RESEARCH REPORT: Changing Government to Move at the Speed of Business: A Case Study

Executive Summary

This case study shows how a government agency transformed itself to serve citizens better by cutting its layers of management nearly in half, reducing red tape, streamlining bureaucracy, and cutting its workforce by 10 percent. These actions enabled the agency to begin producing substantially better results with more satisfied and motivated employees.

The Challenge

Like most government agencies, the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) used a 1960s civil-service model to run a 21st-century organization. Until 2010, ITD had a passive culture, and people were paid based on how many layers were underneath them or how many people they supervised rather than on job performance. Too many layers of management (bureaucracy) existed, and decisions were made in a centralized headquarters far from where the actual work was done or operations took place. Additionally, ITD was not customer-focused; it measured performance based on process rather than results. ITD valued its regulations and processes over outcomes and had lost the support of the public, media, legislature, and governor due to a lack of efficiency and accountability.

ITD’s Solution

ITD responded to these challenges by streamlining its organizational structure and reducing its layers of management from nine to five, eliminating every assistant manager position in the organization, as well as 62 positions that only supervised one employee, and cutting the workforce by more than 10 percent. To maximize return on investment, ITD based its performance measures and employee performance plans on results and outcomes the public can see and benefit from—not “process.” These changes increased productivity. ITD is now operated by highly skilled employees motivated by rewards and incentives based on their measured outputs and performance—not the number of layers below them or how many people they supervise (Idaho Transportation Department, 2011, p. 1).

The Results

ITD has become one of the most successful and innovative transportation departments in the country, making it a workplace of choice. Employee-driven innovations alone saved more than 567,000 contractor and employee hours and more than $50 million for the taxpayers of Idaho since 2014 (Idaho Transportation Department, 2023). The $50 million in savings represents 18 percent of ITD’s 2014 construction payouts (Idaho Transportation Department, 2014, p. 3). Those savings were reinvested to fund additional road and bridge projects across the state. ITD now selects transportation projects not just to improve safety and mobility, but also to maximize economic opportunities for business and industry.

Conclusion

Adopting a 21st-century business model transformed ITD into a dynamic transportation department that leads America in innovation and excellence, creating a customer-focused agency that works—not at the speed of bureaucracy but at the speed of business. This case study will show other public and private-sector organizations how to achieve similar results by reducing layers of bureaucracy, giving employees more control over how they do their jobs, making decisions based on achieving measured outcomes, and adopting high-level goals that serve the citizens and/or customers—not the organization.

Changing government to move at the speed of business: A Case Study

Background

Few business leaders today would believe that a large government agency could cut its staff of more than 1,800 by more than 10 percent, reduce administrative rules by almost 50 percent, and eliminate half its bureaucratic layers of management while at the same time significantly increasing performance and employee morale (Idaho Transportation Department, 2019a; Idaho Transportation Department, 2019b, p. 13). It is a true story and one that resulted in the agency receiving such acclaim from the governor and state legislature that they increased the agency’s budget from $510 million in 2010 to $1.2 billion in 2022 (Idaho Transportation Department, 2008, p. 1; Idaho Transportation Board, 2022, p. 6).

Idaho has one of the most conservative legislatures in the country. At a time when the budgets of other state agencies were being cut, the Idaho Legislature chose to dramatically increase ITD’s budget. The legislature could see that the changes made in the department’s organizational structure and work culture were increasing ITD’s return on investment for tax dollars. The Idaho legislature knew the need was there, and they knew ITD would spend the money wisely.

ITD achieved great success and gained the trust of the governor, legislature, and public by doing the following three things:

•  Putting the needs of the citizens first

•  Using sound business principles

•  Working at the speed of busines

For decades, people in the public and private sectors have called for government agencies to be run more like businesses. Public officials have largely balked at the idea, and even for those who took some modest steps in this direction, widespread transformation has proven elusive. There are clear differences between government agencies and businesses. Individual businesses can choose which market niches and clientele they wish to serve, but government agencies have a mandate to serve all citizens.

Consumers vote with their dollars, which conveys their likes and dislikes to businesses in a competitive marketplace. Government agencies do not operate in a competitive marketplace. Instead, citizens convey their likes and dislikes in public hearings and voting booths.

Businesses and government agencies must abide by a budget. Because businesses are incentivized to be good stewards of their resources, they strive to cut costs, increase efficiency, and make sound strategic investments. Unfortunately, the same is not true of most government agencies. They are in a constant “race to zero” to spend their entire budget by the end of each fiscal year to prove to elected leaders that they need an even larger budget the following year. At the federal level, the Impoundment Control Act generally makes it illegal for federal agencies not to spend their appropriations (U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2019). 

The constant race to zero provides no incentive to look for savings or more efficient ways to do assigned work. Agencies that do create significant savings by becoming more efficient may perceive that they are punished by having their budgets reduced. This dynamic hurts the quality of government services.

For example, transportation agencies have winter maintenance programs. In years that have a light winter with less snowfall than normal, agencies cannot save unspent money for use in a harsher winter later. They will lose the funds at the end of the fiscal year. So, at the end of the year, agencies rush to spend their funds.

Conversely, when transportation agencies have a bad winter they cannot use money from a previous light winter because they cannot carry over funds from year to year. Crews must use money that was budgeted for summer maintenance projects, such as patching potholes, repairing bridges, and fixing damaged guardrails, to plow snow and buy sand and salt for the roads. Those important summer maintenance projects then get canceled, and the public wants to know why their projects are not being scheduled as promised.

These examples show why it is difficult to run government exactly like a business. However, the goal of operating government like a business should not be abandoned. Despite the differences, it is possible for agencies to provide good government using sound business principles such as rewarding employees based on their performance, reducing administrative bloat, incentivizing the cost savings, and investing strategically rather than spending without a strong purpose or goal. 

Unlike most government agencies, the private sector uses a 21st-century business model that leverages the use of technology and information. This model allows businesses to take advantage of the instantaneous exchange of information; employ just-in-time delivery strategies; and make rapid, technology-based decisions to improve operations and productivity. The 21st-century model also allows businesses to receive almost instant feedback from their customers. Unfortunately, most government agencies are still relying on an outdated 1960s civil service model and have not caught up to the speed at which business currently operates.

ITD successfully transitioned to a 21st-century business model that focuses on using technology to optimize service delivery, prioritizing outcomes instead of processes, and decentralizing decision-making. This model has proven highly successful and can be used by other private-sector and government agencies to improve their operations and promote economic opportunity.

The 1960s Civil Service Model

Most government agencies in the U.S. are organized using a 1960s civil service model. As shown in Table 1, this model determines how agencies compensate and classify employees, how they arrange their organizational structure, what performance measures they adopt, and what results they achieve. The 1960s model does not meet the needs of the 21st century.

1960s Compensation and Classification System

State and federal agencies often use a classification system that bases employee pay scales on the following four factors:

• Years of Service
• Number of People Supervised
• Number of Layers Supervised
• Geographic Area

Government agencies reward employees for longevity. Over time, employee pay is increased to coincide with the years of service, often regardless of employee performance. This encourages people to stay with an agency longer or become career employees so they can continue to improve their standard of living, leading to an entrenched bureaucracy with few incentives to improve performance.

Pay rates are also influenced by the number of people supervised—not by the results achieved. In Idaho, a state employee can be promoted to a supervisory position simply for overseeing the work of one subordinate employee. Basing pay rates on the number of people supervised incentivizes agency leaders to increase staffing levels because doing so directly impacts their own pay levels.

Many state agencies and the federal government also base pay rates on the number of organizational levels people supervise. The result is a system that incentivizes leaders to push for more layers of bureaucracy.

The 1960s civil service model encourages agencies to build organizational pyramids with numerous layers of bureaucracy. As a result, those responsible for making decisions can hide behind bureaucratic layers to avoid responsibility or answering questions.

Employees and supervisors who want to solve problems effectively must wait as their proposed improvements and solutions slowly move through a bureaucratic obstacle course. The bottom line is that too many approval steps are required to render quick decisions.

Classification and compensation levels in state agencies are also often based on the size of the geographic area supervised. The larger the area, the higher the classification and compensation. This results in decisions being made in a centralized headquarters, far from where the work is actually being done and operations are taking place.

Compensation and Classification Systems Drive Organizational Structures

The 1960s compensation and classification system described above generally drives the organizational structure of state and federal agencies. Because pay scales are based on the number of people supervised and the layers of bureaucracy, agency leaders are incentivized to:

• Add more layers of management (bureaucracy)
• Hire more people
• Consolidate power in large, centralized headquarters
• Make decisions far from where the work is done

Organizational Structure Drives Performance Measures

Operating in a 1960s organizational structure determines the type of performance measures agencies adopt. Because of the many layers of bureaucracy, these agencies often create performance measures that are “process-based” rather than focused on results achieved or the return on investment. For most government agencies, the process is more important than the results.

Performance Measures Drive Decision-Making

Rather than focusing on “why the work is important,” government agencies tend to focus on how the work is being done. This is why most government agency performance measures are developed, measured, and controlled by headquarters rather than the people who actually do the work. Bureaucracy—and enforcing the rules—become more important than the actual work that needs to be done.

This leads agency personnel to keep their heads down and answer questions from their customers with answers like “No, because…” rather than thinking about results and answering with “Yes, if…” to requests. Government employees often say, “No, because that does not comply with our department’s processes,” rather than saying, “Yes, we could do that if we work together to find a solution that meets both our needs.”

Decision-Making Drives the Results

Central decision-making focused on processes rather than results leads to large government bureaucracies that care little for results that the public can benefit from or actually see. The employees in these agencies do not own their jobs. Instead, they are put in a position that requires them to simply wait for the bureaucracy to tell them what to do and which procedures to follow. Because these agencies value processes and regulations over outcomes, they are focused on increasing their power and serving themselves—not the citizens whom they serve.

The ITD Model

In 2010 ITD implemented a new way of doing business (see Table 2) that transformed the department from a slow-moving 1960s-style agency to a 21st-century organization that puts the needs of its customers and the Idaho economy first and that works at the speed of business.

These actions—and the results—captured the attention of state transportation departments across the country and earned numerous national and international awards for efficiency and innovation.

Problem

Before 2010, the department was using a 1960s civil-service model to run a 21st-century organization. The department had a passive culture, and people were paid based on how many layers were underneath them or how many people they supervised.

Too many layers of management were located, and decisions were made, in centralized headquarters far from where the actual work was done. ITD’s performance measures were based on “processes” rather than results and were not customer-focused. For example, a process-focused performance measure might be "Tons of Salt Used Per Lane Mile During a Winter Storm," or "Overtime Hours Worked During a Winter Storm." Both of these examples address what is done, but do not address the outcome. Outcome-based performance measures focus on actual results, for example, "Percent of Time Roads are Clear of Snow and Ice During a Winter Storm."

ITD was not performing well on some performance metrics. For example, in FY 2011 when the department first began measuring outcome-based performance metrics, highways were clear of ice and snow during storms only 28 percent of the time (Idaho Transportation Department, 2014, p. 2).

The old ITD valued its regulations and procedures more than outcomes and had lost the support of the public, media, legislature, and governor due to a lack of efficiency and accountability. Because the Idaho Legislature was so displeased with ITD, the House of Representatives and the Senate placed it under legislative audit (Idaho Legislature, 2009). 

The governor directed ITD to cut administrative costs by 10 percent and also signed an executive order, which required ITD’s compliance before requesting legislative spending authority (Office of the Governor, 2009). Private sector leaders in Idaho proposed a formal plan allowing them to take control of what they saw as a non-productive and wasteful agency that directly affected the state’s economy. 

ITD was operated like a typical government agency—centralized, top-down control from headquarters, with employees who kept their heads down and only did what they were told. ITD was also experiencing high and extremely costly employee turnover rates because morale was so low. A cloud covered the entire department.

The Solution   

In 2010, ITD replaced its 1960s civil-service model with a modern business model that no longer prioritized regulations and processes over outcomes. The new business model allowed the department to begin placing the needs of its customers and the Idaho economy first.

The department adopted a new overriding vision for the department, to “Be the best transportation department in the country.” To accomplish the vision of being the best, ITD began looking at what the most successful organizations in the country were doing—at the department and at the employee level—to see if those best practices could be used at ITD. All employees were asked to look at the main tasks they did daily, look around the country (and the world) to see if any agency did it better, and then incorporate best practices into their daily work.

After incorporating best practices into ITD operations, the next step in becoming the best was finding ways to further improve those practices. Employees were actively encouraged to develop their own best practices to save time and money. Employees came up with numerous ideas, of which more than 1,300 were adopted (Idaho Transportation Department, 2023). For example:

• A District 5 employee redesigned a paint-bead nozzle to use less paint when spraying stripes on roads. The redesigned nozzles cost $20 and saved ITD $110,000 in the first year of use (Idaho Transportation Department, 2014, p. 2).
• Caldwell and Mountain Home maintenance crews developed a portable backpack system for sealing cracks in highways. This eliminated the need for a truck-mounted system and doubled the productivity of the crews (Idaho Transportation Department, 2014, p. 2).
• District 1 developed a new way to install bridge girders, reducing the time to install girders on an
  I-90 overpass from several months to only three weeks and reducing traffic-delay impacts on the public (Idaho Transportation Department, 2016, p. 1).
• An ITD employee in Bonners Ferry created a new system for washing concrete barriers. It used to take four people 240 hours to wash all the district’s barriers. It now takes only two people 36 hours to accomplish the same task (Idaho Transportation Department, 2016, p. 2).
• A mechanic in Rigby discovered that spraying truck parts with varnish eliminated the need to repaint parts twice a year (to address salt corrosion), saving $40,000 per year in that district alone (Idaho Transportation Department, 2017, p. 2).
• A team of DMV employees developed an improved quality-control program for vehicle titles that reduced the number of employees examining titles from 15 to five and reduced the average error rate from 30 percent to eight percent (Idaho Transportation Department, 2017, p. 2).
• District 5 implemented a new weigh-in-motion system that allows trucks to pass the port of entry without stopping, saving trucking companies about $2.1 million per year in fuel and labor costs, lowering the cost of goods, and improving delivery times (Idaho Transportation Department, 2016, p. 1).

Though employees have no individual monetary incentives to develop innovations, when the innovations work, the employees are recognized and highlighted in department newsletters, training videos, and employee meetings.

The innovations are then implemented department-wide to magnify the cost and time savings. This creates positive peer approval and helps innovative employees be seen as experts in their field that others can go to for advice and ideas. Each innovation on its own may not save a large amount of time or money, but when multiplied by how many times they are done across the state over months and years, the savings become significant.
ITD began working to become the best transportation department in the country by learning from the best and then finding ways to do it even better. Like top athletes, employees began working toward the goal of being better today than they were yesterday and better tomorrow than they were the day before. This became a core part of ITD’s culture and led to measurable increases in employee motivation and morale.

ITD’s replacement for the 1960s Civil Service Model focused on four key concepts, including the following:

• A Customer-Focused Vision
• Flattening the Hierarchy
• Retaining Quality Employees
• Performance-Based Pay

Customer-Focused Vision

To accomplish the department’s vision, ITD developed a new and award-winning strategic plan that is simple and easy to understand and that fits on one folded 11” x 14” sheet of paper. In 2011, ITD unanimously adopted the strategic plan “… as the official document that sets the direction for the Department” (Idaho Transportation Board, 2011, p. 13). Being the best is about challenging the status quo, asking hard questions about how and why things are done, and embracing innovation at all levels.  

The department’s mission statement was a message written directly to its customers, the citizens of Idaho, to let them know and understand ITD’s three top priorities:

• Your Safety
• Your Mobility
• Your Economic Opportunity

Notice the use of the word “Your.” It is used and emphasized because the mission statement is written directly to ITD’s customers. ITD’s focus is Their Safety, Their Mobility, and Their Economic Opportunity. Every employee at ITD knows this mission statement, and they know who they are working for—the people of Idaho—their friends and their neighbors. ITD employees are working to provide the people they see every day, including their own family members, with the safest and best transportation system possible.

As mentioned earlier, ITD was under a dark cloud and had lost the support of the public and Idaho’s elected officials. To begin addressing that lack of support, ITD took steps to improve its accountability by measuring outcomes that were important to the public. It also tied the individual performance plans of every person working at ITD directly to the goals listed in the strategic plan.

The department began measuring its outcomes and posting them for all to see on its online dashboard. These were results-focused measures that mattered to the public and that they could actually see and experience for themselves, such as:

• Five-Year Fatality Rate
• Percent of Time Highways are Clear of Snow and Ice During Storms
• Percent of Pavement in Good Condition
• Percent of Bridges in Good Condition
• Percent of Highway Project Designs Completed on or Ahead of Time
• Time Required to Process and Mail Vehicle Titles
• Number of Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Transactions Processed on the Internet

These high-level performance measures cascaded down to every division, district, and section of ITD. Every employee has an individual performance plan that is required to be written with clear and direct ties to ITD’s performance measures.

Supervisors hold individual monthly meetings with every employee to discuss the progress they are making on their performance plans. Everyone working at ITD is keenly aware that the daily performance of every employee directly supports ITD’s performance measures.

Flattening the Hierarchy

The department’s outdated 1960s civil service model was keeping it from moving at the speed of business, so ITD implemented a major realignment that significantly streamlined its organizational structure. ITD reduced its layers of management from nine layers to five, eliminated every assistant manager position in the organization, and eliminated 62 positions that only supervised one employee (Idaho Transportation Department, 2011, p. 1). A tem studied every position to see which could be eliminated or moved to the front lines where the work and operations take place.

ITD achieved significantly greater results with half the layers of management and 10 percent fewer employees—with a program that more than doubled in size. At the same time, for five years in a row, Idaho was the fastest-growing state in the Nation (U.S. News and World Report). ITD was using sound business principles and employee pay incentives to produce outstanding results and strong returns on investment for Idaho taxpayers.

Figure 1 shows the old organizational structure on the left, and the new, leaner structure on the right, designed to meet the needs of the 21st century.

ITD increased productivity while reducing its headcount by having a highly skilled and motivated workforce paid based on skills and measured job performance, not on the number of layers or people below a position (Idaho Transportation Department, 2011, p. 1). This worked because highly skilled and highly motivated employees are more productive. No employees lost their jobs as a result of the realignment. Instead, employees were reassigned and positions were eliminated through attrition.

Retaining Quality Employees

ITD also placed a priority on retaining staff in positions such as engineers and bridge designers. These positions are difficult to keep filled due to offers of higher pay at other organizations. This was not an easy problem to solve.

For example, when an agency hires a person to design bridges, that employee may work for four or five years, then take the engineering license exam. Once the exam is passed, the bridge designer is now marketable in the private sector, where salaries may be twice as high as those in state government.

Agency leaders want to keep their bridge designers because they are good at what they do, so the agencies give them an employee to supervise, which allows their pay to be increased. Under the rules of many state governments, it is the only way an agency can significantly increase pay levels.

These leaders give a wink and a nod and tell the bridge designers (now supervisors) to give their one employee a performance review at the end of the year, but what the agencies really want them to do is keep designing safe bridges.

Ten or so years in the future, with even more experience, bridge designers may be getting ready to make their next career move. The private sector can offer much higher pay and the ability to keep designing bridges, but government agencies have their hands tied by bureaucracy. The only way they can compete with private sector salaries at this point is to make the bridge designers middle managers.

At this level, the agency can no longer give a wink and a nod, and the new middle managers can no longer design bridges because there is too much work involved with being a middle manager. The agencies lose their highly experienced bridge designers, and the bridge designers are taken out of their chosen areas of expertise. It is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.

Rather than losing good bridge engineers, ITD found a way to keep them by providing horizontal career paths with pay levels based on skills and abilities. This eliminated the need for more layers of management and allowed bridge designers to continue doing what they do best, designing bridges—not managing or supervising people. This benefits the citizens of Idaho by ensuring they can safely cross a bridge, knowing it was designed by a person solely focused on bridge design and safety.

Overpaying unproductive workers wastes taxpayer dollars, but so does underpaying employees less than competitive market values. Underpaying employees can create excessive turnover as more skilled and experienced employees leave for greener pastures.

The result for government agencies is fewer high-quality workers on the job and continual staffing disruptions as the best employees leave. Low salaries can lead to excessive turnover, higher training costs, and loss of expertise, which can be more costly than salaries. Agency pay rates should be competitive to attract good, highly motivated employees and keep them from being hired away by the private sector. 

Performance-Based Pay

ITD implemented a compensation system based on skills and performance. ITD employees are now paid based on their skills and their measured performance outcomes, not on the number of people they supervise or the layers of bureaucracy underneath them. Measured performance outcomes encourage and empower employees to focus on actual results the public can see and benefit from.

Employee pay at ITD is tied to skills and performance in different ways, depending on the job duties. For example, highway maintenance staff are distributed across the state in six districts, each with multiple maintenance sheds and crews. The crews have a wide variety of duties, including clearing the roads of snow and ice in the winter and repairing roads and filling potholes in warmer months.

To provide new opportunities for advancement based on skills and performance, the department implemented horizontal career paths for the maintenance crews. ITD’s horizontal career paths are performance-based. They allow the department to reward employees based on their level of skill, the technical knowledge they acquire over time, and their proven ability to achieve specific metrics. The metrics for each employee include a team goal, personal training, skills proficiency, and safety standards that must be met before advancement can occur.

Performance metrics for the horizontal career paths are known as The Four Ts: 

• Time — Must have demonstrated proficiency at a task over a period of time, not just once. If a plow driver plows a road once, that does not demonstrate proficiency, but several plowings over time will show if a driver is proficient at the task or not.
• Training — Must meet a minimum number of annual hours of technical training and leadership development.  
• Testing — Must demonstrate proficiency at performing a required task. The testing must be measured consistently statewide to ensure that testing is being done in the same manner at all locations. 
• Team Work — The “entire” maintenance team must meet certain performance metrics, such as the percentage of time roads are clear of snow and ice during storms. No one is allowed to move up to the next step in the horizontal career path until the entire team has achieved the required performance metrics. If a teammate is having difficulty, fellow workers are motivated to help them learn and improve. Peer pressure and mentoring were the keys to making ITD’s horizontal career paths successful. Team members quickly realized that “Our success depends on your success.”
  The snow-plowing metric mentioned above is just one example among many in ITD’s seven divisions. Each employee, no matter which division he or she works in has an individual set of performance metrics that are directly tied to specific performance metrics in the department’s strategic plan.

The Results

Having only four layers of management between the director and the employees on the front line and basing pay levels on skills and performance measurably improved the working environment, creating a streamlined agency that is more effective and accountable.

Employees were asked to find ways to say “Yes” to customers and partners rather than “No,” and they were empowered to do so. Trusting the employees to find innovative ways to improve their operations and actively encouraging them to do so created a tsunami of ideas and changes that were focused on meeting the needs of customers and the economy, not the needs of the department. Employee-driven ideas and improvements led ITD to become one of the most innovative and award-winning transportation departments in the country.

ITD’s employee-driven innovations have saved more than 567,000 contractor and employee hours and more than $50 million for the taxpayers of Idaho since 2014 (Idaho Transportation Department, 2023). The $50 million in savings represents 18 percent of ITD’s 2014 construction payouts (Idaho Transportation Department, 2014, p. 3). These savings were reinvested to fund additional road and bridge projects and provide even more safety, mobility, and economic opportunity for the people of Idaho.

ITD innovations allowed the agency to improve public services while reducing costs and red tape. ITD reduced the department’s administrative rule chapters from 80 to 42—a 48 percent reduction in red tape (Idaho Transportation Department, 2020, p. 2). Other significant improvements included:

• Improving Pilot Safety:
  Employees in the Division of Aeronautics developed a first-in-the-nation touch-screen application for iPads. The “app” includes a visual directory and runway diagrams for all of Idaho’s airports and airstrips, which includes the largest back-country airstrip network in the lower 48 states. The easily accessible application provides a wealth of important safety tools pilots can use to make safer takeoffs and landings in Idaho’s challenging mountainous terrain and received the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO) President’s Award for Aeronautics.
• Building a Major Bridge in Half the Time:
  The Broadway Bridge over the Boise River may be one of the most important bridges in Idaho. The heavily traveled bridge is the primary route from I-84 to downtown Boise, the Capitol Building, one of the states’ largest medical complexes, and the Boise State University (BSU) campus, home of the BSU Broncos and their famous blue turf.
  
  When the previous structure, built in 1956, needed to be replaced to meet modern safety and design standards, ITD’s bridge engineers knew a two-year project of this magnitude and importance to the state would create significant disruption for local businesses, the Idaho Legislature, and BSU. To accelerate construction and reduce bureaucracy the bridge engineers were empowered to work directly with the contractor to make decisions at the construction site instead of waiting for headquarters.
  
  ITD’s promise to complete the project in only nine months resulted in local radio station hosts and even the Mayor of Boise making bets on whether ITD could do what they said they would. On September 9, more than 400 people attended the opening ceremony for the new bridge. Boise Mayor Dave Bieter explained to the attendees how vital the Broadway Bridge is to the economy of Idaho and the capital city and said, “People all across our Valley are losing bets today! People bet this wouldn’t be ready for the home opener.” The mayor then paused and said, “Never bet against ITD!”
• Swarming the Storm:
  The foreman of the Malad Maintenance Shed, located just west of the Continental Divide in Idaho, empowered his employees to make decisions. One day they came to him and said they had been asked to divide their crew into shifts during the winter to make sure there was 24/7 coverage in case a winter storm hit. The crews were divided into weekday and weekend shifts, each with crews for the day, the evening, and the night shifts.
  
  Since the crew members’ individual performance measures were based on the amount of time the roads were clear of snow and ice “during” storms, they told the foreman the crews should not be spread out when storms are underway because then only one-third of available employees and equipment are working to clear the roads during storms.
  
  Two-thirds of the employees would be sitting at home, and two-thirds of the equipment would be sitting idle when storms hit, not being used. They realized this traditional staffing strategy negatively affected their performance reviews and pay levels.
  
  The employees proposed a new concept called “Swarm the Storm,” in which all available employees and equipment could be on the job during storms. The crews needed to be able to predict when storms would arrive accurately to do this.
  
  They met with the National Weather Service to develop a system that lets maintenance crews know in advance when storms will hit. Members of the weather service and the Malad crew would meet every Monday and every Thursday to track the weather.
  
  For example, if a storm was projected to hit on a weekend, the crew could find out on Monday and then arrange work schedules during the week so crew members can use Tuesday and Wednesday for their weekend rather than Saturday and Sunday. This allows the crew to make sure everyone is there on the weekend to swarm the storm and clear the roads. If a storm were projected to arrive at night, the crew would have everyone go home during the day so they could work during the night to fight the storm.
  
  This employee-driven system was implemented statewide, increasing the performance metric of the amount of time highways are clear of snow and ice during storms from 28 percent in FY11 (Idaho Transportation Department, 2014, p. 2) to 82 percent in FY22 (Idaho Transportation Department, 2022, p. 2).

If the employees had been told by management to adjust their work schedules this dramatically, they would have balked, but because the employees were the people proposing the changes, they embraced them. Now other states and other nations in Europe are adopting the Swarm the Storm concept and keeping people safer during storms, all thanks to an idea from a winter maintenance crew in Malad, Idaho.

Before ITD began its quest to become the best transportation department in the country, its annual budget was $510 million (Idaho Transportation Department, 2008, p. 1). The governor and legislature were so pleased with ITD’s performance and return on investment that by 2021, they had increased ITD’s budget to $1.2 billion (Idaho Transportation Board, 2022, p. 6). The legislature also approved an additional $1.6 billion bonding program over and above ITD’s annual budget (Idaho Transportation Department, 2021, p. 1).

This was all made possible by the trust the legislature had in ITD’s track record of producing good returns on investment. They were confident that ITD would invest money wisely and do the right thing. Not only did the legislature give the department more dedicated transportation funds, in 2022—for the first time in state history—they provided an additional $424 million from the state’s General Fund (Idaho Press, 2022) and guaranteed future bond payments from the General Fund for the next 20 years.

ITD also began receiving accolades from its peer agencies across the country because of its employee-driven innovations and successes. In the last 13 years, ITD earned 180 national awards. The department was competing for these awards against the largest and most highly funded transportation departments in the country, including New York, Illinois, and California. These national honors were for projects judged by ITD’s peers—the other transportation departments across the country—to be the best of the best in the United States (The Transporter). Appendices A and B discuss specific tools interested agencies can use to achieve similar results. Appendix C details the awards received by the Idaho Transportation Department and its employees from 2010 to 2022.

ITD was also twice nominated for “Innovative Company of the Year” by the Idaho Technology Council. No other state aency had ever been nominated because no other state agency in Idaho had ever operated like a business. After the nomination was received, a member of the judging committee called the department to say that ITD could not compete for the award because it was for the private sector, not public agencies.

One judge said, “The public sector regulates; the private sector innovates.” However, once the judges began looking at the level of innovation at ITD and the money-saving results, they were impressed. Not only was ITD’s nomination accepted, but they were also one of three finalists for the award.

Empowering Employees Was a Success

ITD’s accomplishments and honors were employee driven. The employees were empowered and actively encouraged to create time- and money-saving innovations the public could see and benefit from. What they accomplished was a monumental task, driven by the employees’ desire to succeed and produce results for their fellow Idahoans and a vision of becoming the best transportation department in the country.

Publicly empowering ITD employees to make important job decisions created a new level of employee trust in the department’s leaders and a deeper understanding of the direction leadership was taking the department. This was another positive outcome of having only four layers of management between the director and the front-line employees.

When employees are empowered to do their jobs, they are also trusted to make the right decisions. Trust is a two-way street. Employees will not go out on a limb to make decisions unless they trust that their leaders will not throw them under the bus for doing so. Employees must trust the direction in which leadership is taking the organization, and leaders must trust the employees to make decisions and do the right thing.

Conclusion

Adopting a modern business model transformed ITD into a dynamic transportation department that received national recognition for innovation and excellence.  ITD became a customer-focused agency that works at the speed of business, as well as a workplace of choice. Placing decision-making closer to where the work is done and operations are taking place changed ITD from a passive 1960s-style government agency into a 21st-century organization with:

• Fewer Layers of Bureaucracy and Management
• Higher Employee Moral, with Employees That are More in Control of Their Jobs
• Decision-Making Focused on Measured Outcomes
• Goals that Serve the Citizens, not the Organization

Employee-driven innovations saved taxpayers millions. ITD also provided better public services while improving employee morale. None of these benefits were achievable under a 1960s civil service model. ITD proved that by using the right business model, government could serve the public at the speed of business.

Brian W. Ness, a lifelong transportation professional, was appointed ITD director in November 2009. He was responsible for an annual budget of approximately $1.2 billion and provided leadership and vision for 1,650 employees. He retired in May of 2022 as the longest-serving director.

Brian is a nationally recognized authority on organizational realignment and regularly speaks at national conferences for both public and private-sector organizations, sharing his expertise on more effective and accountable governments and organizations.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Tri-State University and a Master of Public Administration from Western Michigan University. Brian is a licensed professional engineer in Michigan and Idaho. Before becoming director at ITD, he worked for 30 years at the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), holding a variety of positions in research, operations, aeronautics, construction, and project development. Director Ness ended his career with MDOT as the North Region Administrator/Engineer. He also worked for three summers with the Iowa Department of Transportation. In total, Ness has worked 45 years in transportation serving three states.

Rik N. Hinton is an award-winning technical writer and video editor/producer. He worked for ITD for three decades and served as the sole writer for the director, developing articles, speeches, annual reports, electronic presentations, and videos.

Rik is a publication-design specialist. He designed, wrote, and created all of the ITD’s major external publications and presentations. In his free time, he published Instinctive Archer Magazine and continues to write bowhunting articles for major outdoor publications, which he has been doing for the last four decades.