USPS Employee Engagement for the Future

Pick up any newspaper or read online articles to get a reality of the transformation U.S. mail is going through. Our delivery team continues to adapt to a changing information age landscape filled with the convenience of electronic and digital forms of communication. Internet shoppers and home-based businesses need a delivery platform more than ever to get their products and services to their customers. We choose the USPS because not only do we deliver but we pick-up from your doorstep too. We know logistics!

Put your item in our mail stream and we will do the rest. We receive feedback about our services with positive comments like; superfast delivery, 3 days from USA to Australia, fastest shipper yet, shipping time incredibly fast, paid Saturday received Monday, delivery must have come by missile, and much more. These sellers are often rated with 1-5 stars by their customers for shipping time and experience which means the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. We bridge that gap.

The 73rd Postmaster General believes “Our employees have been and always will be our greatest asset and our greatest strength.” He said “We are the indispensible means of delivery today, and our challenge is to make sure we remain the indispensible means of delivery far into the future.”

With rising business costs it’s time to rethink employee involvement. My impression is the only way we are going to live up to the General’s mission statement is through a strategic plan that actually measures involvement at all levels of the agency. With two new top executives there will be no better opportunity to evaluate and improve the working culture inside the United States Postal Service.

I submitted some thoughts months ago to USPS Growth & Revenue as part of the “Formula for success” seeking ideas from employees to grow the business or generate new revenue. I politely asked for an acknowledgement receipt or response. Good thing I wasn’t holding my breath! I know we can take flat-rate-boxes to another level, I suggested ideas about diversity in advertising, and ways we could exploit our position as “Most trusted agency.” No one ever responded back to this internal customer on the same team.

We are a deadline-oriented business, not a building on fire. As a delivery team finding time to incorporate organized training and instruction will only improve our work processes. Can we get a sincere commitment from the top layers of the unit organization chart followed through and measured for success? We need the same urgency and attention to people programs as we give to our service scores.

Employee involvement has nothing to do with restructuring employee benefits, adjusting work salaries, disrupting employment policies, or rewriting labor agreements. It has everything to do with piping into the untapped reserves of supervisors, managers, and all employees committed to a leadership philosophy that encourages all-hands participation in improvement for the total success of the organization. If carried out effectively we will see an increased sense of ownership from the bottom-up.

We have employees on this mail team with a multitude of technical, vocational, academic, and multiethnic backgrounds. We got people who are multilingual, artists, pilots, military veterans, retail clerks, builders, disc jockeys, athletes etc. With our collective attributes we can each come to the table with more than a fork to contribute more than labor overshadowing the present day boot camp style verbal whippings, mental beat downs, and physical gawking.

Time constraints for accepting, receiving, processing, and delivery of mail services are a significant part of our business. Constant crisis mode puts an unduly familiar strain on working relationships between labor and management. Structured employee involvement will open the door to humanizing our services along with teamwork ultimately generating new streams of revenue.

Temporary trip wires to engagement may exist where supervisors who are used to being judged on the numbers will destabilize the process because they don’t see involvement as a valid way to supervise. Some labor unions might be more concerned about membership numbers than working closely with management as craft experts with positional authority to transform the work culture. Employees who have never experienced mental engagement will squawk “I’m not paid to think.”

It would be helpful if our agency conducted some internal innovation symposiums that challenge and reward “us” to develop strategies for future products and services. We are the community too. We also use technology as a matter of convenience to make our lives easier.

Some of the employee involvement options I was thinking about included customized training workshops for managers, supervisors, and labor leaders. Let employees meet as groups or teams presenting ideas with solutions. Create a brainstorm committee comprised of equal union and management to discuss business impacts. Assign project sponsors to monitor and evaluate the involvement process. Surveys that welcome written comments offer the opportunity to have a labor management committee focus on improved strategies to present to senior management. For transparency post a project or idea flow chart in plain view to summarize ideas submitted, in progress, implemented, or deemed unsuccessful.

Eventually USPS is going to have to change the way we engage employees in order to keep pace with our competitors and advances in technology. For some reason it seems as though we don’t want employees to be stakeholders in the postal enterprise. Highest paid doesn’t always mean most productive. We are letting our leaders off the hook by not demanding they put their pay-for-performance where their mouth is and flip this pyramid upside down and get some topsy-turvy thinking from those of us that form the foundation in a place loaded with hidden treasures.

We got banners hanging on display in high traffic areas, and they are nothing but boring wallpaper that looks good to visitors. Front line managers and union representatives must jointly take the lead to change our cultural behaviors and all the ways we discount employee participation. Engagement means much more than throw-the-mail-on-the-belt. It is a continuous process that requires every one of us to keep focus on a vision before all the mail perishes.

Ronald Williams, Jr.

Use the comments section below and sound off your thoughts about employee involvement.

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3 Responses to "USPS Employee Engagement for the Future"

  1. On a philosophical level this is, in and of itself, a demonstration of the potential of existing employee brain power.
    However, despite his good ideas and intentions, the current employment climate and direction seems to be anti-cooperation and team thinking. Most of American companies and corporations are using a version of buffering that keeps employees from earning any type of opportunity or recognition for any ideas or participation.
    In addition, the hard work is done by the entire comnpany while the lion’s share of the profits go to a small group at the top. While this has been well documented and is ongoing; it is not the way American business used to work. In the past when times were tough, EVERYONE tightened their collective belts. now, the executives are given and take outlandish bonunes regardless of how the company is doing. Then, when times are good the bonuses at the top get bigger, while most of the company receives very little.
    The Postal Service has been consciously trying to act like a business for at least a decade, but all the results have been on the negative side for the employees. Seeing the demonstrated actions in terms of failing to follow even their own rules and regulations, mush less any new trends in labor relations and work environment, such as ergonomics, leads me to believe that the future this fellow is looking for is not on the horizon of any postal executives.
    The Post Service desperately needs internal supervision, but, unfortunately, the body that is accountable for doing so needs supervision even more; and that iS Congress.

  2. There are a lot of good ideas in this letter. However getting the workforce to adapt to them is the real issue. The current management does not know how to manage people, the higher end management looks at numbers and doesn’t know what they really mean and finally craft employees are just frustrated that ridiculous work practices are being forced on them. This is not a complicated job. Lets find a way to let the employees work efficiently and safely. Lets find a way to allow management to manage their employees not bully them. The key issue is that higher up management has no idea of how to do the current method of work because they have never done it. Work methods have changed and put undo pressure on middle management and craft employees to try and make these methods work. We need people who know what the job entails and people who can express themselves in a positive manner to get this done. All the rhetoric in the world will not work unless we get back to the basics, putting paper in boxes in front of peoples homes.

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