INNOVATION AWARDS & PRIZES

Quarterly Prize Drawings

To encourage and reward innovative efforts both large and small, three innovations will be randomly selected each quarter to receive a monetary prize.

Prize

Members of the three winning innovation teams will receive $50 each.

Rules

• Monetary prizes are subject to taxes and appear on paychecks within six weeks of the drawing.

• Only UDOT employees are eligible for monetary prizes.

• Eligible innovation team members are UDOT employees listed in the "Development Team" section of the innovation story published in the UDOT Innovation Catalog.

• Members of winning innovation teams with 10 or fewer members each receive the $50 prize. However, prize money is capped at $500 per winning innovation. Members of large innovation teams (having more than ten members) receive a prorated amount. For example,  members of an innovation team with 15 members would each receive a $33.33 prize.

• Employees can only receive one $50 prize per quarter even if they are team members of two or more randomly drawn innovations. 

• Innovations must be published in the UDOT Innovation Catalog between the quarter's start and end dates to be eligible for that quarter's drawing.

• An innovation is only eligible to be randomly selected for the quarter in which it was published.

• The Innovation Program works with innovation submitters to ensure that their innovations meet the qualifications to be published in the UDOT Innovation Catalog. See the Submit an Innovation page for details.

• Quarterly prize winners will be announced through the UDOT Newsletter and contacted by email.

Annual UDOT Innovation Awards and Prizes

All innovations published between September 1 and August 31 will be considered for one of four innovation awards. Sixteen innovations will be selected as award finalists in September. From these finalists, four winning innovations will be announced in October. 

Categories

Innovation of the Year - recognizes an innovation that significantly advances safety, saves costs, and/or improves public service. This award favors innovations that have a big-dollar or far-reaching impact on large numbers of people.

Spark Award for Inventive Innovation of the Year - recognizes creativity in developing novel processes, tools, or technologies to solve problems and make improvements. This award provides room for smaller innovations to be recognized that may not have as large an impact as the Innovation of the Year, but nevertheless exemplify the innovative spirit in a special way.

Enhance Award for Adaptive Innovation of the Year - honors ingenuity, adoption, adaptation, or resourceful problem-solving using available resources. This award respects that you do not have to reinvent the wheel to enhance outcomes and that taking someone else's idea to the next level in the way you apply it to your situation can be just as valuable.

Flow Award for Process Improvement of the Year - recognizes the implementation of a new or redesigned process that achieves excellent results. Continually improving the way you plan, prepare, execute, revise, and rethink your work to enhance performance is a never-ending source of innovation.

Prizes

• Each member of the sixteen innovation teams that are selected as award finalists will receive $50 awards on their paycheck and a UDOT Innovator baseball cap.

• Each member of the four award winning innovation teams will receive an additional $100 award and an invitation to the UDOT Innovation Awards Luncheon.

• The four winning innovation teams will receive $1,000 for their Team Enhancement Budget.

Rules

• Innovations are eligible for awards for the innovation program year they are published in the Innovation Catalog. The program year begins September 1st and ends August 31st of the following year.

• A Finalist Selection Committee (FSC) narrows the annual collection of innovations to sixteen finalists, four in each award category. 

• The FSC decides which award category an innovation best fits. An innovation can be considered for an award in only one category.

• The FSC may be comprised of the Research and Innovation Division members, Region and Division Leaders, Senior Leaders, and the Innovation Council. 

• Once finalists are selected, Senior Leaders will choose a winner for each award category.

• Innovations are scored based on their impact, how well they represent the spirit of their award category, and how well they align with UDOT's Road Map.

• Monetary prizes appear on paychecks within six weeks of the award's announcement and are subject to payroll taxes and withholdings.

• Only UDOT employees are eligible for monetary awards.

• Eligible innovation team members are UDOT employees listed in the Development Team section of the innovation story published in the UDOT Innovation Catalog.

• Award money is capped at $500 per finalist innovation and $1,000 for each winning innovation. The maximum award is divided equally if there are more than ten team members.

• Finalists and winners will be announced through the UDOT Newsletter and contacted by email.

• Winning teams, along with their supervisors, will be invited to the annual UDOT Innovation Awards Luncheon held in October or November.

• The Team Enhancement Budget is a reimbursement from the Research & Innovation Division for pre-approved expenditures that further a team's innovative work. Some examples of approved expenditures include relevant tools, materials, or innovation supplies to improve work. The R & I Division has final approval on reimbursements.

• If an innovation team composes employees from different UDOT teams, the Innovation Program team will allocate the Team Enhancement Budget amongst the innovation members' home teams accordingly.

Resources

• Tips on submitting a winning innovation (future link)

FAQ's

Q: What is the difference between an innovation, idea, or concept?

A:  The Innovation Program is interested in collecting stories of implemented innovations that are in use at UDOT. Pilot programs and prototypes may be eligible if the results suggest further implementation is recommended. For comparison, ideas and concepts are untested or not yet implemented. We encourage employees to work with their leaders to vet, authorize, and develop their ideas into implemented innovations.

Q: What makes an innovation submission eligible for a prize?

A:  Innovation stories must be published in the UDOT Innovation Catalog System and appear in the Innovation Catalog during one of the four quarters of the collection year (September 1 through August 31 of the following year). Innovation Program staff reserve the right to evaluate and determine publication in the Innovation Catalog based on relevance, completeness, and the qualifications outlined on the Submit an Innovation page.

Q: Who can submit an innovation?

A:  Contractors, consultants, MPO’s, and other partners working on UDOT-sponsored or -funded projects and activities are encouraged to work with their primary contact at UDOT to submit innovations.

Q: Are non-UDOT employees eligible to win monetary prizes? 

A: No. Monetary prizes are only awarded to UDOT employees. However, non-UDOT innovation team members whose innovation wins one of the four Innovation of the Year Awards are invited to participate in the awards luncheon.

Q: Can an innovation win a quarterly drawing and go on to become a finalist and award winner?

A: Yes! Innovation team members can receive prizes for quarterly drawings and also win an Innovation of the Year Award.

Q: Will an employee receive multiple prizes if they helped develop multiple innovations that are finalists or win innovation awards?

A: Yes. If you are part of multiple finalists and/or award-winning innovations, you may receive a prize for each innovation.

Q: If I help develop more than one innovation, can I receive prize money from multiple drawings in the same quarter?

A: No. If the same person is a team member of different innovations drawn in the same quarter, that person may only receive one $50 prize that quarter.

Q: What is the intent of the Team Enhancement Budget award?

A: The Team Enhancement Budget award is intended to support further development or implementation of innovations, or to support team-building activities to recognize and reward accomplishments. Expenditures must be preapproved by the Research and Innovation Division director. Eligible expenses up to $1,000 will be reimbursed upon processing of receipt submission.

Q: Why do the home units of innovation team members receive the Team Enhancement Budget rather than just the members of the innovation team?

A: UDOT's culture of innovation is founded on the willingness to try new things which requires the support and trust of all team members and leaders. To express gratitude for the supervisor and teammate’s support, even if they were not directly involved with the innovation, the units of winning teams will all benefit from the Team Enhancement Budget.

Q: If a winning innovation's team is composed of people from different units how is the Team Enhancement Budget awarded?

A: In consultation with the innovation team's leader, the manager of the Innovation Program will allocate the Team Enhancement Budget (TEB) to the different units represented by the members of the innovation development team. 

Q: Who decides how the Team Enhancement Budget award will be spent?

A: The units that receive the Team Enhancement Budget award decide as a team how their portion of the prize will be used. It may not be distributed as cash or benefit only certain people on the team.

Q: How do cash winners receive their prize? 

A: Monetary prizes are paid through an employee’s paycheck and are subject to payroll taxes and withholdings.

Q: Where does funding for the prizes come from?

A: The UDOT Research and Innovation Division funds prizes and awards using state funds.

Q: Are the UDOT Innovation Awards the same as the Utah Transportation Conference awards?

A: No. The UDOT Innovation Awards are hosted by and selected from innovations published in the UDOT Innovation Catalog. The Utah Transportation Conference holds a separate contest for Utah's transportation industry. We highly recommend that innovation team members nominate their UDOT innovations in the Utah Transportation Conference contest.

These rules are subject to change.