Case Study: How Wells Enterprises Used Beekeeper to Streamline Communications

Founded in 1913, Wells Enterprises has grown from a single delivery wagon to the largest privately owned producer of frozen treats in the United States. The company churns out 200 million gallons of ice cream each year.

In the three years since it began the transition to digitized communication, the company has grown from operating a single production facility to operating multiple plants, with locations in New Jersey, New York, Nevada, and Iowa. As a result, the number of employees at the company has jumped from about 2,700 to more than 4,000.

Wells Enterprises has faced many of the same industry pain points that are ubiquitous to today’s large frozen treat product manufacturers. In particular, it faced the logistical challenge of communicating critical information across multiple operations sites, languages, and levels of access to technology.

To tackle the need for improved employee engagement, connectivity, and operations knowledge, Wells Enterprises partnered with Beekeeper, a mobile productivity and collaboration platform for frontline workers. Management’s main goals were to:

1. Streamline communications
2. Deliver pandemic updates
3. Recognize employees
4. Overcome language barriers

Now used by more than 30% of employees and counting, Beekeeper has proven to be a critical component in maintaining safe and successful operations and efficiency during Wells Enterprises’ expansion.

With Beekeeper, employees can now access company updates through the app or on a desktop computer, and the communications process is instantaneous. Now management teams can send out a mass message either to everyone at a particular job site or to select teams, saving them time since they no longer have to sort through irrelevant updates to find the information they need.

Streamlining Communications and Delivering Critical Updates

Consider a common disruption in facility operations: weather-related closures. Before Wells Enterprises made the shift to digital communications, employees were responsible for either watching the lower-third of their local newscast for closures at a particular job site or calling the hotline to listen to a series of pre-recorded voicemails. With up to 2,000 people working in one building, providing those updates quickly was an arduous task for management and employees alike.

Here are some other ways that Wells Enterprises has streamlined communications with Beekeeper:

• Digitized in-person meetings
• Created two-way communication between employees and supervisors
• Prioritized team feedback through sending out employee satisfaction surveys through the platform

Pandemic regulations delivered a particular blow to pen-and-paper processes. Health regulations are critical in the ice cream industry, especially in the current environment, and sanitation requirements have eliminated traditional fliers and safety quiz materials from breakrooms altogether.

After implementing Beekeeper, Wells Enterprise was able to:

• Eliminate manual process
• Conduct safety quizzes
• Send regulatory information in one, centralized location

The rapid ability to coordinate information helped in organizing the company’s first-ever socially distant drive-through flu shot event, which saw high levels of participation from the team.