Industry Spotlight: Comm-Works’ Cost Saving Program

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Industry Spotlight: Comm-Works’ Cost Saving Program

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

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Today launches our Industry Spotlight series which looks at how one company in a specific industry sector is using employee rewards and recognition to achieve business goals and enhance their workplace culture.

In this post we explore Comm-Works’ cost-saving program – a timely and relevant program for companies across all sectors and sizes. Stay tuned every last Wednesday of each month for a new Industry Spotlight.

Who: Comm-Works is a provider of technology and infrastructure services and solutions for large corporations and government agencies. They are headquartered in Minneapolis, MN with branch offices located in Indianapolis, IN; Mooresville, NC; Mount Laurel, NJ; and Washington DC.

Program: C4 Savings
C4 Savings is a cost savings program that motivates employees to seek out opportunities that save the company money. These opportunities include such activities as negotiating contracts, getting better pricing and reducing travel expenses and shipping costs.

The reward: Employees receive a percentage of their savings back in points that they use to redeem for brand name products, gift certificates and experiences of their choice.

How it works: Employees submit required data such as the savings amount and description through their online C4 Savings account, which is then sent to their manager to be approved. Once approved, points are uploaded into the employee’s account.

Program Launch: October 2008

An Interview with Sydney Banch, Executive Assistant to VP of Operations

How does C4 Savings contribute to Comm-Works’ corporate goals?
Every company is looking for ways to impact their bottom line during this economic downturn. This cost savings program helps align our employees with one of our major company initiatives this year – ‘touching the bottom line through sales and cost savings’. It is great to see employees bring the gifts they redeem for into the office to show others because it sparks healthy competition amongst our employees. We have a pretty serious competition going on between our Indiana and Minneapolis offices to see which office can save the company the most money by year end. Employees are having fun and saving the company money. It’s great to see!

How did you secure executive buy-in for the program?
I feel the Directors are getting involved in the program because they see the impact it is having on the bottom line. The interest and enthusiasm from our Directors in both offices has caught the attention of our CEO, who has been supportive in our efforts of building momentum for the program. Securing executive buy-in came from the bottom up; from employees to Directors to the CEO. It starts with the employees.

Okay, so how did you secure employee buy-in?
We ran two internal contests where the top performs of each contest were issued points. With the help of our Client Success Manager, Paul, I made up fliers and sent numerous emails promoting the contest and communicating how employees could get involved. It really helped create excitement around the program and keep cost-savings top of mind.

What was a challenge you encountered and how did you overcome it?
We have many different units (or departments) and various leaders who approve C4 Savings submissions at both our Indiana and Minneapolis offices. One of major challenges in the early stages was getting those leaders to approve submissions on a regular basis. It’s important to us that employees receive points for their savings as soon as possible because the quick turnaround motivates them to continue looking for cost-saving opportunities. Through regular communication with leaders about the benefits of the program and the contests, which created a lot of buzz and healthy competition, we got into a regular routine and members are getting their points for cost savings much faster.

Thank you Sydney!