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© 2025 Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute is a research and education center at North Dakota State University.
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MPC |
| Title: | Strategies for Improving DOT Retention and Motivation among Professional Staff |
| Principal Investigators: | Gene Griffin, Lynn Kalnbach, and Jill Hough |
| University: | North Dakota State University |
| Status: | Completed |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Project #: | MPC-204 |
Retention of qualified DOT employees is reportedly a problem with many if not all Region 8 DOTs. This appears to be true nationwide as well. This perception is based on anecdotes from several people including the Chief Engineer of the NDDOT, Director of AASHTO, and the Executive Director of TRB. This seems to be especially true of highly skilled technical people such as engineers. DOTs are reportedly recruiting from other DOTs in an attempt to bid engineers away to their own organization. This is not even a short-term solution since such tactics are readily available to all DOTs. It results in increased salaries, turnover, possibly poor morale, and does nothing to increase retention and motivation. This project will identify the scope of the problem on a national scale.
One other perceived problem that DOTs face is an organizational structure and culture that does not capitalize on the full potential of the human capital that they employ. This is part of the retention problem. The organization and culture most likely do not emphasize the job attributes that employees seek to satisfy their psychological well being. These issues, although separate, are related and need to be addressed if DOTs hope to maximize their contribution to mobility with the limited resources they have available.
This project will utilize the Job Characteristics Model and the corresponding Job Description Survey (JDS), or some other applicable model, to analyze the motivating potential of jobs of DOT professionals and how they would react to a job with high motivating potential. Further, strategies are developed that DOTs can implement to improve both retention and motivation simultaneously.
