Rave Assists Seaboard Foods During COVID-19 Outbreak & Beyond
Customer Success Story
Rave Assists Seaboard Foods During COVID-19 Outbreak & Beyond
Industry
Challenges Solved
COVID-19 Recovery, Critical Communication, Employee Safety, Mass Notification, Safety & Protection
Customer Details
Seaboard Foods is the second largest pig producer in the United States and the fourth leading pork processor. The company has over 5,000 employees working at operations across five states.
Solution
THE CHALLENGE
Seaboard Foods is more than a principal pork producer and pioneer. With thousands of employees working in locations across five states, the company’s operations can feel like a large community all its own.
For example, the Seaboard Foods facility in Guymon, Oklahoma processes more than 4.2 million pounds of product per day when operating at full capacity. That remarkable output comes from the efforts of more than 2,700 employees who work at that location.
“When you have that many employees in multiple locations, it’s hard to communicate effectively with everyone and share information,” said Alaina Sill, talent acquisition and recruiting manager at Seaboard Foods. “We needed a way to communicate with employees even if they don’t have a company email address, or if they work in a location that doesn’t receive strong internet signals.”
Sill says initially the company relied on old school communications, such as posting on bulletin boards and hoping that supervisors shared this information with their staff. It was clear that this method wasn’t effective at communicating important updates to employees.
Sill and her team were initially drawn to Rave because it offered them the ability to instantly deliver targeted emergency and nonemergency messaging to employees. However, by the time Seaboard Foods implemented the Rave platform for all its locations, the company’s communication needs had evolved again with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When COVID hit, it created even more challenges,” Sill said. “How do we quickly inform all employees, without having to rely on others to deliver the information? We needed a way to proactively communicate for reasons we never expected.”
The Solution
In order to live up to its commitment to protect employees and reduce illness transmission, Seaboard Foods offered free coronavirus testing to all its employees at the Guymon location.
“We offered free testing because employees were concerned about coming into work when they were uncertain about their health status,” said Sill. “We used Rave to communicate when and where testing would happen, and what they needed to do to get tested. Rave allowed us to share this info with every employee, even if they weren’t at the facility.”
Sill found that the Rave platform was a good way to quickly notify employees who tested negative and were clear to come to work. Rave’s segmentation capabilities were also helpful when communicating with people who were required to quarantine for 14 days. By grouping message recipients based on when they started quarantine, Sill and her team could easily inform employees when the end of their quarantine period was approaching and when they could return to work, provided they were symptom-free.
“Without Rave, we would have had to call each person individually,” said Sill. “There were over 700 people we needed to notify about whether they could resume work. It would have taken us so long to individually contact them that who knows when they actually would have returned.”
Rave’s messaging capabilities were also helpful when it came to sharing companywide announcements, such as informing staff they didn’t need to use their paid time off when quarantining for COVID-19. It also raised the profile of Seaboard Foods’ efforts to support employees, such as announcing wage increases for employees who worked during the height of the virus.
“Don’t limit yourself to what Rave can be used for. Anything and everything that you would communicate to an employee, use Rave. It’s so simple and so easy to use. It’s been more efficient and effective for getting info out very quickly to the people who need it.”
ALAINA SILL
TALENT ACQUISITION AND RECRUITING MANAGER
SEABOARD FOODS
The Result
Even if there is no emergency or ongoing large-scale event, Rave still enables organizations to enhance employee communication and engagement.
With the Rave platform, Seaboard Foods can easily manage outreach efforts that previously would have been massively time-consuming. When a facility needed to cancel its evening shift, the employees on the schedule were notified in advance. Without this accessible communication channel, workers may not have learned their shift was canceled until they arrived at the facility ready to work.
The Seaboard Foods Human Resources department has also leveraged Rave to enhance a number of ongoing employee engagement efforts. Sill and her team have used Rave for everything from informing employees about new health insurance benefits, sending companywide polls to gather valuable insight and sharing order forms for upcoming staff meat sales.
Rave has even helped Sill’s team streamline the employee onboarding experience. By using Rave to survey new workers during their first 60 days with Seaboard Foods, the team has been able to quickly identify areas for improvement. Sill says the solution has empowered her team to proactively address and overcome obstacles or concerns that may arise at any Seaboard Foods location.
“Don’t limit yourself to what Rave can be used for,” says Sill. “Anything and everything that you would communicate to an employee, use Rave. It’s so simple and so easy to use. It’s been more efficient and effective for getting info out very quickly to the people who need it.”
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