2025 BEST PRACTICE AWARDS

Best Retail Innovation

by KYLE SWARTZ

Before Distilled Digest, stores received a high volume of unprioritized point-of-sale messages— sometimes urgent, often overwhelming and rarely contextualized. This fragmented approach made it difficult for store leaders to identify what was most important or time-sensitive from a daily operations standpoint. Recognizing the need to reduce information overload and improve operational alignment, the PLCB developed Distilled Digest as a single, centralized communication tool tailored to the needs of frontline retail employees.

It was the brainchild of Angela Schaul, Director, Retail Operations & Stores.

“ We wanted to create a communications bible,” Schaul explains.“ I wanted to use all the best practices from other businesses I’ ve worked with before.”

Delivered every other Tuesday via email and a web-based intranet, Distilled Digest connects employees to the most relevant operational, marketing, HR, training and store-level updates— organized for clarity, urgency and impact.

“ There’ s a continual tug of war for employees’ attention, so we wanted to make sure that we could deliver information to employees in as effective and efficient manner as possible,” says Carrie Lepore, Deputy Policy and Communications Director.“ We realized that while a lot of the information they had been receiving was important, the vehicle and cadence of how it was being delivered was not the most effective, so we started consolidating.”

Creating each issue, the communications team works with all other departments for content ideas. The most pressing information takes priority.“ It really is a department-wide effort,” Lepore says.“ We work closely with Store Ops to review every article we consider for inclusion. Store Ops has the ultimate‘ yay’ or‘ nay’.”

Store Ops then lays out Distilled Digest using InDesign, and puts together the physical media.

“ It’ s great that the stores have a one-stop-shop for all the in-

formation rather than having to go around and click for everything,” says Kathleen Hey, Director, Bureau of Store Operations Support.“ It saves time for people. It’ s easier for managers during their one-minute meeting to say,‘ Here’ s what’ s going on’. It’ s easier for people who have been away on vacation or traveling to catch up when coming back.”

In under a year, Distilled Digest has reduced message fatigue, boosted engagement and helped Retail Operations strengthen its connection with thousands of frontline team members, the PLCB reports. This supports a faster, more-focused and more-empowered retail environment.

Up next for the project is digitization.“ We’ re moving to a digital platform to react quickly and in the moment with information,” Schaul says.“ We want to update our internal homepage daily with this information rather than only putting together a written publication every two weeks.”

Accompanying this digital delivery system will be a series of videos.“ Angela and her team are about to bring the next evolution of this, which we’ re calling‘ In Good Spirits’,” Lepore says.“ We’ re going to be making videos for store employees to watch. It’ s the next evolution in closing that circle of internal communications. It’ s an opportunity to intimately connect with employees in 500-plus stores.” www. stateways. com Fall 2025 • StateWays 21