Danone North America delivers the future of employee experience with pay on demand

Go to the grocery store and you’re bound to encounter a Danone product. Maybe it’s the Danimals yogurt drinks your kids love, the Silk soy milk you use in your morning smoothie, or the bottle of Evian water that you keep in your car.

Danone is a multinational consumer-packaged goods company that’s globally headquartered in France and produces high-quality dairy and plant-based products and beverages. Danone North America employs around 6,000 people across 14 manufacturing locations, five sales offices, and three headquarters in Canada, the U.S., and Puerto Rico. Around two-thirds of Danone North America’s workforce is in hourly manufacturing.

While you know the company’s products well, what you might not know is that Danone is one of the world’s largest certified B Corps. The B Corp certification is awarded to companies that meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. Danone achieved the designation in 2018 and has since been on a journey of balancing profit, purpose, and transforming how it operates as a business and supports the well-being of its people.

“We intend to have both an economic and a social motivation when it comes to what we do in the world,” says Brandon Arment, Manager of Employee Solutions and Technology. “As an employer and a corporation, we are responsible for the way that we interact with the world. That mindset and motivation really sets Danone apart from other consumer-packaged goods manufacturers.”

An all-in-one solution to optimise operations and employee engagement

Achieving B Corp certification isn’t the only change the company has undergone in recent years. In 2018, a merger formed what is now known as Danone North America. This merger created the need for an agile, integrated HCM solution that could support the needs of the entire workforce, from time and attendance to payroll and insights.

“When we were going through the RFP process, what differentiated Dayforce from the others was that it is a vertically integrated company that provides all the services we need,” says Gavin Flynn, Director of Technology and Payroll. “Dayforce also has a deep expertise in the manufacturing space through its time and attendance product that really differentiates it from others.”

The company implemented Dayforce for payroll, time and attendance, HR, performance, compensation, learning, engagement, and succession planning, launching first in the U.S., and then in Canada.

The always-on people platform has been key to helping Danone better support the well-being of its employees, some of whom have been with the company for 40 years. During the pandemic, the company was able to quickly implement and communicate a 15% hero pay increase for frontline workers in under 12 hours. And employees can easily access their information and other functionalities through the Dayforce mobile app.

Dayforce has also created significant business benefits. The company has been able to optimise its payroll processes and streamline its payroll team from 11 people to five. And the system provides invaluable workforce insights and real-time, on-demand reporting, both of which support business growth and success.

“Having a single source of HR truth makes it much easier to tell the story of the health of our organisation. We’re not having to combine multiple reports systems and tables to come up with basic things like our hiring rate, turnover rate, and how our organisation is performing,” says Flynn. “Dayforce allows us to be more agile in our decision-making around the performance and health of our human capital in the organisation.”

Going the extra mile for employees

Danone is committed to offering employees competitive wages and a comprehensive total rewards package as part of its commitment to employee well-being and its B Corp values.

And with the competition for talent in the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) sector showing no signs of letting up, the company must put its best foot forward to recruit and retain top talent.

“Finding good, qualified talent that really sees manufacturing as a great career is hard. So, we've really worked hard over the past four years to make sure we have a total value proposition that aligns with our B Corp values and really speaks to our employees and meets them where they're at,” says Flynn.

The company is always on the lookout for new ways to differentiate itself in the market and improve the future of its employee experience. So, when Flynn heard about Dayforce Wallet, he was intrigued.

Dayforce Wallet is a flexible pay solution for the modern workforce. The app allows employees to access the pay they’ve earned in real-time, with just the click of a button.

“My initial reaction to Dayforce Wallet was that it sounded like a cool idea, but there had to be a catch,” says Flynn. “We kept studying the idea and we kept not finding the catch. It truly is a product that adds no cost to our operation and adds no complexity or changes to the way we process and run payroll. But it gives a tremendous benefit to our employees who use it.”

The company planned to begin implementing Dayforce Wallet in March 2020. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The company decided to move forward despite the uncertainty and adjusted its implementation plan to a fully remote roll-out. Danone started with its Fort Worth, Texas manufacturing facility and deployed to other locations after that.

“Dayforce Wallet proved to be one of the best tools in our arsenal during COVID,” says Arment. “The idea that an employee could get paid at any point that they needed to after they had already worked the hours was something novel that helped drive stability in our workforce and showed the employees that we had their best interests at heart.”

Implementation was simple and quick, cost nothing, and didn’t create extra work for payroll administrators. And the response from the workforce has exceeded Danone’s expectations. Within two years, close to a third of the company’s employees have started using Dayforce Wallet to access their pay on demand, and the company has funded more than $13.6 million in pay requests.

“I don't have a lot of credit cards,” says Machine Operator Sengkham Macvilay. “I love the way I can use my Dayforce Prepaid Mastercard to buy things online, use it for groceries, or go to the store with it. It's my money.”

Macvilay’s colleague, Machine Operator Claudia Garcia, agrees: “I use the Dayforce Wallet app to pay bills and for purchases. When I go grocery shopping, sometimes I need extra money when I don't have enough funds.”

“It was hard before Dayforce Wallet because I would live check to check,” continues Garcia. “Now that we have Dayforce Wallet, I work my day, and then have the money there when I need it and take it out right there and then. Dayforce Wallet makes me feel in control of my money because I could get it as soon as I've worked my shift. I don't have to wait until payday.”

Danone is seeing adoption of Dayforce Wallet across the workforce, from both hourly and salaried workers. Flynn has heard from parents who used Wallet to throw their child a great birthday party. Many employees use the Dayforce Card for everyday purchases, or to cover unexpected expenses. Others have been able to reduce reliance on predatory lenders and keep more money in their pockets. No matter how they use it, accessing their pay on demand adds up to employees being able to make better choices for themselves and their families.

“I definitely think this is the future of payroll,” says Flynn.

Getting the edge in a competitive talent market

Flynn, Arment, and team have been studying how Dayforce Wallet helps with recruitment and retention. Jahaira Orozco, HR Coordinator, says Dayforce Wallet helps Danone North America prove it values employees from day one. “When I'm conducting the new-hire orientation and I tell them that Dayforce Wallet will be available for them from the first day, they’re amazed.”

Thanks to so many employees opting in to Dayforce Wallet, the company has been able to reduce its pay schedules from six to two and move employees away from paper paychecks, saving both time and money.

And despite the red-hot competition for talent, Danone North America’s turnover rate is holding steady.

“Dayforce Wallet boosts our reputation as an employer of choice,” says Flynn. “Often, our wages and benefits are similar [to those of our competitors]. We now have this differentiator that allows us to say to a prospective candidate, ‘You can go across the street and get paid every two weeks, or you can come here and get paid every day if you want to.’ Dayforce Wallet really speaks to our employee base and our total value proposition as an employer.”

Navigating the new world of work

Danone is now facing the challenge of navigating the shifting realities of the new world of work. Employees expect more freedom and flexibility, and hybrid work arrangements have become more common. It’s important to keep operations optimised and compliance in check, while maintaining a focus on the future of employee experience. Danone considers Dayforce a key partner in this work.

“Dayforce has allowed us to really flex and allow for things like employees who have multiple work locations or who telecommute a high percentage of the time. It's helped us streamline the complexity of a hybrid workforce working all over the country,” says Flynn. “We’re leveraging a lot of Dayforce’s built-in capabilities to manage the hybrid workforce, COVID reporting and tracing, and checking in with our employees. It’s an awesome suite that allows us to scale with the needs of our workforce.”

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