World’s Finest Chocolate

 | Case Study

Finding fun and purpose in employee comms

Making onsite and remote workforce engagement exciting

HOW IT STARTED

Bringing everyone together with one app

At World’s Finest Chocolate, the leadership team was searching for a two-way employee communications platform that would help them address the unique challenges of their dispersed workforce.

“Before the pandemic, we didn’t have an immediate, company-wide way to communicate with our employees,” says Raleigh Decker, WFC’s Senior Director of Communications, who almost single-handedly created this unexpected way to capture and share the spirit of the family-owned company. “We knew it was important to reinforce what makes WFC so special—our culture, our people and our mission, which includes the word fun!”

And as a traditional manufacturing company, WFC never had an intranet—and half of its employees, who work in the plant, don’t have a work email address.

WHERE THEY LANDED

Continuous engagement

With the launch of the app, change was brewing and people were connecting, despite the obstacles. The key was continuous engagement from the company and among employees.

Planned content—a snappy mix of text, videos and photos—is spread out through the week, including employee-generated announcements, personal stories, comments and suggestions that keeps participation high all year. 

Teams make and post their own videos using guidelines for consistency and fairness. Even senior leaders were taught how to record and submit their own videos each month, with managers doing so once a quarter. And the use of gamification, through which employees are automatically awarded points for various actions on the platform, was a big hit. 

The “WFWorks” app makes everyone a part of comms

The app is built for social sharing, which strengthens the company’s culture and reinforces meaningful employee connections—we’re all in this together.  

With so many ways to connect, share, support others, learn and earn prizes, the platform has increased employee engagement significantly. Employee discussions, for example, increased by 215%, and more than 1,100 comments were posted during a span of 30 days.

About

World’s Finest Chocolate

Running a successful chocolate company sounds like fun. But like any business, it requires a dedicated workforce. Just ask the people at World’s Finest Chocolate (WFC), which has been crafting world-class chocolate from a cherished family recipe for 82 years. Motivated by their mission—“To deliver extraordinary value with fun and purpose”—CEO Eddie Opler encourages employees to incorporate “their secret (chocolate) sauce” into everything they do. Eddie’s grandfather, WFC’s founder, would say, “We don’t make chocolate. We make the world’s finest chocolate, and it’s made by the world’s finest people.”

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