19-02 — Leading Practices in Strategic Workforce Management by Transportation Agencies

Original Scope: AASHTO leadership has identified workforce management as one of the most urgent issues for today’s Departments of Transportation (DOTs). DOTs across the nation have increasingly expressed concerns about sustaining a qualified workforce. Many DOTs are addressing this problem by adopting some aspect of strategic workforce management, such as forecasting, succession planning, training and development, or targeted recruitment. This scan will examine innovative strategic workforce management strategies DOTS are implementing, particularly those activities that can be quickly adopted and implemented to recruit, develop, and retain the workforce they need today and for the future.

The scan team will consider common elements of strategic workforce management, such as skills metrics and forecasting, succession planning, employee development, employee wellness and engagement, employee recognition, recruitment, retention, diversity and inclusion, and change management. Outsourcing of functions historically performed within an agency may also be considered. The team must consider agency cultural differences and the context in which the strategic workforce management is applied.

Implementation and Impact

Following the two scan team workshops in 2020 (an in-person one in San Diego in March and a virtual one in October), the scan team worked at the state, regional, and national levels to advance scan findings. Highlights of these activities include:

At the state and regional levels, scan findings were presented to Pacific NW Transportation Consortium Region 10 Transportation Conference, a Northeast Traffic Engineers virtual meeting, a New Hampshire DOT Executive Staff and Bureau Administrators meeting, and a Utah DOT leadership meeting.

At the national / international levels, the scan team presented the scan outcomes to AASHTO re:source Technical Exchange, Workforce Development Panel, AASHTO Agency Administration Managing Committee, AASHTO Steering Committee of Traffic Engineers, AASHTO Sustainability Working Group, a lectern session at the TRB Annual Meeting, TRB’s Information and Knowledge Management Quarterly Meeting, the PIARC Technical Committee 1.1 Performance of Transport Administrations, sub-committee 1.1.3 Organization of Staff, and the Southern African Transport Conference.

TRB hosted a webinar based on the outcomes of this scan entitled, Workforce Management in Transportation. The webinar featured presentations on workforce development, succession planning, and data analysis. To view the slides or obtain a copy of the webinar recording, visit the webinar page on the National Academies website.

The scan team was integral to the creation of the new AASHTO Subcommittee on Transportation Workforce Management, a subcommittee of Agency Administration Managing Committee (AAMC). In January 2023, the subcommittee sponsored a pilot workshop, held in Washington D.C. The focus of the workshop was the development of the Transportation Workforce Management Playbook, which the subcommittee created for state transportation agencies based on the 19-02 scan model.

Scan chair, Amanda Holland, provided perspectives on the scan outcomes on the final day of the scan:

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