USPS employee survey results are not good–May 5, 2015

When a website obtained internal USPS employee survey results, it was not a pretty picture. The Postal Service last year administered for the first time the Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey that is used by hundreds of organization which allows comparison with a large group of employers. It also added its own Q0.

Comparison with the larger population is particularly telling. The questions and the percentiles compared to the Gallup database are below.

Q0. How satisfied are you with the Postal Service as a place to work? 2nd Percentile

Q1. I know what is expected of me at work. 16th Percentile

Q2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right. 3rd Percentile

Q3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day. 7th Percentile

Q4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work. 1st Percentile

Q5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person. 1st Percentile

Q6. There is someone at work who encourages my development. 1st Percentile

Q7. At work, my opinions seem to count. 1st Percentile

Q8. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important. 1st Percentile

Q9. My fellow employees are committed to doing quality work. 1st Percentile.

Q10. I have a best friend at work. 1st Percentile

Q11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress. 1st Percentile

Q12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow. 1st Percentile.

 Overall Grandmean: 1st Percentile

These results are about as low as they could be and demonstrate the massive challenge postal leaders have in marshalling their biggest resource, their people, who cause about 80 percent of postal costs.

The USPS issued a statement on their commitment to fix their people problems:

We are laser-focused on finding ways to make improvements in postal work teams — and their work environments — all across the country.

We have assembled a dedicated, high-performing Employee Engagement team of employees who have begun the process of training all our postal leaders (tens of thousands) to translate the survey’s Q12 Engagement Questions into a “Daily Mission.”

We will hold postal leaders accountable for actively identifying and correcting their work environment issues in order to achieve a more satisfied and productive workforce, ultimately resulting in more satisfied customers.

We are realistic, and we know this will take time, perhaps as much as four or five additional survey administrations.

At a recent meeting of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington, Gallup CEO and Chairman Jim Clifton talked about the critical importance of the engagement index for our whole society, while of course not mentioning any individual organization. The portion of employees who are actively disengaged are doing their best to sabotage the good works of the actively engaged workers. At USPS, the actively disengaged outnumber the engaged by 40 percent to 17 percent. This is very troubling information for all involved—employees, customers, and management.

Click to enlarge.