From family business to global company
A global company operating across 105 countries, a strong part of Dawn Foods’ vision is to share knowledge and encourage the asking of questions. But, without an effective way to communicate with their people, bringing this vision to life has been difficult.
Dawn Foods was originally founded as a neighborhood bakery in Jackson, Michigan, by Eugene Worden and Gover Lutz. They chose the name “Dawn” because of the time of day bakers do their work. When the duo landed their famous donut mix in 1920, it became so popular they formed the Dawn Donut Company, the nation’s first industrial bakery mix company.
100 years later, Dawn Foods creates much more than donuts. Now with more than 4,000 products and 4,000 passionate people, they’ve come a long way from a small family-owned bakery.
Workplace Results
Scaling a small family-owned operation to global operations
“Our rich family history is a huge part of our culture and why our customers buy from us,” says Dave Lawrence, Dawn Food’s Internal Communications Manager.
“We needed a way to ensure this family-like culture was practiced throughout our business – a way to share information and communicate as a business globally.
“We’re a global company, but very locally focused. It’s always been difficult for teams outside of our Home Office in Michigan to get the information they need. Our internal communication style leans towards hoarding knowledge inside teams and departments and this was something we really needed to resolve, and fast,” Dave says.
Bringing Dawn's vision to life on Workplace
Dawn Foods needed the ability to share rich media, videos, and photos to convey its messages. They also needed a tool that would be adopted quickly and easily by their diverse, global workforce.
In their search for a solution, it wasn’t long before Workplace became a clear favorite.
“Its capabilities aligned with our need to encourage collaboration, share knowledge through rich media, and bring our vision to life through our communications,” Dave explains.
What's next for Dawn and Workplace?
After making the decision to roll out Workplace, Dawn Foods partnered with Enablo to facilitate a Workplace Blueprint and was live on Workplace two months later.
“The Enablo team took the time to understand the business and our unique needs. They worked closely with our IT team to ensure our identity provider, Microsoft Azure Active Directory, was seamlessly integrated so team members could easily activate their Workplace account,” Dave says.
“Because Workplace is so familiar, our people around the world adopted the platform really quickly. Almost overnight, learning was easier, knowledge sharing was instant and success stories and recognition were being posted on the platform.”
“Workplace has been transformative for our culture,” says Dave.
“People have told me they had no idea what was going on in the company before and it was hard to identify the company mission. We can actually point to things now within the platform as a representation of our culture and values.”
“We’re very thankful to have had Workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic too,” Dave adds.
“Many of our office-based teams have been working from home, and Workplace has allowed them to connect and share in new, fun ways. We’re able to stay in touch an celebrate our milestones digitally.”
“Because Workplace is so similar to Facebook and therefore so familiar, our people around the world adopted the platform really quickly. Almost overnight, learning was easier, knowledge sharing was instant and success stories and recognition were being posted on the platform. Workplace has been transformative for our culture.”
Dave Lawrence – Internal Communications Manager
Talk to us about the future or work within your organisation
At Enablo, we help leading organizations digitize the world of work. Through our partnerships with Workplace from Meta, Asana and Google Workspace, we’ve helped hundreds of organizations transform their culture and the way they work. Get in touch if you are looking to adapt to the future of work! We’ll show you how to break unhealthy workplace habits and keep you accountable with the tools you need to help transform workplace culture for your distributed workforce.