Will Postal Service bosses go undercover in the future?
Filed under Labor
Tags: brainstorming, employee relations, feedback, management, officers
“Undercover Boss,” a CBS show that began airing in February, follows Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) as they go undercover to work primarily in lower-level positions in their own companies.
Beyond its entertainment value, the episodes have exposed a significant disconnect between senior management and employees.
While featured CEO’s have not recently, if ever, worked in entry-level positions in their companies; in contrast, the Postal Service has a proud history of promoting from within. Many of its current officers have carried mail, sold stamps, or worked in mail processing plants. Yet, based on the comments posted on Pushing the Envelope, there is a “suggested” disconnect between postal management and its employees. Postal employees often say their managers fail to communicate various corporate policies to them, fail to listen to their comments and suggestions, and fail to understand how corporate policies ultimately affect field operations.
Loading ... Loading ...If you think there is a disconnect between managers and employees at the Postal Service, what is the root cause? Can it be fixed?
Do you have any other thoughts or suggestions? We’d like to hear from you.
This topic is hosted by the OIG’s Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).
51 Responses to “Will Postal Service bosses go undercover in the future?”
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March 10th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I think having the usps “bosses” go undercover would be helpful if they did it not as usps employees, but as usps customers. I personally have been battling with my local post office about mail delivery for years and the local postmaster will not even pick up the telephone. It would be very beneficial for the usps bosses to see firsthand how poorly usps customers are treated. This may explain a lot about why the usps will continue to lose customers at exponential rates.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Ok – I’m just gonna say ARRG!!!!! This blog was supposed to be about whether or not oging undercover would be a good idea….but since most of you wanted to venture off the path I guess I will also.
I am a PM in a smaller office and I have to say that I am SICK and TIRED of bing lumped into the “You people” category everytime a craft employee has an issue with their boss.
I know PLENTY of horrible craft employees and for everyone of them I know 10 GREAT, HONEST, LOYAL and DEDICATED employees.
Next time some of you want to BASH your boss maybe the opposite of the BLog is true. Maybe YOU should WALK IN YOUR BOSSES SHOES for a month! Maybe you should look around your office and see if there are Loyal Craft employees that have been on Limited Duty for 10 years (I know a few) or ones that have been fired and rehired 4 times, that even after a ROUTE CUT can’t make their times and get even slower ( I know a few)
It goes both ways!
I do carry a route – I do work the window – I do sort the mail! and I DO NOT GET A BONUS!!!! I don’t think ANY OF YOU realize that the BONUS that you love to call it is NOT a bonus. EAS gave up ALL STEP INCREASES, ALL COLA’s, ALL OT and ALL CONTRACTUAL RAISES to go to a once yearly increase based on performance. This year (for example) almost NONE of the PM’s , MGR’s and SUP’s in my local area got a single penny for a BOnUS (as u call it) this year.
How many Craft employees would be willing to give up thier OT, Contractual raises ect and have their yearly raise determined by how many times they were late for work…or called off…or howmany times the misdelivered the mail….I DIDN’T THINK SO
I will never lump all the employees in the same category……Do you????
March 10th, 2010 at 11:20 am
I agree and disagree. I would like to see the MPOO’s and above and even some of the 22-26 PM’s get out there and work in a delivery unit.
However, NOT IN THEIR OWN AREA. Let the MPOO from an Office in Michigan go and try and run a level 18 office in Texas. One that has 8 routes and only 5 carriers. Where they are not allowed to bring in NS or hire a PTF to work.
Let them deal with dispatches that are 1 hour late and then be told on a conference call to “just get it done”
Then let that same person go work in as a carrier in Ohio with 24 inches of snow on the ground and be told the SNOW IS NOT A REASON TO BE OVER ON YOUR ROUTE.
The upper management WILL NEVER do this. It will be like it was a few yours back when the level 26 PM was doing a TV spot and they showed him carrying the mail. Well, his satchel was EMPTY and he did three houses and then went back to the office.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:01 am
If the OIG were really concerned with the state of the service, they wouldn’t make a fluffy piece of television their topic for discussion on their blog. How about busting the criminals in USPS management that you KNOW are there and are doing nothing to stop. How about stopping the “detailing” of incompetent managers to other locations and paying them per diem to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year. You won’t do this because your raison d’etre is the elimination of rank and file workers through whatever means necessary, wasting millions to prosecute a handful of sick leave abusers. The only people I have ever seen truelly abuse sick leave are managers who are about to retire. Why do you not go after them? Why are you not investigating the lies that are fed to the public concerning the need to close plants and displace thousands of workers? Shame on you OIG. Do you think this is funny? There are real people hurting out here and you think it would be cute to have managers go down to the trenches.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:12 am
They wouldn’t be “undercover” for long. As soon as they started actually working the real workers would figure them out.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:06 am
I’m beginning to think that these blogs are a pointless exercise in futility. Will the OIG kindly point out any suggestions they’d used to enhance the performance of the Postal Service? And more importantly, did the author(s) of said suggestions receive any compensation? If you want to run the organization like a private-sector enterprise, then you need to recognize contributors…and that brings me to my next point:
The Postal Service is losing its identity. That’s why no matter what you do, in its current construct, it will continue to flounder. Is the Postal Service going to continue forward honoring its current charter, or is it going to be disbanded and privatized? Those are the ONLY choices. A hybrid design won’t work. And furthermore, the individuals currently employed by the organization are best suited for government work — navigating a bureaucracy — rather than turning a company around.
Again, until the Postal Service settles on an identity, it will not achieve success. So you can change productivity metrics, put management in craft for a week, whatever, but you won’t fix the organization until there is a clearly defined identity. And that identity *should* be in consonance with the organization’s charter. Think about that…
March 10th, 2010 at 2:08 am
I think Upper Management (all from Postmaster General down to MPOO’s) should have to annually fill the shoes of every position in one particular office in their area for one week; a different office every year. In order to lead, you must first know how to serve. Not just when you’ve started working with the Postal Service but DAILY. Not just filling the need, but “FEELING” the needs. Upper Management needs to come back to the K-N-O-W that the people below their “upper-management” position (earned OR given) will be their successes. Employee Surveys are for determing bonuses for upper management. We know they are not “anonymous.” Maybe they should actually sit down with the randomly selected employees, face to face and HEAR what we have to say. Willing to HEAR. And no bonuses to uppermanagement. No District “at-a-boys” at the end of the year. Every office is NOT the same. Numbers are NOT across the board. There NEEDS to be a close look at what each office is all about and work the numbers according to the office according to present day numbers, not numbers based on SPLY. Just because its a new fiscal year does not always mean cutting hours, positions and adding workloads to those that are left and expecting Postmasters and Supervisors to do the work that craft were originally hired for. There is always a little bit of truth to deception. That’s why people are easily persuaded into believing the lie. There are solutions, but there are those who don’t want to humble themselves to hear the equations.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Having the boss go undercover for a few days would do nothing. They would need to be there for at least a few months to get the full effect of the ridiculous things that we have to deal with. Management treats us like we are criminals and hold us to standards of perfection that are absurd. Except for the delivery of mail. They LOVE the people that run even though they do a horrible job, misdelivering mail and parcels and driving like maniacs but harrass the carriers who do a good job and care about their customers and their mail. But when they make a mistake and we grieve it watch out! There is WAY to much management in the postal service which becomes obvious when you look at the stupid ideas they come up with. They make a basically simple job (I didn’t say easy)complex with everything they do. At our office they just implemented again this little cardboard tray with separations in it so we can separate our mail into it (which we do already anyway) Just a complete waste of money when we have none and it takes up space in the truck that we don’t really have any way. Whose dumb idea was that? Someone who needed something to do that’s who. They need to just leave us alone and let us do our jobs, the right way. You know it’s true.
March 9th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
The TV show is nothing more than good PR for the companies profiled and entertainment. Part of the solution to our problem is to go back to the business model of allowing each level of the company to do the job they are paid to do. Let Postmasters hire. Let managers actually manage their stations. Let carriers do what you pay them $52,000 a year to do. Reduce the ratio of management to craft. Every level of the Post Office distrusts the level underneath them. A manager can’t do anything without approval from their boss “downtown”. Managers are paid around $80K a year and aren’t allowed to make simple decisions such as bringing in an ODL carrier on their day off to prevent contractual violations. Empower the employees. Hold everybody accountable. Reduce the number of management personnel. We’d be headed in the right direction.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
I remember the times when the postal inspectors would go undercover to investigate theft and drug dealing at our facility. We learned to be suspicious because here comes these “new hires” who seem to know too much about operations.
That being said, I think it could be an eye-opening experience for some big bosses to come down into the trenches. But, they need to experience the real life of a rank and file worker:
1. They need to call in sick once and then be threatened with discipline. They need to be ordered to bring doctor’s notes for 1 day’s absence. Experience attendance control from the worker’s perspective.
2. They need to be forced to work alone on the DBCS, and then to get harassed when they don’t clear jams fast enough.
3. They need to have their schedule changed weekly, from tour 2 to tour 1 to tour 3, different days off, different duties (yes, they are doing that to full time regulars in bid jobs)
4. They need to be forced into a different schedule on holiday periods, so management can avoid paying overtime to them.
5. They need to be with a group of folks who receive excessing (from section or installation, take your pick) then go to the cafeteria to see EAS big wigs having a private Mardi-Gras Steak barbecue.
6. They need to be forced to work with mentally disturbed nuts, and with people (and supervisors) who speak unintelligible English.
7. They need to be expected to step up and do the work that lazy ill or injured people aren’t doing, (while being told they aren’t needed and are going to be excessed).
8. They need to work in a facility that has no security to ensure the safety of the employees or sanctity of the mails. At my plant, doors are left unlocked (doors leading directly to the street) so that EAS upper mahogany row types don’t have to use the employee entrance. Knowing a criminal, terrorist, or mentally deranged person could just walk right in off the street and create a disaster area here doesn’t affect the bosses who are behind locked and monitored doors. But we know, and we know that something bad could happen on any given day. (And yes, the OIGs have been informed that we here are concerned, but I don’t think anyone in that office cares one bit)
9. They need to know that if they get hurt, or need a couple weeks of light duty, they will just be sent home.
I have serious doubts that upper level management ever had the mental and physical ability to do what the workers do day in and day out. That’s why they are upstairs. I have seen the utter incompetence that to them doesn’t affect their work environment, but is inconvenient and sometimes devastating to the people who actually move the mail.
Would they learn something by being down in the trenches with us? Yes, they would learn that they couldn’t do what we do everyday. They may have some transient empathy, but as soon as they get back in their suits and skirts, get a fresh manicure, and dust the paper dust off themselves, they will forget that it is we who make the USPS successful. Not the bean counters who go from meeting to meeting and spend their time sucking up to Area and Headquarters.