“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).
63 Comments
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It would be funny to watch some upper management get harrassed by PMs!
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Having upper mangagement come to offices to work the front lines and see how things are is so overdue. I would be more than willing to volunteer my office to have Potter spend the day here. I think he would be in for a surprise. I think it would be the only way things would change, since they would be filling out the countless reports and checklists, micromanaging clerks, and finding time to doo all that is asked of us.
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every carrier supervisor and pm’s should be required to carry mail 2 weeks each year, once in the summer and once in the winter. every clerk supervisor and pm’s should have to work the window from open to close several mondays a year, plus a couple days of early starts to breakdown and distribute the incoming mail… the unions should find a way to allow this to occur.
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Management is no good us on the field. The majority of them in the Southwest Area turn to management because they could not take working in the field deliving mail or other craftwork. They spent to much time trying to make work for themselves.We don’t need management the computers do the work. We carriers only need management to stop delaying the to the units just to make their numbers.
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The problem with the Postal Management is BONUS need to go and they are not able to run a business as they came up from the ranks with NO business experience.
Another topic
WHY ARE CLERKS AND MAINTENANCE NOT HELD UNDER THEIR OWN DOIS??????
You know I’m right!
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The reason why these managers are not in the work force is because they were too lazy to do craft work . They have no reason to go back . Most of management is incompetent , ask anyone who actually moves the mail. As far as these OIG blogs , they are a total waste .
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The disconnect is because of PFP. The bosses don’t care about the bottom line, they don’t care about using common sense, they only want to make the numbers so they can get their bonus.
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This is essential to our survival. It must be initiated in an organized, orchestrated fashion to become successful. Conversely, the disconnect between managment, craft and customers is the cancer that leads to our demise. The Letter Carrier and the Window Clerk sees the solutions. Everything else is just support…
http://lettercarrierconnection.com/confessions2010.pdf
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Don’t delay.
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I’m in an office that is less problematic than mail delivery or other offices. I have worked at several other Federal agencies, but they were nothing like the PO. Other Federal agencies work with their employees i.e. flexible work hours, telework, no time clocks, etc.
At the PO there is so much distrust. They act like employees are out to screw them. They always question FMLA, sick leave, etc. It’s not that way at other Federal agencies. I just don’t get it.
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One of the biggest problems I saw was supervisors, MDO’s, and plant managers that had no communication skills. It doesn’t matter if you have every degree that there is if you can’t carry on the most basic conversation with another person. Also management needs to get away from this idea that they are better than someone else because of their title. Everyone needs to work together. I realize someone needs to be in charge, and if these in charge people would just learn how to work WITH people, they would get the respect that they should have. Respect is not demanded, it is EARNED.
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The only way to fix our problems,is to cut management positions by 30%.Cut L’enflent Plaza positions by 50%.Go back to semi self management.And let the workers say how the work should get done.
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How long do you suppose delivery in the dark winter evenings would last, if a higher up was unfortunate enough to be delivering mail at 6pm?
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Upper level management worked as lower level PM’s in a different era…so much has changed in the last 10 years that they really do not know what the job has become. 6 days a week, 10 – 12 hour days were unheard of and have now become commonplace. City carriers with 6 hours on the street were rare, now it is a “light” route. Things have changed at the grass roots level and they don’t understand it.
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work in the plants….YES! On TV…..a reluctant NO. The big problem is doing this in such a way that it does not interfere with the daily work, {no setting up a dog-and-pony show that does’nt reflect what really happens daily} and actually gets the message across to the higher-ups about how they need to join reality.
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This is so funny. This is a good idea and been around for decades. I have said this since when I first came in the door. The OIG has to now get this idea from a television show? LOL
Guess that shows the “disconnect” between the workroom floor and our Leadership.
Here’s another good one I have talked about since the 1980′s.
Each and every employee of the Postal Service Management team who is responsible for contracting, designing, approving projects, engineering, etc… work as a craft employee 30 days out of every year.
Every time new equipment is put out in the field from a simple letter tray to advance machines it becomes apparent at the outset that there was no thought given to the real conditions and demands needed.LOL
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Unlike with most corporate leaders, most USPS Senior executives started out in entry level clerk or carrier positions. This seems far less relevant for the Postal Service.
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More to my previous email. The PO has too many chiefs and not enough Indians (no pun intended). We are short 4 mechanics and 1 clerk and their filling the management positions. What’s up with that??? If we are short craft, then why do we need to fill the management positions??? Why aren’t the OIG’s looking into this?
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Watch the waste management one again. Pay attention to the two fats guys on the right side of the table as they get up. They look at each other and towards the camera with a look of hate at what they had just heard.
Each show shows one person getting promoted and others ideas trying to be considered.
Do you honestly think that handicaped gal that came out with a note telling the undercover boss how great her trashpickup women was was not done in advance? No one has a paper praising someone just sitting around waiting for the camera to show up..nice show for the public but nothing is going to change – it is all for show. Having Potter sort mail will not change anything.
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Sirs, the issue with managerial confidence is not vested in their labor employees but their managers and their own hiring practices. Generations of postal managers have managed only to ” make the figures no matter what” (see yearly grievance figures in two areas, payout and repetitiveness).In addition, there is so much patronism, cronyism and buddy system involved in the you cover my back and I’ll cover yours that nobody has any real idea of what the actual figures are. Upper level managers distrust the middle level managers bacause they know that the middle level managers will do the same thing that they did to make sure that they get promoted and the middle level managers feel the same about the lower level managers for the same reasons; an so the constant cover-up continues.
Bottom line, the promotional system desperately needs an overhaul to bring back accuracy and integrity into not only the reporting system, but back to the field level for the employees. If not the “free for all” will continue
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