Project Challenge
A facility with almost 4,000 employees wanted to positively impact the environment by decreasing trash and increasing recycled materials. The goal – to have recycled material constitute 40% of its overall waste stream. This meant a change in behavior — for adults! This was a true challenge.
Approach
After just a few minutes of brainstorming, it was determined that the best way to change the behavior of this particular group was through reward. And not just any reward. It needed to be something cool — something they would talk about — something they would share on Facebook, post on Instagram and Twitter. But what hasn’t already been done and done again? Originality was just as important as the cool factor.
The Solution
By designing some really cool t-shirts to hand out to those who were caught in the act of recycling, a buzz was created. The shirts took popular movie quotes and “turned them on their heads” by gearing them towards recycling. Targeting the audience with movies that they would relate to most like Airplane, Anchorman and The Matrix, assured that the rewards would be well sought after. Custom hang tags with recycling facts and one-of-a-kind graphics were also created and placed on each shirt.
But Wait, There’s More
Mobile App & Backend Inventory Management
With an inventory of shirts and having to catch people in the act of recycling, some organization was needed — a way to keep track of everything and make it easy on the “rewardees” as well as the “rewarders”. An app was built to allow the rewarder to take a picture of the employee/rewardee’s badge and then allow them to select a shirt style and size. This information would then go directly to a secure website. This site synced up to the app where the inventory is immediately changed once a shirt is selected. The backend inventory management tool allowed for ease in communicating with rewardees on personal delivery of the shirt. Within hours of delivery of the first shirt, employees were hitting social media as planned — with pictures of shirts, custom hang tags and more.
Website
An employee-facing website was developed to push fun ways of learning more about recycling and details about the rewards program. Comedic animated videos were created and featured on the site. Each video was aimed at combating the idea that the act of recycling was difficult. Online quizzes allowed employees to test their knowledge after watching the video and if an “A grade” was received, employees were rewarded with laptop stickers. Additional content included tracking attainment of the 40% recycling goal as well as number of employees rewarded with shirts.