Strive to Succeed
The Partners in Progress challenge has a new deadline and new structure to ensure local areas can still claim their joint marketing funds. By / Jessica Kirby By / Jessica Kirby
The Strive to Succeed Challenge—part of the Partners in Progress Conference—brings labor-management teams together in a friendly competition with other areas across the country. Like most events, Strive to Succeed has been impacted by COVID-19, but the challenge is still on in a different form. Announced earlier this summer, the deadline to complete Strive to Succeed 2020 and its structure have changed to help all local areas that participate earn joint marketing funds. “The Strive to Succeed Challenge was a fun way for all parties involved to get the most out of the 2020 Partners in Progress Conference,” says Joye Blanscett, Director of Labor Services and Human Resource Management for SMACNA and Conference Liaison. “We enjoyed charting participants’ success along the way.” Launched prior to the Partners in Progress 2020 Conference, The Strive to Succeed Challenge invited local areas to complete simple, low-impact tasks before, during, and after the conference in order to earn up to $3,000 for use towards future marketing. The ultimate goal? Building collaborative labor-management relationships. SMART Locals in conjunction with SMACNA chapters and contractors complete the tasks in two phases, and their progress was recognized along the way. Phase one consisted of four segments of unique tasks designed to engage the resources available through Partners in Progress, and it encouraged participants to build their labor-management relationships by 12 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
delving into the needs and opportunities of their local market. “Upon successful completion of phase one of the challenge, participants received $1,000 to use towards future marketing in their local area,” Blanscett says. Phase two of the challenge required SMART unions along with SMACNA chapters to develop the goals identified in phase one into a longer-term plan of action. Areas who developed one of the plans below and provided a copy to the Partners in Progress team were eligible to receive an additional $2,000 to use towards marketing in their local area: •M ake an application for an ITI training grant; •D evelop a digital marketing plan; •N egotiate a market recovery agreement; •C reate/update a recruitment and retention plan; or •D evelop a joint labor-management strategic plan “The ultimate goal of the challenge is bringing SMACNA chapters and SMART Locals together to build stronger relationships and follow the ideas shared during the recent Partners in Progress Conference,” Blanscett says. “Now, even those who did not attend the conference can participate.” Given the restrictions in place due to COVID-19, the challenge’s structure has changed. Locals and chapters need only complete the simple tasks below to secure $1,500 to be used toward future marketing campaigns. Additionally, the deadline date to complete these tasks has been pushed back to February 28, 2021.
