Employees are of one your greatest energy saving resources as they are one of your top energy consumers.  Computers, copiers, lights, paper, break room products, office supplies, water are used by your staff on a daily basis. Educating them about ways they can help your company save money and energy is a great step but inspiring them to action through participation will yield greater results.  Engaging their competitive spirit through energy saving contests is one way to rally your frontlines to help you reduce operating costs. Below are some ideas for employee energy saving contests.

Step 1 -Kick-off Meeting

Before you start your initiative, make sure you have an Environmental Steward or Energy Team Leader(s) who is responsible for overseeing the entire employee energy contest. Depending on the size of your organization this may be one person or a small team. This Manager can start by inviting the entire company to participate in the kick-off meeting but don’t make it mandatory. While this is meant to be a valuable program, some staff members will not be interested (at least at first) and it is important to make this a fun endeavor, not one that is seen as an obligation. Hopefully non-participants will see the benefits over time and they will join in.

At the meeting review all the ways employees consume energy at work:

• Keeping computers and copiers continually plugged in
• Keeping lights on all the time
• Printing documents needlessly
• Using an abundance of paper and plastic in the breakrooms during meetings

Ask for Input

Ask for feedback on ways they think the company can cut costs and design your program based upon what you hear. Get a whiteboard to record everyone’s suggestions.

For example, if a staff member suggests minimizing paper use by printing documents on both sides, then make that one of your suggested initiatives. If another employee suggests getting occupancy sensors to reduce lighting use then make that part of your list. If a staffer wants to get employees to set their computers to hibernate mode and to plug their computer, phones and other machines into a power strip, add that to the whiteboard.

Continue to ask for ideas about ways employees think the organization can become more green.  Encourage members to create their own initiatives based on their interest. For example, if an employee comments on the over-use of paper and plastic, suggest they spearhead a project that looks into purchasing recycled products for the kitchen and bathroom. An employee may suggest using green cleaning products to improve indoor air quality or perhaps someone wants to research green office products.

Vote On It

Once all the ideas are up on the board then it is time to vote on which initiatives to center your contest around.  Don’t be too ambitious with how much you want to pursue at first – start out with 3-5 projects, depending on the size of the group participating and the size of your company. Ask for volunteers for each initiative and try to make the size of the teams roughly the same size. Ask for a team member to act as the leader of the group. Once the teams are complete, have the members chat and jot down their ideas about what their goals are and how they are going to meet them. Then go around the room and ask each team leader to give a recap of what their goal is and how they plan to get started. Set a date for a follow-up meeting in a week. Make the agenda for the next meeting to be a goal setting meeting where you talk about specific and measurable goals to achieve in the contest. Don’t let more than a week slip by as it is key to keep the momentum going.

Goal Setting Meeting

The focus of this meeting is for each team to create goals and actions for their specific energy initiative.  SMART (Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time Based) are always good to use as a framework when setting goals and objectives. If your staff is not familiar with the SMART concept, it is worth spending some reviewing how to arrive at creating SMART goals. Have the groups break out to create their specific energy goal and the actions they will take to achieve the goal. Remember, these goals have to be quantifiable as measuring your energy reduction is central to your contest. The Environmental Team Leader or whoever is heading up this goal setting meeting should visit each group and provide advice when needed. Then ask each team leader to describe their goals and the energy reduction actions they will implement to the entire group. End the meeting with clear goals and actions to achieve the goal for each team. Each team member should be clear on what their responsibilities are toward meeting their goal.

Where is the Finish Line?

Now that each group knows what their objectives are, they need to know how the contest works. How long will it go on for? How do you determine who is the winner? Not all of the goals are the same so it is important to make the goals as equally realizable as you can within a certain time period. Probably best to make it really simple and to make the timeline fairly short for this first round. One omnth is a good amount of time and then assess the program after that. So if the goal of one team was to reduce electricity usage by 10% for one month – start by looking at the utility bill, shave off 10% and make that the target for one month. If another goal was to create a recycling program, that may take more than a month to implement the program but the team can put all the steps in motion to get that going within a month – such as completing calls to recycling vendors, hiring a waste management program, ordering recycling bins, etc. Set up a meeting for the end of that month and make that your time when you announce winners and give out awards. As long as each team is 100% clear on what they need to achieve that month, it’s time to get started.

Getting Green

Now its time to get started saving energy and going green! Put up posters around the office announcing what you are doing (but not too many as that is not sustainable!) Send out email announcements. Demonstrate to the company what you are doing in creative ways and make it lively and engaging. Maybe others will want to join the ride. Show your competitive spirit and have fun saving energy and going green. Arrange a follow-up meeting after week 1. Make it breezy and brief. Just touch base with the teams to see how things are going and answer any questions they have. Continue to arrange weekly update meetings but keep them short – under one hour. People are busy and you don’t want the program to seem like another item to add to their long list. Hopefully team members are enjoying the process and if they are not, figure out how to improve things. If enthusiasm wanes for a few people, that could bring down the crowd. Be extra vigilant about ensuring that your staff has the information and tools they need to accomplish their tasks and to enjoy the process.

And the Winner Is…

At the one month mark or once you reach your desired program time frame, you should be ready to tally up the results and distribute rewards. Invite the entire company to join the meeting and announce the top winner. Give rewards to runners up too – perhaps you’ll do an Olympics theme and give out rewards for gold, silver and bronze winners. Tailor your rewards to fit the company culture and your budget. There are so many award options – gift certificates to Starbucks, Target or a restaurant, bowling and pizza after work, a gourmet catered lunch in the office, a half-day Friday, a bagel breakfast, etc. And make sure you give the non-runners up token gifts too. All participants should be given tons of appreciation and acknowledgement for their efforts.

It’s Really Only the Beginning

After you have completed round 1, have a wrap-up meeting, with your whiteboard again. Ask for tons of specific feedback about what worked and what didn’t. Then customize your upcoming rounds based on what you learn. Continue tweaking and improving the program based on participants’ input. If this is a success, this is really just the beginning of your creating an energy saving culture.

If you have a comment and want to share your employee energy saving experiences with us, please write us below or create a post in the forum!