When Sam Blasi started at Turano Baking a decade ago, the company had just two people in the human resources department. Now, the HR director has six staffers with two in corporate and an administrative assistant in each plant. While the company’s corporate HR department holds meetings at its facilities to explain changes in retirement, health care or other benefits, Turano Baking installed flat screen TVs in each of its facilities’ break rooms to broadcast messages that include everything from safety tips and helpful health hints to announcements about new employees, birthdays, anniversaries and other programs, Mr. Blasi said.

The message centers actually use PowerPoint presentations that play a 10- to 15-minute rolling loop of information as well as photos of employees working, plant operations and other events. “We make significant efforts to communicate to our [production] employees what others may get through [office] e-mails,” Mr. Blasi said. The message centers, he added, “just make everyone feel more of a part of the company.”

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