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With 112 locations across three states, Team Cowabunga is one of the largest singly-owned Domino’s franchises in the United States. Cowabunga now employs 2,500+ employees, all committed to helping Domino’s be every neighborhood’s favorite pizza place.
Maredie Palmer, Communications and Digital Experience Manager at Team Cowabunga, has her hands full when it comes to both internal and external communications. As a mighty team of one, she works together alongside multiple departments to ensure the proper messaging is reflected externally and that employees on the ground stay well-informed and connected.
Team Cowabunga’s workforce is made up almost entirely of frontline workers who do not sit behind desks. Messages were being relayed by email and a pizza stained bulletin board in the back room of each location. This was proving to be a less effective than other means of communication.
Team Cowabunga offers a clear career path where employees are given the tools and opportunities to advance and grow. They needed to make this known to all employees in order to retain their amazing talents and reduce the time and costs associated with training new team members.
They needed to provide their frontline workers with access to a single source of truth, and access needed to be quick and efficient. They needed a way to not only connect and engage with their employees, but for their employees to connect and engage with each other.
Team Cowabunga launched their branded app and intranet, BungaHub, in March 2022. Since then, BungaHub has allowed them to segment messages and deliver them in real time.
More importantly, it has allowed them to measure the impact of the content that’s been shared. BungaHub now serves as a one-stop shop for everything their employees need, including benefits, feedback, HR integrations, training, career growth, and more.
By utilizing feedback forms and surveys, Team Cowabunga is able to take the pulse of their frontline workers. Since their launch they have utilized the forms feature to set up an HR suggestion box as well as conducted 30+ surveys.
Not only have they been able to put these features in place quickly and easily, but they’ve done so with measurable results. These features provide management with a direct line to frontline employee feedback, as well as to the feedback shared by customers to the frontline employees.
With BungaHub, they’ve been able to make career advancement top of mind to their employees across the business.
With their “Full Potential Money Map”, employees have a clear view of what positions are available as well as detailed job descriptions. Team members can also easily access their Training Hub to take learning and growth into their own hands.Since implementing the Full Potential Money Map they’ve seen a rise in page views and advancement applications. “Working at Cowabunga is not just a short-term thing — you can have a career here.”
Team Cowabunga began with a family feel and they wanted to keep that same sense of community as they grew. With BungaHub, the CEO is able to send out a regular update called “Mike’s Corner” where he shares important updates and exciting announcements.
It’s something the employees truly appreciate and enjoy. He’s able to share text and images, as well as videos (his preferred method of communication).
Maredie takes advantage of the analytics available and regularly reviews usage metrics. She reviews the daily, weekly, and monthly active users to gauge the type of content she puts out as well as the timing and frequency of said content.
This enables her to make the right decisions about when to share more lighthearted content and when important and urgent messaging is best broadcast.
Discover how this retail leader informs, educates, and engages their entire workforce.
Maredie Palmer Communications and Digital Experience Manager
