Search Content

This report contains a summary of the themes, codes, and sub-codes that emerged from the focus group discussions conducted for the Minnesota Local Road Research Board. Four focus groups were conducted between November 15 - 30, 2023 with the featured stakeholder groups: CDL license holders (4 participants), Jobseekers (8 participants), HR professionals (3 participants), and High school students (5 participants). Participants were identified, selected, and recruited via professional networks and affiliations of CTS and their partners. Discussion guides were created for each group that addressed a particular set of topics: 1) The Current Workforce, 2) Recruitment, 3) Retention, 4) Marketing & Awareness, and 5) Collaboration. Each topic is treated as a theme that is accompanied with codes which categorize participants’ responses. For context, included in the appendices section of this report are the original questions and the full set of codes with quotes extracted verbatim from the transcripts.

In June of 1996 the Human Resource Department of the Minnesota Department of Transportation conducted an employee opinion survey to benchmark attitudes toward and satisfaction with the department from the employees' perspectives. Project Manager for the survey is Linda Bjomberg. Results of the initial survey were tabulated and published in September of '96; subsequently, senior management identified three key topic areas in which improvement was deemed necessary: Accountability, Ethics and Integrity and Understanding Mn/Dot's Overall Goals. These were areas in which there existed a high level of disagreement to selected statements. In order to ensure clear understanding of the issues involving these areas, the direction was given to proceed with a department-wide effort to clarify responses and determine what employees had in mind when answering these three survey questions.

District, Regional and statewide project staffing meetings were held in January, February and March of 1990. The purpose was to identify issues that would make project construction inspection more efficient, productive and less stressful. Though there were some variances at the resident and district meetings, many of the concerns addressed were similar statewide. Of the 106 issues and concerns brought to the state meeting in March, many were so similar that it was possible to reduce the number of concerns considerably.