Acknowledgments

The Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, North Dakota State University, and the research and support staff responsible for the development of this report wish to express our sincerest thanks to the North Dakota Department of Transportation and the University Transportation Centers Program for sponsorship of this research.

The authors would also like to thank the seven state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) that participated in the first phase of the project. These states included Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

This study would not have been possible without the cooperation of the management and employees of the North Dakota Department of Transportation who participated in the surveys and focus group discussions in the second phase of the project.

Disclaimer

The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and accuracy of the information presented herein. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program, in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. government assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof.

Abstract

Human capital is the most critical asset in determining the success of an organization. Therefore, it is important to address issues that adversely affect the contributions that human capital can make. This idea accounts for why organizations have become more interested in assessing their own health or climate. It is no longer enough to simply conduct employee satisfaction surveys. It is important to the organization's bottom line to know how the organization is doing in many areas and to continually work toward improvement.

The general goal of this study was to examine organizational issues that affect employee motivation and retention. To obtain information about these issues that could be qualitatively analyzed and compared from state to state, we conducted face-to-face interviews with two or three individuals at the Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana DOTs. The results of the first phase of this study were primarily used as background information for the next phase of the study, which focused on organizational health in the North Dakota DOT.

The second phase of the study included organization-wide surveys of managers and employees, and focus group discussions to follow up on the survey results. Survey results suggested that employees had positive opinions about the work environment, but more negative opinions concerning some of the policies surrounding pay and performance management. The focus group discussions served to clarify some information from the surveys and to suggest possible improvements for the organization.