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NPA—Driving the Right Behavior?

NPA—Driving the Right Behavior?
By Chuck Mulidore
NAPS Executive Vice President

I recently attended an initial NPA meeting with postal leaders at the Bolger Center. The Postal Service engages in consultation with NAPS on NPA language in Title 39 U.S. Code 1004(b), which reads:

“The Postal Service shall provide a program for consultation with recognized organizations of supervisory and other managerial personnel who are not subject to collective-bargaining agreements under chapter 12 of this title. … such organization or organizations shall be entitled to participate directly in the planning and development of pay policies and schedules, fringe benefit programs, and other programs relating to supervisory and other managerial employees.”

While this means the Postal Service must engage in consultations with NAPS relating to the NPA goals-setting process, it does not necessarily mean NAPS agrees with any or all of the goals ultimately enacted by the agency. NAPS’ position has been the Postal Service has a right to set organizational goals as does any company. However, NAPS believes that once these goals are translated into pay for EAS employees, we then do not agree with that premise.

It is, in fact, one of the pillars of the NAPS vs. U.S. Postal Service lawsuit: The Pay-for-Performance system provides neither adequate pay nor performance based on the complexity of the system, among a host of other factors. However, the purpose of this month’s column is to discuss my impressions of that initial NPA meeting, which, in my opinion, will lay the foundation for subsequent NPA meetings to come over this summer.

First, I found the Postal Service participants to be actively engaged in this process. While they had to Issue work within the parameters of the Postal Service’s goal system and its limitations and complexities, they worked collaboratively to develop a set of NPA goals that, in their mindset, would lead to a motivated EAS workforce.

While I respect that and appreciate their openness to receiving feedback from your NAPS leadership, I noted several areas where the focus was placed in the wrong direction. For example, at the outset of the meeting, there was a discussion of the so-called “Delivering for America” plan (DFA), which used key words such as transformation, optimization and strategic investment.

For me, that set the baseline for the organization’s commitment to actually transform, optimize and strategically invest not in the supervisors, managers, postmasters and support professionals who actually are responsible for implementing the DFA, but, rather, at the executive level. That level believes the only way to improve the Postal Service is to build a new plant network, conduct a reduction in force (RIF) where necessary, move local post offices to Sorting and Delivery Centers (S&DCs) miles away from the communities those post offices serve, regularly increase postage rates and slow service at a time when our competitors are speeding up service based on customer desires.

Now, while some of these initiatives—such as building new mail processing plants, investing in electric vehicle infrastructure and upgrading existing offices—may be necessary and long overdue, it is unfortunate that enhancing employee engagement as a corporate initiative is barely mentioned. In my opinion, that initiative should be at the top of the list—number 1! Only by transforming the EAS experience into a workplace of harmony, innovation and motivation will true transformational change occur in the Postal Service.

A few other observations from that initial NPA meeting included the complexity of over 17,000 NPA scorecards, which reminded me of NAPS’ fact-finding panel’s comment made just before NAPS filed its lawsuit against the Postal Service over the 2016-2019 pay consultation process: The NPA system is too cumbersome and complex to be understood by most EAS employees.

In fact, many of the executives in the NPA meeting at Bolger did not quite understand all the complexities of the NPA system. If those who are designing the system at times struggle with it, how can we expect overworked and underappreciated EAS employees to understand it? Most disturbingly, many of the folks engaged in implementing this NPA system have had zero or very little experience in the field.

For example, a suggestion was made that any Priority Mail container that did not receive an arrived-at unit scan in the morning be designated as failures for all pieces inside the container. The idea was that supervisors might not scan the container to simply improve their NPA score, thus promoting the “wrong” behavior. Really?

I spoke up against this idea as the container may have arrived late, the supervisors may have been ordered to deliver mail themselves that day or there simply was not enough personnel or time to meet the CRDO goal of all carriers out in 60 minutes. I told the executives at the meeting that EAS employees do not intentionally delay mail for the purpose of improving their pay. Rather, competing initiatives often require EAS employees to make decisions that frequently are second-guessed by Monday morning quarterbacks at Postal Headquarters. Fortunately, those at the meeting in leadership positions who do work in the field nixed this idiotic idea.

A final observation is a refrain that often was repeated during the meeting that NPA should be “driving the right behavior.” As if EAS employees would do the right thing only if properly motivated by a complicated pay system! News flash: Our people show up every single day to do the best job they possibly can because they care about the Postal Service and the customers it serves.

Quite frankly, I found that comment to be insulting. It underscores why, in my opinion, the Postal Service is where it is at this point entering year four of the DFA. The Postal Service can—and must—do better.