How Southern States Cooperative gave every employee a front door to company information

When your frontline workforce is literally in the field — spanning farm fields, delivery trucks and retail floors — getting the right information to the right people when they need it is incredibly hard if it depends on logins and company email.

For Southern States Cooperative, that's exactly what their old intranet demanded. The result? Hundreds of frontline team members cut off from the policies, forms, and resources they needed most.

After deploying goHappy's Engagement Hub alongside their existing Messaging tool, Southern States built a single, reliable home for company information — one every employee can access from their phone.

Southern States Cooperative is a Richmond, Virginia–based agricultural cooperative that has served farmers and rural communities since 1923. Its operations span retail farm supply stores, energy distribution, and agronomy services, and its workforce is overwhelmingly deskless — field teams, drivers, warehouse staff, retail associates, agronomy crews, and a large population of seasonal and temporary employees make up the majority of the organization.

Southern States was already using goHappy Messaging to reach frontline team members via text. When the Engagement Hub launched, the team saw an opportunity to give every employee a permanent, searchable home for the resources they needed most.

Before the Engagement Hub, SSC's employee resources lived on a SharePoint-based intranet that required a company-issued email address. The problem? Most frontline employees didn't have one. Seasonal workers couldn't even get a SharePoint license. The people who needed information the most were the ones least likely to have access to it.

Even for those who could log in, the experience wasn't great. Information was scattered across multiple systems. Links were outdated. Pages weren't maintained because there was no structured ownership process. Content lived in what Ashley Beckwith, Employee Engagement & Wellbeing Specialist at SSC, described as a maze of hubs and outdated documents.

The ripple effects were everywhere. Employees flooded HR with the same questions: Where do I find this form? Who do I contact? Where's the latest version of this policy? Leaders in the field were too busy to pass along every HR update. And an employee experience survey confirmed what the team already suspected: people had lost trust in the intranet entirely. Instead of trying to self-serve, they just picked up the phone.

SSC was already seeing the power of reaching deskless workers through goHappy Messaging. Adding the Engagement Hub felt like a natural next step — a way to put content right at employees' fingertips without requiring a company email or desktop computer.

What set the Hub apart from traditional intranets was how simple it was for employees to use and how easy it was for content owners to manage. The technical setup was fast — the team said the Hub was essentially turned on overnight once the employee file feed was in place. But SSC intentionally slowed down the launch to build it right.

The team designated key content contributors for each department, established clear ownership, and prioritized accuracy over speed. The goal wasn't just to launch another intranet — it was to build something employees would actually trust.

The first sign the Hub was working came from the keyword search feature. Instead of hunting through folders or calling HR, employees could type in a word and instantly find what they needed, along with a brief AI-generated summary. The response was immediate.

During regional field showcases, the feedback was consistent: the Hub is clean, simple, and intuitive. Even in a workforce that can be resistant to change, training and adoption went smoothly.

The shift is already noticeable. Instead of being the sole source of answers, HR can point employees to the Hub — one reliable, up-to-date resource managed by the right content owners. Question resolution that used to take an HR team member several minutes now takes about 30 seconds for frontline employees to find themselves, thanks to keyword search. The back-and-forth has dropped significantly, and HR is spending less time chasing down documents and more time on strategic work.

Usage is already on par with — or higher than — the previous intranet. The most-accessed resources tell a clear story about what frontline teams actually need:

Their benefits enrollment cycle was noticeably smoother. Text message reminders linked directly to benefit guides housed in the Hub, leading to faster completion rates and fewer confused employees scrambling for information.

The real power is in how goHappy Messaging and the Engagement Hub work together. Messaging pushes information out instantly via text. The Hub organizes everything in a permanent, searchable location employees can access anytime. Leaders can send a text about open enrollment and link directly to the benefits guide in the Hub. Newsletter links sent via text drive 2–3x viewership spikes on Hub content. QR codes on printed materials bridge the gap for less tech-savvy team members.

Southern States plans to expand the Hub into training, operations, and employee wellbeing content. An employee experience survey is planned after one year of Hub usage to formally measure the improvement.

For new hires, Southern States is building a formal introduction to SSConnect (the Hub's internal name) within the first 30 days of employment, including a dedicated welcome video to drive long-term adoption from day one.

The Engagement Hub gave Southern States something their previous intranet never could: equitable access. Every employee — whether they work in a retail store or a truck cab — can now find the information they need from their phone. HR spends less time answering the same questions. Leaders have a reliable resource to direct their teams. And employees trust that what they're seeing is accurate and current.