The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) paid Gallup to poll the work attitudes of its employees. Those attitudes were nothing short of abysmal. The USPS paid $1.8 million for the research, according to Inside Sources, which began the process of a release of the data via a filing under the Freedom of Information Act.
Survey Says: No Recognition for Good Work; Supervisors Don’t Care for Workers as People; Don’t Feel Job Is Important; Fellow Employees Not Committed to Doing Quality Work.
The report also states that 270,000 postal workers responded to the survey, a 47% response rate. The information was gathered in 2015. The summary of all questions on average is called the “Overall Grandmean.” This measure’s value was in the “1st Percentile,” which means it could not have been worse.
Observers do not need to go far to find some of the reasons for the problem. Post Master Megan Brennan testified before Congress at the start of the year:
In the past decade, due to digital diversion and the proliferation of Internet and mobile-based communications and exacerbated by the Great Recession, total mail volume has declined by approximately 27 percent and First-Class Mail, our most profitable product, has declined by 35 percent. The annual value of the revenue lost as a result of this volume decline is $21 billion per year.
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Outside observers regularly mention that the primary solution to these problems is tens of thousands of layoffs, post office closings and mail delivery to residents that shifts from six to five days.
As the unofficial Post Office motto goes:
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Unless its employees become more and more depressed.
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