LWIA 20 recognizes Mel-O-Cream Donuts International for their demonstration of leadership in the areas of workforce and economic development. Following expansion of production to serve the emerging growth segment of in-store bakeries in supermarkets, Mel-O-Cream designed, built and opened a new facility in Springfield, Illinois, in 1997. The twenty-seven acre location provided room to continue to grow.
In 2019, Mel-O-Cream was bought by the Larson family. Eric Larson brought his background of owning his own bakery and many years of sales and baking experience with him. His sons, Chad and Chris Larson joined him to round out the company’s experience in Lean Manufacturing, preventative maintenance, and ingenuity of reconstructing the company for the future of Mel-O-Cream and amazing partners they like to call family.
Mel-O-Cream continues to lead and enhance our local workforce area. In addition to participating in the On-the-Job Training program, earlier in 2024, Mel-O-Cream demonstrated a leadership role within the local workforce by successfully implementing a project requiring formation of partnerships within the local workforce area with Land of Lincoln Workforce Alliance (LLWA) and IMEC. This project addressed Supervisory Training for fifteen employees, and was 100% funded by LLWA, and was focused on:
- Raising the bar of confident and effective leadership
- Preserving and improving the organization culture;
- Reducing turnover, making people want to stay working there;
- Empowering individual employees to take ownership in the company; and
- Working hard, but enjoying doing it.
This project was comprised of four in-person sessions, and began in April 2024 and ended in June 2024.
This innovative approach resulted in positive outcomes and successfully addressed their workforce development needs to include:
- Understanding the difference between management and leadership;
- Understanding “what drives people” and how to communicate and motivate with emotional intelligence to tailor communication to the audience;
- How to interview and hire “like a boss”; how to ask questions to assess critical competencies, skills and abilities, how to conduct an interview, questions to avoid, how to make a job offer, and initial new-hire onboarding;
- Goal setting and prioritizing; how and why it is important, how to prioritize work, levels of initiative and negotiating priorities;
- Legal issues for supervisors, including basic understanding of Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), sexual harassment prevention, and more;
- Coaching, performance feedback and important conversations, teaching managers how to coach, the value of 1-1’s, how to set goals, deliver meaningful reviews and correct poor performance;
- Delegation and development of teams; and
- Time management.
This project provided invaluable benefits to Mel-O-Cream. And, the partnership with LLWA and IMEC provided a solution to the various financial and logistical challenges associated with a training program such as this, strengthening their leadership role within our local workforce.
