2018 Team Story: Salt Lake City Corp.
Salt Lake City Corp. ramped up our game in 2018 for the Clear the Air Challenge. As Utah’s capital city, we understand how important it is to “walk our talk” on air quality and reducing our own emissions. The Challenge is a fun way to engage employees on commuting behaviors and to bring more awareness to the power and choices we all have to make a difference.
This year SLC ran an “internal bracket” between departments for four weeks. We paired each of our 16 departments against another to see who won based on different metrics each week (trips saved per capita, total trips saved, most improved, etc). There were no departments eliminated in the bracket, but the department with the most “wins” received the Mayor’s Clear the Air Challenge Cup. Participating employees from the winning department also received a lunch gift certificate from the Mayor’s Office.
This strategy significantly increased SLC Corp’s competitive spirit (friendly “trash talk” abounded) and upped participation. We were pleased to finish in the top 5 on the overall leaderboard in 2018! We also saw bigger departments running their own competition between their divisions. Here are some strategies from the Department of Community & Neighborhoods which finished 20th overall statewide. They:
- Created little competitions within our team to personalize the Challenge
- Mentioned the competition and how we were doing multiple times a week to keep up momentum
- Used each week as a chance to beat another department.
- Weekly updates in our intra department newsletter.
The Clear the Air Challenge works however you can make it fun and competitive for your organization. We can’t wait to see what more we can do next year!
