• Employee career/leadership conferences as part of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, to promote an inclusive work environment.
• Four diversity publications to educate the public on historic figures featured on stamps: Publication 354, African Americans on Stamps; Publication 512, Women on Stamps; Publication 154, Get Stamps on the Go; Publication 528, Veterans and the Military on Stamps; Publication 295, Hispanic People and Events on U.S. Postage Stamps.
• Partnership with national special-emphasis organizations to increase multicultural access to Postal Service employment opportunities, products, services, and supplies.

The average pay and benefits for career bargaining unit employees is $57,051 per year, excluding corporate-wide expenses. In an attempt to achieve compensation rates comparable to those in the private sector, negotiations between the Postal Service and its unions continue to apply the principle of moderate restraint set forth in past interest arbitration awards for those units that have compensation that exceeds private sector levels.

Pay for supervisors, postmasters, and other nonbargaining staff employees generally meet or exceed private sector levels. It also provides an adequate and reasonable differential between first-line supervisors and bargaining unit clerks and carriers.

In 2003, a new pay consultation with management associations concluded with the focus on market based and performance-driven pay systems. The salary structure continues the pay reform strategy outlined in the Transformation Plan and reflects the general criteria as outlined in the report of the President's Commission on the United States Postal Service.

Due to the limit imposed on PCES salaries by the Postal Reorganization Act, pay and benefits for Postal Service officers and many executives do not meet private sector comparability standards. During 2003, the average salary for Postal Service officers was $156,000. The average executive salary was $119,000.

In 2003 a new pay for performance plan was implemented for officers and executives that supports the Postal Service Transformation Plan and the President's Commission on the United States Postal Service recommendations in building a performance-based culture.

In 2003, the Postal Service introduced a pay-for-performance strategy for executives focusing on two elements: the National Performance Assessment (NPA) to measure corporate and unit indicators and the Performance Evaluation System (PES) to measure core requirements. Together, they serve as the foundation for measuring overall performance, providing focus on individual results, clear expectations and outcomes. In NPA, corporate and unit indicators are established and performance against targets is reported in the Web Executive Information System (WebEIS). In PES, stretch objectives and performance targets supporting the executive's core requirements are defined by both executive and evaluator at the beginning of the evaluation period. PES tracks the executive's accomplishments to stated objectives and captures performance against agreed-upon targets. This line-of-sight performance strategy using both NPA and PES will apply to nonbargaining employees beginning 2004.