J.H. Larson Powers Up Employee Communications

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Introduction to J.H. Larson and Skykit

User Experience with Skykit Programming

Content Creation and Integration with Canva

Overall Satisfaction and Recommendations

J.H. Larson is a wholesale distributor of electrical plumbing and HVAC products, and we also have Pahl's showrooms, which sell our premier lighting and plumbing fixtures. We chose Skykit due to the customer service and response times, as well as it being a fantastic single solution to everything that we needed. We are able to update our posters and announcements on the back end and have them up on the screen within minutes. We use Skykit throughout the facilities in our office and warehouse areas. The TVs display information kind of through a PowerPoint loop that would normally be sent out in an announcement in emails, but we have quite a few employees who do not check their emails regularly, so they can walk past the TVs and see the updates when they need to. Skykit programming is very easy. It does not take very long at all. Every time that Skykit makes a change, it is an improvement that not only improves the customer experience, but makes the end product look so much better and work so much more effectively. For our content, I use Canva a lot to design everything that I put up there. So the upcoming Canva integration is very exciting. But even without that, it is very easy for me to create something. I download it to my computer and I just upload it into Skykit. From there, I can put the content where it needs to be, whether it is going to a single location or I want it to display across all of our TVs. I am able to manipulate and change how long it is up there for and where it is going and when people see it. If a company asked me about my experience with working with Skykit, I would tell them it is out of this world. It is phenomenal. The customer service is fantastic. Skykit is always ready to make improvements and changes that make it so much easier to use digital signage.

Industry: Wholesale Distribution - Electrical, Plumbing & HVAC

Use Cases: Employee Communications, Internal Announcements, Customer-Facing Signage

Challenge: Warehouse and facility employees weren't seeing critical company updates due to email inaccessibility during shifts.

Solution: Skykit digital signage was deployed across all 8 J.H. Larson branches, delivering real-time announcements, HR content, and employee engagement material to displays in offices, break rooms and warehouse areas.

Result: J.H. Larson scaled from a single pilot device to a full eight-branch rollout, and is now expanding Skykit into customer-facing areas and showroom environments.

"If a company asked me about my experience with Skykit, I would tell them it is out of this world. It is phenomenal. The customer service is fantastic. Skykit is always ready to make improvements and changes that make it so much easier to use digital signage."

Stephanie Ronneng

HR Business Partner

J.H. Larson Company

J.H. Larson is a wholesale distributor of electrical, plumbing and HVAC products — and with more than 95 years in the industry, they know about building for the long haul. Operating eight branches across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, the company also runs Pahl's Showrooms, which specialize in premier lighting and plumbing fixtures.

With a workforce spread across office spaces, warehouses, and retail environments, keeping every employee informed — regardless of role or location — is no small task.

Critical Updates Lost in Email Inboxes

Email is the default communications channel for most organizations. But at J.H. Larson, a significant portion of the workforce (warehouse employees, receiving staff, and other facility workers ) simply aren't at a desk checking email during their shifts.

Open enrollment reminders. New hire announcements. Company events. Benefits updates. Important information was being sent, but it wasn't reaching the people who needed it. J.H. Larson needed a way to meet employees where they already were: on the warehouse floor, in the break room, at the receiving desk.

A large percentage of J.H. Larson is a frontline workforce

One Platform. Every Location. Every Employee

After evaluating digital signage vendors, J.H. Larson chose Skykit for its customer service, fast response times, and ability to deliver a complete, single-solution platform.

"We chose Skykit due to the customer service and response times, as well as it being a fantastic single solution to everything that we needed," said Stephanie Ronneng, HR Business Partner at J.H. Larson. "We are able to update our posters and announcements on the back end and have them up on the screen within minutes."

The rollout started with a deliberate pilot: a single Skykit-powered display in the Plymouth, Minnesota warehouse. Employee reception was positive, and J.H. Larson quickly scaled to all eight branches — placing displays in break rooms, office areas, and warehouse receiving offices across the upper Midwest.

The result is what the team calls the Larson Loop: a rotating digital bulletin board that shares the kind of content that used to get buried in inboxes. New hire announcements. Monthly employee spotlights featuring team members from different branches. Birthday and anniversary callouts. Benefits reminders and open enrollment notices. "They can walk past the TVs and see the updates when they need to," Stephanie noted.

Managing it all takes remarkably little time. Stephanie designs content in Canva, uploads it directly to Skykit, and can push it to a single location or across all displays simultaneously — controlling exactly how long each piece runs and when it appears.

Skykit's built-in weather and sports content added an unexpected bonus: location-aware weather feeds (Plymouth sees Plymouth weather; Sioux Falls sees Sioux Falls weather), live sports updates, March Madness brackets, and Olympic coverage.

"We get a lot of great feedback on those," Stephanie said. "It gives employees something to talk about."

Deployment was equally smooth. The Skykit customer success team worked closely with Stephanie through the initial rollout — regular email check-ins, phone calls, and monthly meetings — to make sure every device was set up correctly and running as it should.

Eight Branches Connected + Expansion

What started as a single test screen is now a company-wide communications infrastructure. All eight J.H. Larson branches are running Skykit, with every display reliably delivering updates to employees who might never see them otherwise.

At the Plymouth headquarters alone, four Skykit-powered screens serve different audiences: three are employee-facing (break room, office entryway, and warehouse receiving office), and one is dedicated to customer communications at the city desk.

That expansion is the next chapter. J.H. Larson is actively rolling Skykit into city desk and showroom environments to surface new products, upcoming sales, and expanded product lines to customers as they walk in. It's the same logic that made the Larson Loop work for employees — meet people where they are, with information they actually need.

https://www.skykit.com/case-studies/jh-larson-powers-up-employee-communications