• Coordination and implementation of recommendations from the report by the Independent Commission on a Safe and Secure Workplace.
• Development of the role of the Employee Workplace Intervention Analyst position to play a more strategic and consultative role in field WEI efforts to provide organizational development activities.
• Integration, assessment, and communication of employee feedback and other workplace environment information.
• Support for replication of a broad array of workplace improvement initiatives and practices.
• Communication of progress in improving workplace environment. Specific areas in which these components are carried out are:

        a. Employee Assistance Program
The Postal Service EAP provides free, voluntary, confidential, in-person counseling services to employees and family members from master’s-level counselors housed in or near local postal facilities. Counselors are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in convenient locations to assist employees and family members with a variety of difficulties that affect their lives and their work, including emotional, financial, legal, chemical dependency, marital, and family problems.

The EAP provides consultation to managers and supervisors regarding not only individual workers, but also the work setting within which they function. The EAP intervenes when appropriate through preventive efforts, such as manager coaching and educational seminars on communication and stress management. EAP also provides ameliorative efforts that include conflict resolution sessions and organizational interventions and restorative actions, such as debriefings after a critical incident (e.g., suicide, domestic violence at work, armed robbery, accidental death). In 2001, 42,285 employees and their family members received counseling from the EAP.

48 percent of employees reported some type of work problem that impacted their work performance. EAP staff responded to more than 556 critical incidents and provided assistance to more than 9,511 employees after these incidents. Health and wellness seminars on topics ranging from stress management to elder care to substance abuse were provided to 57,425 employees.

        b. Violence Prevention and Crisis Management
The Workplace Environment Advisory Committee, including representatives of employee unions, management associations, labor relations, and human resources, was created shortly after the inception of this office in late 1998 with the manager of WEI as chair. This group, working closely with the Inspection Service and WEI, uses a standardized protocol for the identification and resolution of potential “troubled worksites.” These are postal sites that may be susceptible to threatening or other undesirable behavior as a result of individual or systemic problems. In addition, WEI assists the field in ensuring that local threat assessment and crisis management teams are in place and that desired training is provided. Finally, WEI staff are involved, on an ongoing basis, in communication with and response to potential threats and crisis incidents throughout the Postal Service to ensure prompt response, swift resolution, and maximum safety of postal employees.

WEI played a key role in the dissemination of the report of the independent Commission on a Safe and Secure Workplace, also known as the Califano Commission, because it was chaired by Joseph A. Califano, Jr. The commission conducted a comprehensive review and analysis of violence in the Postal Service over a two-year period and released it findings in August 2000.

The Commission found that while postal employees are not more likely to be victims of violence at work, they are more fearful than other employees about violence in the workplace. On the other hand, postal employees are less angry, aggressive, hostile, depressed, and stressed than those in the national workplace. The Commission recognized the Postal Service’s strong efforts in developing a comprehensive array of programs to reduce workplace violence, but made recommendations for the following improvements:

• Continue and step up violence prevention programs already in place and address underlying sources of friction.
• Screen job applicants more carefully.
• Define “zero tolerance” for violence policy.
• Continue violence awareness training for employees, with unions playing a greater role.
• Ensure that warning signals of violence are heeded and employees know how to report threats and violence.
• Establish communication systems such as cell phones or beepers for carriers on delivery routes, especially in high crime and remote areas.
• Allay employee concerns about confidentiality of the EAP.
• Encourage joint local union/management oversight.
• Train managers and union officials to better handle employee terminations.
• Increase training of supervisors and managers in interpersonal skills.
• Strengthen incentives to focus managers on the workplace environment, in addition to customer satisfaction and financial performance.