A WORLD OF IDEAS
IdeaHub is an internal online community that enables employees of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to build and share ideas, experiences, opinions, knowledge and best practices in a collaborative environment. Employees rate, discuss and improve upon innovative ideas to help make the Department a top flight 21st-century agency that is as adaptable, creative and enterprising as the people who work here.
IdeaHub is not a suggestion box. It allows each of DOT’s 10 operating administrations to pursue projects important to their respective employees while facilitating dialogue around ideas that impact the entire Department. On the site, managers and employees can proactively explore mission-driven initiatives to encourage:
- budget savings and increased productivity,
- increased engagement and workplace satisfaction,
- greater agility and collaboration within the Department, and
- unfiltered information from all fronts.
IdeaHub is the first and only ideation program instituted across a Cabinet-level Federal department. When it debuted in August 2010, the response was encouraging. On the day of the launch, some 1,800 employees from across DOT visited the site and contributed 361 ideas, 2,488 ratings, and 466 comments. Today, IdeaHub engages 30 percent of employees, has garnered more than 7,500 ideas, over 90,000 ratings, and nearly 25,000 comments, and more than 100 employee-submitted ideas have already been adopted.
The program has helped DOT to ascend to a top 10 spot in the 2012 “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government” by the Partnership for Public Service, a non-partisan organization that is committed to transforming the federal workforce. It has also become a model for other agencies seeking to set up similar programs in the Federal Government.
Increased engagement and collaboration among management and employees are the most important IdeaHub achievements to date. IdeaHub is changing the way these two groups interact, shifting the old paradigm of top-down management to one where everyone can collaborate and share knowledge and expertise.
Have questions? Feel free to direct them to DOTIdeaHub@dot.gov.