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NPA—Trickle-Down Economics?

NPA—Trickle-Down Economics?
By Chuck Mulidore
NAPS Executive Vice President

I recently attended, with the other NAPS resident officers, an initial NPA meeting with postal leaders at the Bolger Center. The Postal Service engages in consultation with NAPS on NPA reflecting language in 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 Postal Service. NAPS’ position has been that 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 do not agree with that premise.

It is, in fact, one of the pillars of the NAPS v. U.S. Postal Service lawsuit that 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, laid the foundation for the subsequent NPA meetings to come over this summer.

First, I found the Postal Service meeting participants to be actively engaged in this process. While they had to work within the parameters of the Postal Service’s pay system and its limitations, 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 receive feedback from your NAPS officers, I noted several goals where the focus was on the wrong direction. For example, at the outset of the meeting, a PowerPoint slide titled “Strategic Focus FY2023-2024” was presented. The slide listed 11 bullet points of the so-called “Delivering for America” plan (DFA), many of which used key words such as transformation, optimization and strategic investment.

Unfortunately, the last bullet point was titled “Enhance Employee Engagement.” 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 at the executive level.

That level believes the only way to improve the Postal Service is to build another plant network, conduct a RIF where necessary, move local post offices to Sorting & 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. While some of these initiatives—such as building out 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 at the bottom of the list.

In my opinion, that initiative should be at the top of the list—number 1! Only by transforming the EAS employee experience into a workplace of harmony, innovation and motivation will true transformational change occur in the Postal Service. It won’t happen just by optimizing carrier routes, transforming the projected 10-year financial status or publishing new, commercially aligned procedures manuals—all of which were listed above regarding enhancing employee engagement in that PowerPoint presentation.

A few other observations from that initial NPA meeting include the complexity of over 17,000 NPA scorecards, which reminded me of the Fact-Finding panel’s comment, made just before NAPS filed its lawsuit against the Postal Service over the FY16-19 pay consultation process. The panel found the NPA system was too cumbersome and complex to be understood by most EAS employees.

In fact, many of the executives in the recent meeting at Bolger did not quite understand all the complexities of the NPA system. If the persons designing the pay system struggle with it at times, how can we expect the average EAS employee to understand it?

A final observation is a refrain that often was repeated during the meeting: 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 disturbing. It underscores, in my opinion, why bullet point 11 regarding enhancing employee engagement is at the bottom of the list. The Postal Service can—and must—do better.