Proving your comms ROI
Webinar
Navigating the Perfect Storm: How to Bridge Workforce Communication Gaps in 2025
February 11, 2025
9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. GMT
Industry
Better Together
Streamline service management while delivering personalized employee communications
Deliver exceptional employee experiences and boost employee productivity
Extend Workday to create more personalized and timely employee experiences
Resources Center
Thought leadership and guidance
Employee comms templates
How-tos and strategic resources
Explore our demo videos
Interviews with industry experts
Evaluate employee communications
Live and on-demand
Support and documentation
Wawa
| Case study
Reaching a widely dispersed workforce with two-way communication
How it started
Wawa, the iconic East Coast chain of 24-hour convenience stores, has a widely dispersed workforce of 33,000 spread throughout 800 locations. The company needed a better way to provide employees with timely, relevant information so they could feel more confident about understanding company initiatives, more inspired about their jobs, and create a great in-store experience for everyone who walks through the front door.
It’s a monumental challenge for the company to engage with a workforce consisting mostly of hourly, shift-work employees who have a tenuous connection with the corporate home office. Often, these employees don’t even have company email addresses. So, leadership was reduced to communicating with store employees through their shift managers or printed materials, such as breakroom posters.
This haphazard, inconsistent method of communication presented a huge problem. Frontline workers, of course, have the most contact with the public. They can make or break relationships with customers.
Where they landed
Wawa determined that the solution to better communication throughout the organization could be found in the pockets of employees—their mobile devices. Today, people use smartphones as remote controls for their daily lives as they access interesting and useful information. Wawa wanted to replicate that experience on the job.
The Firstup platform was the solution.
Working with Firstup, Wawa created a branded platform called “The Honker,” which reflects the company’s goose theme and gives Wawa the ability to effectively engage a widely dispersed workforce that includes those hourly shift workers. The company delivers information to employees such as new sales programs and essential safety announcements. It uses surveys to get the pulse of employees on various topics. The CEO regularly records short, breezy videos to connect with employees. Also, the two-way communication provided by The Honker allows store employees to notify the corporate home office of any issues—allowing Wawa to solve problems quickly.
The platform instantly was a big hit. Within the first month, one-third of the workforce (more than 10,000 workers) registered for the platform, and after about 10 months, 15,000 employees were enrolled. Employees are more productive and work more efficiently. But just as crucial for Wawa, frontline workers feel like they’re part of a broader community beyond their individual stores.
About
Explore all of our customer stories
Proving your comms ROI
Getting mission-critical info to staff
Going mobile
Webinar
February 11, 2025
9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. GMT