Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows Case Study

Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows (SVAM) is one of the largest ski resorts in the United States and was the host of the 1960 Winter Olympics. They were already conducting bi-annual employee surveys, In 2017, but were seeking a better way to create a continuous dialogue with both full and part-time employees. The company knew that their 2,600 employees were in the best position to improve safety and guest experience, but they needed a tool combined with a process to capture, surface, and implement new ideas while incentivizing and recognizing top contributors in their program. Since most employees were out in the resort, access to this system on a smartphone, as opposed to a desktop, was also essential.

Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows partnered with Ideawake to provide a simple-to-use platform that empowered employees with a voice across their resorts. They took their platform live in December 2017 and launched seven challenges throughout the year focused on improving guest experience, mountain safety and the environment. Ideawake worked closely with SVAM’s innovation team to create a cross-functional innovation board, helped increase open and click-through rates with marketing communications using AB testing, and traveled out to Lake Tahoe to meet with SVAM’s innovation team in order to help optimize their innovation process as well as gain a deeper understanding of the environment and culture on the mountain.

The primary goal of partnering with Ideawake was to make employees feel like they were empowered with a voice, regardless of their role or title in the company. Squaw Alpine conducted employee engagement surveys using McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index right before taking Ideawake live and 6 months after launching their community. Between December 2017 and April 2018, Squaw Alpine saw an increase in their employee engagement score of over 74%, moving them up two quadrants on the index.

"I saw Ideawake as a fun and easy way to engage our employees, regardless of their role or title at Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows. Since launching our program, we’ve been able to measurably increase employee engagement scores and have already implemented ideas to improve guest experience next season.

I really appreciate how much the Ideawake team has helped us throughout the process of setting up our community and overcoming the common roadblocks to creating a successful employee suggestion program."