With 55,000 employees spread out across the country, the Department of Transportation (DOT) can’t easily bring the whole agency together for a brainstorming session. But what they can’t do in person, they are now doing though IdeaHub, an online community where employees can post ideas for their colleagues to comment and build upon.

Since launching IdeaHub on August 3, DOT employees have posted more than 1,200 ideas with more than 3,000 comments. Fellow employees rate and discuss the ideas, and the most popular are picked by the DOT’s IdeaHub Liaisons and Innovation Council, where they are evaluated and may get put into practice.

Reinventing Workplace Communication

“IdeaHub is the first ideation tool of its kind to be launched department-wide in any government agency and it’s reinventing the way we communicate in the workplace,” said Nitin Pradhan, DOT’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). “As we continue forward with crowdsourcing initiatives like IdeaHub, our constant goal is to make the Web work for DOT.”

IdeaHub connects DOT workers in the field with those in Washington, DC, and helps employees from Arizona to Alaska work collaboratively on issues affecting productivity, budget, and workplace satisfaction. Employees can seek answers to specific problems by posting “challenges” and asking for input.

Fast-Tracking Great Ideas

The office of the CIO is launching an “Agility Platform” for quick deployment of online solutions for qualified ideas. Examples of issues or ideas that have surfaced since IdeaHub’s launch include:

• DOT Marketplace: Creating an internal, DOT-focused marketplace community to buy, sell, exchange, or inform fellow colleagues of various activities, events, ridesharing, rentals, and other opportunities.
• Service Catalogue: A marketplace-type catalogue or list of DOT services categorized by functions for citizens and businesses that will allow users to easily search, rate, and offer comments on necessary services.
• Leave Expiration: Beginning December 31, DOT employees will be able to receive email notifications 90, 60, and 30 days before leave is set to expire.

“IdeaHub allows employees to suggest changes that will truly improve their day-to-day lives and DOT as a whole,” Pradhan said. “This is an agile, innovative tool that provides wide-reaching business value.”