Chapter 3 Our Workforce
Inclusiveness in the Marketplace
Employee understanding and appreciation of customer needs strengthens their ability to market postal services to the nation’s diverse communities. Leveraging diversity is a critical component in making the Postal Service the best value in the market and a service-provider of choice. To help communicate with non-English-speaking customers, the Postal Service developed aids in nine languages (Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Russian, Portuguese, Hindi, and Arabic). These aids help employees match postal services to the needs of a multicultural customer base. In-language holiday fact sheets focused on shipping and the range of retail services. There is also an online multicultural outreach toolkit available in the same nine languages.
Today, more than one in nine U.S. small businesses is Asian or Hispanic-owned. These businesses export 50 percent more shipments than non-minority firms.
The Postal Service developed the GoGlobal! initiative to assist customers shipping to Latin American and Asian destinations with information about their products. Ten districts were identified as pilot sites: Atlanta, Bay-Valley, Houston, Los Angeles, Northern Illinois, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Ana, Seattle and Triboro. GoGlobal! team members started to build relationships with Asian and Hispanic-owned businesses, local chambers of commerce, the Small Business Administration, and U.S. Commercial Services. Many of the pilot sites hosted GoGlobal! events where team members promoted international postal products and customized shipping solutions.
Outreach efforts support strategies to stay connected with all customers and to better assess their needs. Hispanic Program specialists servicewide attended training to engage in efforts to foster an inclusive workplace and marketplace. The specialists received information on recruitment strategies and specific products and services. Spanish-language media training was provided to enhance our communications to Hispanic communities through Spanish-language media. As part of outreach efforts, the South Florida District started a media campaign with the Cuban community to promote parcels to Cuba.
The Postal Service also participated in national and local community events commemorating month-long celebrations for Black History, Women’s History, Asian Pacific American Heritage, Hispanic Heritage, and American Indian Heritage. These events promoted diversity awareness and the wide variety of postal services.
Recognizing Leadership Commitment
The Postal Service’s commitment to an inclusive business culture was recognized by several publications this year. Hispanic Business magazine named the Postal Service one of the best companies for Hispanics. It was the only federal
agency in the magazine’s Diversity Elite 60 list, as measured in 30 categories, including commitment to Hispanic hiring, promotion, marketing, philanthropy, and supplier diversity. Hispanic Business noted that we are not only delivering the nation’s mail, “but also a commitment to diversity within the huge organization, with suppliers and throughout the communities it serves.”
Compensation and Benefits
Compensation and benefits for current employees and retiree health benefits make up nearly 80 percent of postal operating expenses. Compensation plans are designed to attract, retain, and motivate employees, while also meeting all relevant statutory requirements. The sections below discuss the Postal Service’s statutory standard of pay comparability to the private sector, primary benefit plan features, and developments in compensation and benefits.
Pay Comparability
Federal law governing the Postal Service provides that compensation and benefits for its officers and employees shall be comparable to the rates and types of compensation paid in the private sector. To achieve this, negotiations between the Postal Service and unions continue to apply the principle of moderate restraint set forth in past interest arbitration awards. The compensation of most bargaining units meets or exceeds private sector levels. The average annual pay and benefits for career bargaining unit employees was $66,929 this year, excluding corporate-wide expenses that cannot be attributed to individual employees.
Pay for supervisors, postmasters, and other nonbargaining employees provides an adequate and reasonable differential between first-line supervisors and bargaining-unit employees, and meets or exceeds comparability standards.
The law governing the Postal Service also provides that executives should be compensated at a level comparable to the private sector. However, the Postal Service’s status as a federal entity precludes the ability to achieve a comparable standard of compensation due to compensation caps. Within these statutory salary limitations, the Postal Service continues to provide performance-driven pay actions in support of its goal to enhance its performance-based culture.
New compensation support systems were implemented in September for employees of the Office of Inspector General and employees in headquarters non-executive pay bands. Both groups were assigned separate rate schedule codes for better identification and programming of personnel systems. For the Office of Inspector General, a customized compensation system was established to improve administering the unique requirements of their pay and benefit policies.