Ever hit the snooze button in a barely-awake stupor…then wake up 20 minutes past your alarm wondering how?
For something to really click with our brains, once isn’t always enough. And when it comes to employee communications in retail, it almost never is. Just ask the 3 ops and comms leaders who joined us for a live webinar on July 31.
During Real Retail Stories: Practical, Agile, and Creative Solutions From Top Brands, Alisa Ingwersen, Change Management and Communication Associate at DashMart (DoorDash), Ryan Holm, Divisional VP of Retail Innovation and Operations at Helzberg, and Mike Cantwell, Senior Retail Communications Leader at TravisMathew, shared their boots-on-the-ground strategies for engaging, effective, and “sticky” frontline communications.
When a clear theme emerged: for communications to translate into action, behavior change, and real-world results, they need one central foundation—with multiple touchpoints.
Watch the full webinar below and keep reading for top tips and strategies from each speaker.
Alisa From DoorDash: See the Forest…and the Trees
DashMart is a relatively new part of DoorDash, where users order anything from snacks to household items from micro-fulfillment centers that Dashers pick up for delivery. When they realized splintered communications methods for on-site teams and operators weren’t cutting it, Alisa led the Zipline rollout for unified messaging and task management.
The key to her success? Treating the launch like an internal campaign.
“Change starts with behavior, and behavior change requires structure,” she emphasized. To go beyond introducing the change and platform benefits and get employees to really absorb and adopt them, she took a multi-pronged approach:
- An intentional information cascade, starting with central and cross-functional teams
- Leadership-led messaging, equipped with playbooks
- Role-specific office hours to field any questions
- An escalation management process with “crystal-clear” pathways
“Our success relied on planning, repetition, and clarity,” Alisa summed up. “We looked at this with a change management mindset. We structured the rollout to meet people where they were and make space for their feedback.” This helped build trust, gave people a chance to see others get on board, ask questions, and understand the “why” before the “how” to proactively eliminate confusion and barriers.
She used a handy metaphor for implementing any sort of large-scale change: seeing the forest…and the trees.
“You need to focus on the big picture, and the pieces within,” she explained. “We focused on reinforcing new behaviors to support the overall goal of having Zipline be our one-stop shop for communication…turning one-time actions into habits through visibility, recognition, and repetition.”
For visibility, “…we leaned into MartBeat for things like engagement initiatives, site-level ops, and key metrics…so, increasing visibility of initiatives while also reducing the overall message volume.”
For recognition, “…when employees feel valued and appreciated…they’re more likely to repeat those behaviours,” which is where the library came in. “Most of our pages are owned by the field…and we know that personalized space makes it feel like their own, and they’re more likely to use the tool.”
For repetition, “…we established patterns by using the right features based on the actions we were trying to drive. Messages for communication, library for SOPs and resources, Assessments to verify understanding, and Groups to facilitate peer-to-peer engagement.”
Head to 2:58 in the webinar to hear Alisa’s story and more on her step-by-step guide to launching initiatives “like a campaign.”
Ryan From Helzberg: Harnessing the Genius of Wedding Communications
As VP of Retail Innovation and Operations at a storied 110-year-old diamond retailer, it was fitting Ryan Holm’s communications inspiration came from wedding invitations.
Before he tied that knot together, he started with his own communications flop:
This message was about a highly requested dashboard from store managers. At first glance, it covered all the bases for introducing a new feature to an audience he knew would love it. So why didn’t it land? Two weeks post-send, only ⅓ of store managers had accessed the dashboard.
“All the eggs were in one basket,” he revealed. “In retrospect, this feels so obvious. Of course this message didn’t result in 100% adoption…it was just one message. People take vacations, stores are short-staffed or busy, it’s really easy to miss one message.”
But simply sending the message again didn’t feel like enough. That’s when Ryan looked to his personal life for creative inspiration.
“What events receive more than one communication, and it’s commonplace, normal, and even appreciated?…Weddings!”
He started modeling launch communications after a typical wedding cadence, including multiple, strategically rolled out messages, links for resources and information, and associated tasks for action.
“These all work in concert to build a rhythm of communication in which detail is layered in, and communicated at different times, to serve as reminders, ensure clarity, and build excitement around the event,” he explained as he laid out his execution strategy.
- Save the date: A short hype message letting stores know about an upcoming launch
- Invitation: A longer, more detailed message with links to Knowledge resources or Learnings, and maybe a task to prepare
- Day-of details: A message with a video and resource links, tasks for execution, relevant “hubs” for information specific to that launch, and a post in Groups to start a conversation
- Thank-you note: A summary of the launch, initial learnings, links to new resources, and a survey to collect feedback
“One thing we learned from communicating this way…is the value of being able to keep our library and learnings evergreen,” Ryan mentioned as a bonus benefit. “When we use the message to reference material that will become dated or obsolete, we can reference the old and the new and help with that transition period.”
This approach gave Helzberg employees a common language around launch communications, and a cohesive messaging strategy with continual, resource-rich touchpoints they can access for context and information at any time.
Head to 13:06 in the webinar to hear Ryan’s story and exactly how he put this strategy into action.
Mike From TravisMathew: Turn Your Customer Experience Inward
TravisMathew is an active lifestyle brand with over 60 stores, all of which include interactive elements like retro video gaming, ping pong tables, and even VIP lounges in select markets. Their customer experience is immersive, all about having fun and “never being boring.”
Mike joined as Senior Retail Communications Leader with a goal to level up their so-so employee engagement. “We had okay readership and execution [in Zipline], some activity in the Groups area, and most managers logged in during their shifts. However, we weren’t really effectively engaging our supervisors and associates—two groups that represent the largest population in our field teams.”
Feedback showed Zipline was mistaken as “only for managers.” But also that the overall experience was:
Mike had the brilliant idea to give employees the same immersive, interactive, and fun experience customers loved. And applied the branding fundamental of storytelling to internal communications.
“Retail is storytelling,” he repeated. “And storytelling is about forming emotional connections…it’s not just the products that captivate customers. [It’s] the narrative behind the brand…this story also plays a major role in how we engage our teams.”
So he got to work on a holistic, multi-touch, branded employee experience using Zipline’s customizable branding packages.
“It was time for a glow-up,” Mike laughed. “Branding packages in Zipline allow you to customize various elements…and this unlocks a lot of flexibility to fine-tune the look and feel of the platform…and as a team of one, the ability to easily change this was very helpful.”
He mimicked their external brand vision with dynamic banners, bold colors, multimedia assets, and internal “campaigns” that included brand ambassadors, hubs, dashboard updates, and daily recap emails.
“Rather than just releasing a comm…using the branding function along with other Zipline features, we brought these stories to life across all touchpoints.”
The results tell a story for themselves.
Employee feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with a resounding—”not boring!”—about the new platform experience. Backed up by data since this new approach was implemented.
- 2023: 76 unique logins per day, 25% supervisors and sales associates
- 2024: 149 unique logins per day, 40% supervisors and sales associates
- 2025: 217 unique logins per day, 50% supervisors and sales associates
With general readership and execution skyrocketing to nearly 100%.
“This has far-reaching positive impacts across our business,” he finished. Store teams felt more valued, trusted, and connected to the brand vision as part of that story—even creating their own content and elevating the direct experience they provide customers.
Head to 20:16 in the webinar to hear Mike’s story and get all the details on turning brand storytelling into store success.
In Retail Communications, the (Right) More Is More
One of many things these pros taught us is, while there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for employee communications, taking a multi-touch approach is nearly always the right one.
It starts with centralization—then customization. Offering every employee a single place to get the information and take the actions they need, with targeted communications across multiple assets, touchpoints, and message cascades to leave no stone unturned.
The result? Communications that not only land, but stick. And employees who are more engaged, knowledgeable, and empowered to do their best work.
If you haven’t already, we encourage you to watch the full webinar above to get every wisdom nugget and practical takeaway. Plus a bonus session from Ryan on using AI to decode survey insights.
And make sure to join us for our next live webinar and Q&A session, Launching Learning That Lasts, with two retail Learning and Development leaders sharing their proven secrets for learning with impact.
