Chapter 1 Compliance with Statutory Policies

sessions on leadership and organizational skills, and EEO/Diversity issues, among others which ranged from a half-day overview to 2-day comprehensive workshops.

The Postal Service also participated in the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) conference. The WBENC is the nation’s leading advocate of women-owned businesses and the largest third-party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women in the United States. More than 2,500 women attended this year’s conference. By participating, the Postal Service increased external awareness of employment and business opportunities.

3. SPECIAL EMPHASIS PROGRAM

Maintaining ties with diverse communities is crucial for the Postal Service to stay connected with its customers, to assess their product and service needs, and to recruit diverse talent.

Through Special Emphasis programs, the Postal Service sponsored conferences on equal employment opportunity, including conventions hosted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Urban League, Society of American Indian Government Employees, the Organization of Chinese Americans, the African-American Postal League United for Success, and the Asian Pacific American Federal Career Advancement Summit. The Postal Service also held special events commemorating Black History, Women’s History, Hispanic Heritage, Asian Pacific Heritage, and American Indian Heritage months. The efforts of postal employees at these national events yielded an average of more than 5,000 postal exhibit visitors per event, and helped educate attendees about postal services such as NetPost, Click-N-Ship, and Carrier Pickup. Surveys and sales leads were generated for follow-up by account managers and small business specialists. Event visitors also provided insights to help the Postal Service market products to underserved and growth markets and better recruit new employees from a broad and diverse base.

C. EMPLOYMENT OF INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES

The Postal Service uses regular competitive procedures in selecting individuals with disabilities for employment. Individuals with severe disabilities receive noncompetitive employment consideration through referrals from individual state departments of vocational rehabilitation or the Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2006 the Postal Service’s career workforce included 41,325 employees with reported disabilities.

The Postal Service is delivering on its commitment to improve the workplace environment by enhancing communication for its deaf and hard of hearing employees. In 2005 the organization rolled out Phase 1 of the Video Remote Interpreting/Video Relay Service (VRI/VRS) deployment program to 25 sites. The VRI/VRS systems allow employees who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to communicate with supervisors, coworkers and others in real-time without on-site interpreters or text-based telephone systems. This year Phase 2 added 22 sites nationwide. The systems are now available to more than 1,100 deaf and hard-of-hearing employees.

D. VETERANS EMPLOYMENT

The Postal Service is one of the nation’s largest employers of veterans and disabled veterans. In 2006 the Postal Service employed 185,025 veterans. Of this group, 62,504 received injuries while in uniform and,

of that number, 17,172 were rated at 30% or more disabled. The Postal Service has established processes for the recruitment and advancement of veterans.

E. NATIONAL DIVERSITY RECOGNITION PROGRAM

In 2006 the National Awards Program for Diversity Achievement celebrated its 10th anniversary with record participation. A total of 1,026 nominations were submitted exceeding the 950 received in 2005. This year’s program recognized 21 employees, bringing to 350 the total number of employees recognized.

F. MEETING THE NEEDS OF DIVERSE CUSTOMERS

The more Postal Service employees know about business and customer needs, the better they can market products and services to diverse communities. Leveraging diversity will prove to be a critical component in making the Postal Service the best value in the marketplace.

The Postal Service developed an online multicultural outreach toolkit that was made available in nine languages to meet the mailing needs of diverse customers. The toolkit is designed to engage Postal Service employees in the business by providing the tools needed to effectively communicate products and services with valuable emerging markets.

3. Compensation and Benefits

A. PAY COMPARABILITY

1. BARGAINING UNIT EMPLOYEES’ PAY AND BENEFITS

The average annual pay and benefits for career bargaining unit employees was $62,348 this year, excluding corporate-wide expenses which cannot be attributed to individual employees. In an attempt to achieve compensation rates comparable with those in the private sector, negotiations between the Postal Service and unions continue to apply the principle of moderate restraint set forth in past interest arbitration awards for those units that have compensation exceeding private sector levels.

2. NONBARGAINING UNIT EMPLOYEES’ PAY AND BENEFITS

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. Nonbargaining-unit employees participated for a third year in the Pay-for-Performance (PFP) process. A key component of PFP is the ability to provide meaningful distinctions in performance ratings based on objective indicators of performance. Employees are evaluated against unit, corporate, and individual performance objectives. The unit and corporate indicators are established and measured in the National Performance Assessment (NPA) system. NPA metrics reflect a balance of service, revenue, cost, and workforce-related priorities. Individual core requirements provide a mechanism for employees to be evaluated for their personal contributions to unit and corporate success. Employees meet with their evaluator to discuss and define specific target outcomes. The Postal Service Intranet serves as the key tool for communicating and implementing PFP and has dramatically improved efforts to provide timely and specific feedback on individual performance. The Performance Evaluation System (PES) collects goal and accomplishment data, and calculates end-of-year ratings based on achievements against targets.