streams, and chats to ask colleagues a question so they can help customers on the spot. 

Sales associates also have direct access to their sales productivity statistics so they know exactly what their numbers are and set personal sales goals. They can also alert colleagues of retail fraud to prevent losses. With the ability to communicate within a matter of seconds and faster speed to market, Wireless Vision field workers have increased sales across the organization. 

“Beekeeper enables us to give our sales people the confidence, information, and knowledge they need to help their customers as quickly as possible.”

– Erica Bechill, Assistant Commissions Manager at Wireless Vision

3. Streamline Technology and Leverage Analytics

All of the technology and tools employees need to navigate their day-to-day work can be overwhelming. Wireless Vision has leveraged Beekeeper to create a single hub to consolidate information and integrate different programs and software that employees can access with a single sign on. 

The company also uses Beekeeper’s real-time analytics dashboard to create communication strategies. At the corporate office, the administrative team can track employee interactions on the platform. They can see Gianna Marx, the company’s Internal Communications Manager, relies on the campaign feature to send out enterprise-wide messaging and see exactly who has and hasn’t read the message so she can target her follow-ups to specific employees. It helps her make data-driven decisions and create a clear communication strategy based on analytics.

“We use Beekeeper as our consolidated, one single connection tool for all of our employees. Prior to that it was unstructured and it was chaos.”

– Srinivas Janyavula, Vice President of Information technology at Wireless Vision

4. Build Company Culture

Not many companies know how to turn a people-first strategy into success. But at Wireless Vision, a commitment to employee happiness has delivered continued “growth and greatness.”

How?

According to Gianna Marx, “With Beekeeper we’ve been able to create this My WV atmosphere where people really feel ownership in the work they’re doing and they’re really proud to share that.”

Beekeeper helps Wireless Vision build a strong company culture by creating a shared language among the 4,000+ field workers who use chats to connect with peers, share questions, post pictures, and foster healthy sales competitions with colleagues on the other coast. 

“As we’ve grown bigger and bigger it can be difficult to hang on to that family feel. But Beekeeper really allows us to maintain that culture even though everyone is geographically spread out.”

– Gianna Marx, Internal Communications Manager at Wireless Vision

5. Customer Success Built on Support

Rolling out a new technology to a nationwide team of 4,000 takes a good digital strategy and great support. With Beekeeper’s Customer Success Team, Wireless Vision had a partner in launching the platform. 

Before the nationwide roll out, Wireless Vision worked with their Customer Success partners to pilot several test markets and work out any issues before launching Beekeeper across the entire company. As a frontline-first organization, Wireless Vision was able to make sure the productivity solution worked for their field teams first. (Spoiler alert: it did!)

Beekeeper’s Customer Success team helped Wireless Vision build custom integrations for a customized “one-stop shop for everything a field employee needs.”

Discover what’s in store for frontline communications this year. Download our 2022 Frontline Trends Report.

The post Better Sales, Low Turnover: Wireless Vision’s Recipe for Success appeared first on Beekeeper.

One of their biggest challenges came when their workforce tripled and employees were spread out across multiple job sites. As a company that held strong communication as one of its core beliefs, Wanzek needed better tools to empower field workers.

Download the case study for more details on how Wanzek scaled its frontline communication strategy, improved worker safety, and boosted employee engagement.

Let’s take a look at how Wanzek Construction used Beekeeper to open and optimize communication channels across their workforce.

Generating 525 Employee Referrals in 3 Months

The construction industry is experiencing a labor shortage and many companies are struggling to attract and retain top talent. From 2022 to 2024, there is a need for an additional 2.2 million hires in the U.S. alone. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of construction positions remain open every month.

For Wanzek, creating an effective and sustainable way to grow their workforce remained one of their top priorities.

By partnering with Beekeeper, Wanzek was able to improve employee engagement. As employees became more familiar with the platform, Wanzek used that engagement to develop a highly effective employee referral program.

With Beekeeper, Wanzek employees could refer people to HR in a matter of minutes. The result? 525 new employee referrals. 

No Email Required

Like many organizations in the industrial space, Wanzek employs frontline workers who spend the majority of their time in the field. Many don’t have an email address.

Before adopting Beekeeper, Wanzek was using a combination of email, text, and digital displays. But with a more robust field workforce, they needed a comprehensive platform that didn’t require an email. 

According to Pew Research, 85% of U.S. adults own a smartphone. As a mobile platform, Beekeeper provided a reliable way to reach every single field worker who had a smartphone. 

Real-time communication on a mobile platform is better suited to frontline teams. With Beekeeper, Wanzek’s managers no longer have to worry about whether their team receives updates on time.

More Engaged Frontline Employees

Employee engagement describes the relationship employees have with the company they’re working for. Highly engaged employees are more satisfied, productive, and actively participate in improving their workplace.

An organization’s internal communication strategy is the main way employees can develop a relationship with their employer. Improving engagement starts by optimizing internal communication.

When Wanzek adopted Beekeeper, frontline employees were better able to communicate with management to provide feedback. Facilitating two-way communication has helped to:

• Strengthen workplace culture
• Aid in new employee recruitment
• Connect teams across different locations

With Beekeeper, Wanzek has a more engaged workforce that is able to communicate faster and more efficiently.

Serving a Multilingual Workforce

Let’s be real: copying and pasting every message into Google Translate isn’t efficient or sustainable. Not only does it slow down operations, it also may discourage employees from giving meaningful feedback.

24.7% of construction workers in the U.S. are foreign-born. That means failing to account for their language preferences could potentially alienate a quarter of the construction workforce.

Wanzek employs a diverse and multilingual workforce. Breaking down language barriers and creating a more inclusive communication strategy were some of their top concerns.

The solution? Beekeeper’s inline translation features automatically translate messages and allow Wanzek’s employees to receive information in their preferred language.

Creating a Safer Workplace

Extreme weather conditions, heights, machinery, wildlife encounters – these are all potential safety hazards that Wanzek’s employees have to deal with on a daily basis.

While Wanzek was taking proper precautions to protect its employees, the company was looking to take an even more proactive approach to worker safety. 

The key components of workplace safety are knowledge, awareness, and preparation. Employees have to know about safety protocols, be aware of hazards, and be prepared to handle them.

With Beekeeper, Wanzek’s employees have access to a communication stream dedicated to safety information. Not only does the company post critical safety updates, but workers can post their own alerts.

Every Wanzek worker now has access to safety protocols that can be updated and improved in real time.

Bottom-Up Communication

While Wanzek’s frontline workforce is distributed across multiple locations, the company didn’t want it to become disconnected as its numbers grew.

By adopting Beekeeper, Wanzek wanted to establish a direct line of communication between its executive leadership team and field workers in remote locations. In other words, Wanzek needed a tool for bottom-up communication.

Bottom-up communication means that the hierarchy of information flows in a way that includes all employees. By adopting Beekeeper, Wanzek was able to create a bottom-up communication strategy with:

• Real-time communication across all levels within the organization
• Surveys and polls to gather feedback from employees
• Employee recognition features 
• Tools that crowdsource solutions and encourage innovation

Want to know more about the results Wanzek has been able to achieve since adopting Beekeeper? Click here to read the case study. 

The post How Wanzek Construction Generated 500+ Employee Referrals in 3 Months appeared first on Beekeeper.

At Beekeeper’s Frontline Future 2021 virtual summit, Customer Success Manager, Ronni Louie sat down screen-to-screen with Dan Fordyce, Hudson’s Regional Vice President of Operations. 

Click here to download the Hudson case study

Fordyce shared insights from the company’s digital enablement journey with Beekeeper. Here are some of the highlights from the session. 

Staying Connected with Employees Across North America

With over 1,000 store locations in airports, commuter hubs, landmarks, and tourist destinations across the United States and Canada, Hudson is one of the most well-known travel retail brands. The company operates travel convenience, specialty retail, duty-free, and food and beverage destinations, with a global brand portfolio including Dunkin’, FAO Schwarz, Coach, and more.

As the company continues to expand, staying connected with workers across North America is more important than ever. In 2018, Hudson started using Beekeeper. “It certainly seemed like a great opportunity to leverage a tool such as Beekeeper to really enhance our employee engagement.”

– Dan Fordyce, Hudson’s Regional Vice President of Operations

The company uses Beekeeper for: 

• Employee recognition programs
• Schedule sharing
• Real-time travel and weather alerts
• Training teams on product knowledge and launches
• Peer-to-peer communication and collaboration
• Staying up-to-date with important company initiatives and programs

An important part of the mobile collaboration tool has been creating a channel for peer-to-peer communication in addition to its location-specific channels. 

“We have an Employee Voice Stream which is open to all of our employees in North America and all day long we see our employees posting things. Employees use Beekeeper to share valuable information and celebrate our success together.” 

Providing Better Customer Service with Product Knowledge Sharing

Hudson carries a wide variety of products, including food, beverages, books, newspapers, magazines, accessories, electronics, and more. There’s a lot of information store associates need to know.

Our internal research has shown that on average, frontline workers spend three hours a week just searching for information. With a centralized communication platform, information is immediately accessible.

Beekeeper helps the company share product knowledge and product launch information, enabling employees to access information when they need it. Empowering employees with knowledge allows them to deliver stronger customer service, and turns them into “product experts,” “experience makers,” and “customer service stars.”

Beekeeper creates a fully connected workforce that’s reachable in real-time at Hudson. And that’s never been more important than now, as the company recovers from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have leveraged Beekeeper to celebrate the return of our employees to work, the reopening of many of our stores, and opening of new stores that we continued to build even throughout the pandemic,” Fordyce said.

As for Beekeeper and Hudson, “It’s been just an extraordinary journey since that pilot in 2018.”

Watch the replay of Hudson’s session to learn more and get exclusive access to all Frontline Future 2021 content!

The post How Hudson Connects 80+ Retail Locations with Beekeeper appeared first on Beekeeper.

Even so, because Amsted Rail puts lean principles at its operational epicenter, is constantly looking for ways to:

• Boost efficiency
• Reduce waste
• Continuously improve workplace performance

Learn how Amsted Rail reached 96% Beekeeper adoption.

Amsted Rail decided to partner with Beekeeper in 2019  to create a mobile collaboration platform that reaches, connects, and engages employees wherever they are. When the global pandemic turned the world on its head – a year later, Amsted Rail was ready to adapt.

Let’s take a look at three ways Amsted Rail optimized essential internal processes – both before and during 2020 – using Beekeeper’s mobile platform.

1) Keeping Employees Informed With Instant Access To Company News

Amsted Rail is a globally integrated manufacturer responsible for keeping the world moving by enabling railroads to haul heavier loads over greater distances. As such, an effective internal communication strategy is essential to ensuring employees can deliver on company objectives.

In 2019, Amsted Rail knew its internal strategy was out of alignment with its lean business objectives.

“A lean organization is always looking for ways to eliminate waste. When applying that principle, we realized we had a lot of opportunities to eliminate waste not just within our own systems from a technology standpoint, but from what our people were doing and how they were receiving information.”

– Ryan Smith, Workplace Solutions Manager, Amsted Rail

With Beekeeper, Amsted Rail established an easy-to-access centralized location for important information. The company created a Stream called “Shop Talk,” where the team distributed exclusive content team members could only access through Beekeeper.

Today, the company supports an effective internal communication strategy that prioritizes:

• Keeping employees informed with the latest company news and information
• Equipping team members with instant access to important documents and materials when and where they need it
• Enabling staff to perform as efficiently as possible

2) Eliminating Paper-Based HR Processes

The Beekeeper app quickly and efficiently improved Amsted Rail’s internal HR processes. This was another crucial benefit. 

Before Beekeeper, for instance, the company posted job openings on a bulletin board. Interested employees wrote their names down. Managers manually tracked the process on the backend using various time-consuming spreadsheets.

With Beekeeper’s Forms capabilities, employees now can easily fill out their information from their mobile devices. HR managers no longer have to keep up with clunky, outdated processes along the way and instead have instant access to the employee data they need. This saves critical time, energy, and capacity.

“Because of Beekeeper’s Forms technology, we can just download the form, and it parses directly into an Excel sheet for us. All that data that we were manually putting in, we’re now able to get that immediately without having any of the administrative waste in there.”

– Ryan Smith, Workplace Solutions Manager, Amsted Rail

3) Saving Time With Digital Employee Screening During COVID-19

With Beekeeper in place, Amsted Rail was better equipped to deal with the evolving, (albeit uncertain) COVID-19 work environment. Even so, the company needed to adapt quickly to changing health and safety guidelines in order to safely bring back its workers.

When the company first began bringing back employees to work on-site, Amsted Rail implemented an employee health screening process to allow COVID-negative team members back to work. But manually screening every employee each morning was time-consuming and tedious. It often took their security guards over two hours each morning to screen their workers.

Using Beekeeper, Amsted Rail integrated its security software to pre-screen employees before they showed up for work. The app’s digital survey included questions that, based on their answers, indicated if the employee did or did not pass the screening process. If they did pass the survey, the information was fed directly to the integrated program. Then, the employee seamlessly accessed their facility.

Beekeeper streamlined the screening process and enabled security teams to spend more time on other tasks.  Employees no longer had to wait in line before getting to work — another huge plus.

Today, many of Amsted Rail’s employees are using the Beekeeper app. Why? The integrated screening process was a huge contributor to effectively engaging team members during this challenging time. 

“We’re going to continue down this path of continually pushing new things out to our employees inside of Beekeeper, including adding to our document library. Our goal is to make Beekeeper the one-stop-shop for information.”

– Ryan Smith, Workplace Solutions Manager, Amsted Rail

Ready to learn more? Just fill out the form below for access to on-demand recordings from our Frontline Future Summit.

The post How Amsted Rail Fully Automated Daily Employee Health Checks to Safely Bring Back Its Workforce appeared first on Beekeeper.