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UDOT to award cash prizes for employee innovation submissions
Summary
The Utah Department of Transportation’s Innovation Council announced new monetary awards and quarterly prize drawings for employee innovation submissions, including finalist and winner awards and team payouts; submissions open via the agency’s employee portal.
An Innovation Council member at the Utah Department of Transportation announced new cash prizes for the agency’s employee innovation program during a department address.
The announcement said finalists and award winners will receive individual payments and that teams tied to winning innovations will receive larger payouts. The program also will include quarterly random prize drawings starting in early March, the council member said.
Why it matters: The prizes are intended to increase employee participation in internal innovation efforts at UDOT and to recognize projects that improve safety, save time or money, or otherwise improve service to the public.
Details announced by the council: finalists (16 per cycle) will receive $50 per individual; each of the four named awards (Innovation of the Year, Spark, Enhance and Flow) will pay $150 to each individual winner; and each winning team will receive $1,000. The council also said three innovations will be randomly selected each quarter for a drawing that pays $50 to each team member on the winning innovations. The first quarterly drawing is scheduled for early March. The announcement directed employees to submit entries and view examples at the employee innovation portal: innovation.udot.utah.gov.
The speakers framed the change as an addition to existing recognition: “Each year, UDOT recognizes innovative work with 4 awards,” an Innovation Council member said, listing the Innovation of the Year Award, the Spark Award, the Enhance Award and the Flow Award. Another council member said, “This year, we are introducing prizes for these awards.”
A separate UDOT staff member thanked employees for previous innovation work and encouraged submissions: “UDOT has a reputation as 1 of the most innovative DOTs in the nation. And that’s because of you,” the staff member said, adding that the department seeks examples of changes that make work safer, faster or higher quality.
No formal policy change or vote was recorded in the transcript. The announcement was presented as program information and an encouragement to participate; no deadline beyond the reference to the first quarterly drawing was specified in the recorded remarks.
Employees seeking details were directed to the Innovation Council and the employee innovation station website for submission instructions and examples.
