OSHA Illness and Injury Rate – The requirements of OSHA are designed to protect Postal Service and contract employees from safety and health hazards in the workplace. All private and public sector employers are subject to OSHA regulations; however, the U.S. Postal Service is the only federal agency subjected to the assessment of citation penalties and fines for non-compliance. In FY2014, the OSHA Injury and Illness (I&I) frequency rate for the Postal Service was 6.34 per 100 employees — a 12 percent increase over last year due primarily to severe winter weather from December 2013 through February 2014. In FY2015, the Postal Service will increase focus on at-risk employees and those who are new to the organization and less familiar with safe work practices. To refine this focus, the Postal Service will enhance reporting capabilities to allow for a proactive approach in tailoring safety programs to address concerns at a local facility level. A major part of these safety programs will be designed to address ergonomic impacts associated with the lifting, handling and repetitive motions required in all aspects of delivery, especially parcel delivery. To support these safety activities, the Postal Service will be releasing a series of engaging videos titled “Safety Depends on Me” which focus on the major root causes of accidents and provide tips for prevention.
Voice of the Employee (VOE) Survey – The Postal Service highly values its employees’ opinions about their work environment and the effectiveness of Postal Service programs, policies and strategies for success. In FY2014, the Postal Service took another major step towards engaging its entire workforce by extending the opportunity to participate in the VOE survey to not just career employees, but to all Postal Service employees, including Postal Support Employees (PSEs), City Career Assistants (CCAs), Mail Handler Assistants (MHAs), Rural Carrier Assistants (RCAs) and casuals. These employees are indispensable members of our workforce. Their survey participation rate of over 70 percent is clear evidence they both desire and value the opportunity to participate in the VOE survey program.
Each year we set challenging targets for employee engagement levels. In FY2014 we experienced improvement quarter-over-quarter and improvement over the FY2013 baseline score. We achieved an end-of-year score of 65.011 and our employees continue to express high levels of commitment to the organization. For example, 77 percent of employees indicated they were proud to work for the Postal Service and 75 percent feel personally responsible for helping the organization succeed. The scores for each of these questions is a full percentage point higher than they were at the end of FY2013.
In FY2015, we are partnering with an employee-engagement leader to redesign our VOE survey program to help promote increased levels of employee engagement. We will create more robust reporting, analytics and innovative action- planning tools to help managers respond to their survey results.
