This coming February will mark the 11th annual Commuter Challenge Diamond Awards which honor King County businesses and their employees for outstanding efforts in reducing employee commute trips. But have you ever wondered how the winners are selected? We’d like to give you a behind-the-scenes look at how the selection process works and what goes into our annual recognition program.

The overall goal of the Commuter Challenge Diamond Awards is to publicly recognize those local businesses and employee transportation coordinators (ETCs) that regularly go “above and beyond” when it comes to providing commute trip reduction programs to employees.  Award-winning organizations are not doing the minimum to be compliant with the state’s CTR law, but rather take the time to really look at what programs and services would get their employees out of single occupancy vehicles and then put the organization’s resources—whether personnel, money, facilities, or otherwise—behind the program.

To evaluate employer data and plan for the awards event each year, Commuter Challenge reconvenes its Recognition Selection Committee. The selection committee consists of representatives from various partner organizations: one representative each from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), King County Metro, and the City of Seattle; one representative for Eastside jurisdictions, and one for South county jurisdictions. First, the committee reviews data from the evaluation survey that is conducted each year to determine the program’s importance to the business community and the success of the various outreach strategies used.

The selection committee’s next task is to gather nominations for Organizational Leadership and ETC Leadership. CTR-affected businesses must have either demonstrated progress toward their most recent State CTR goal or met that goal in order to be considered for a Pacesetter or Diamond Award. CTR survey data is supplied by WSDOT to identify this first cut of eligible worksites. Eligible worksites are broken down into three geographic groups: Eastside, South County, and Westside. Jurisdictional representatives and Employer Transportation Representatives (ETRs) from King County Metro who work directly with employers in each area are then asked to nominate organizations and ETCs that they feel have exhibited outstanding commitment to commute trip reduction. Nomination forms ask for both quantitative data as well as qualitative information to develop a complete picture of each worksite or ETC’s activities.

At the same time that the jurisdictions and ETRs are working on nominations for CTR-affected worksites, a request for applications goes out to non-affected worksites for the Diamond Award for Voluntary Program. Smaller employers as well as larger ones that are not affected by the state CTR Law are eligible for an award in this category. The purpose of the voluntary award is to recognize the efforts of employers that, although they are not required to do so by law, provide commute trip reduction programs to employees because they see the value—both to their business as well as the community—of doing so.

The committee selects the best examples of leadership and commitment to commute trip reduction by organizations and ETCs from those that are nominated.  The number of winners varies from approximately 10 to 18 each year. Those organizations that are nominated but not selected for awards are automatically placed on the Pacesetter recognition list.

Once the award winners are notified, the public recognition begins.  Profiles are written on each of the winning organizations and ETCs, focusing on the business benefits of the CTR programs (money saved from no longer needing to lease parking space, reduction in turnover, increased productivity, etc.) and the program elements that make it stand out from the crowd.  The profiles are then posted on our web site and abbreviated versions used in the Diamond Awards issue of this newsletter.  

Announcements are run on several local radio stations, congratulating the winners by name and directing listeners to Commuter Challenge’s recognition program website, www.TheWinners.com.  A brochure is mailed to businesses in King County as well. These are generally directed at the highest levels of management as well as those who are in charge of worksite commuter programs.

Last but certainly not least, is the awards breakfast where we invite a speaker of local interest (former governors, local business leaders, etc.) to give a keynote address after which each award-winning business is called up to accept their Diamond Award. For the second year in a row, Commuter Challenge will partner with the Economic Development Council of Seattle & King County to expand the visibility of the event throughout the local business community.  This is a very upscale event generally held at one of the elegant hotels in downtown Seattle.  Each winner is presented with a diamond-shaped crystal trophy etched with the name of the company, the year and the award category.

While not every organization can win an award each year, research shows that the Diamond Awards tend to motivate the winners to make their programs even better, and to encourage other organizations to improve their commuting programs. And that, of course, is our goal.

Now that we’ve given you a better feel for what goes into the annual Diamond Awards program, we hope you’ll keep a look out for the 2004 winners. Who knows, maybe we’ll be etching your company’s name in crystal this year!