New USPS Voice of the Employee Survey?
From the Postal Service notice posted on Federal Business Opportunities website:
The United States Postal Service (USPS) wishes to pre-qualify suppliers who can develop, implement, manage, and analyze information for a national Employee Engagement survey. The purpose of this system is to provide an independent, periodic measure of the satisfaction levels of Postal Service employees. Such a process should also help the USPS to identify which employee engagement drivers need attention to increase employee engagement. The USPS is seeking suppliers who apply current industry best practices and demonstrate innovative approaches to providing actionable insights into employees’ perceptions. Suppliers pre-qualified as part of this process may be invited to participate in response to a solicitation(s) issued by the USPS. It is the intent of the USPS to issue a solicitation for the measurement of employee engagement and analysis using pre-qualified suppliers.
PART I - GENERAL INFORMATION (continued)
B. PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The purpose of the Employee Engagement survey is to measure employees’ attitudes about the workplace and their perception of drivers of their overall work experience. It will be a census survey of the entire employee population to gain insight into the issues and concerns of the workforce. The current survey (Voice of the Employee) measures perceptions of workplace environment, consists of 41core questions and is administered on a quarterly basis to one fourth of the approximately 800,000 employee population. Every employee has an opportunity to respond to the survey once every year.
All 41 questions elicit employee opinion on a wide variety of workplace related issues. Six of these questions have been identified as key indicators of workplace environmental factors that can have an impact on employee performance and affect business outcomes. These questions are combined together, each receiving equal weight, and averaged into an index score.
The successful supplier must be able to:
A. Select a stratified random sample of employees for each Performance Cluster (PC) and Headquarters/related unit, stratified by bargaining and non-bargaining employees within each PC and Headquarters/related unit. The entire audience of the approximately 800,000 employee population will be sampled during each year. The USPS will provide the name, mailing address, indication of bargaining/non-bargaining employee status, area, performance cluster, work location, and email addresses (as appropriate) for each career employee.
B. Conduct the data collection process through both mail-out and web-based processes.
The current mail-out process includes: producing sufficient quantities for all survey recipients; providing outgoing and return white envelopes and preparing the mail-out of the survey, including collating and stuffing surveys, cover letters, instructions and return envelopes. Employee address information needs to be printed so that the recipient can peel or tear off this information to preserve anonymity. Only work location code, bargaining/non-bargaining indication and field/HQ designation will remain on the survey itself. NOTE – current process specifics are being provided to provide overall scope. Proposals should include current industry best-practice processes.
The web-based process (not yet designed) will require specific attention to security and preservation of anonymity. NOTE – as indicated above, proposals should include current industry best-practices processes.
C. Distribute (mail and/or email) surveys within a specified (narrow) time period. Special packaging and sorting will be necessary for different locations, based on the size of the office.
D. Receive all returned hardcopy surveys via first class mail at the contractor site. Scan or image all returned answer sheets.
Receive and maintain all web-based survey data.
Produce and deliver tracking reports, including data verification, so that the incoming information can be continually monitored.
E. Results will be calculated and made available at the various levels (for example national, area, performance cluster, Processing & Distribution Centers, and Bulk Mail Centers). Results calculated will need to be given to the USPS electronically in various types of spreadsheets and databases. Analyses and results must be able to be broken down in various ways.
F. The supplier must produce hard copy data reports of results at the various levels.
G. The USPS is seeking demonstrated experience in analysis, including sophisticated interpretation and presentation of findings.
H. The USPS is seeking industry best-practice follow-up (action planning and measurement) tools and processes.
See Full Notice



November 27th, 2007 at 11:19 am
uh, yeah ok SOUNDS good, i guess. they will probably just try to turn around and use those statistics against the bargaining units during contract negotiations……….i can hear it now “but, such and such percentage of usps employees surveyed said “blah, blah, blah” in reference to work satisfaction, pay, communication with management, blah, blah, blah….it is only a good investment if they actually use it to try to improve the quality of working life, which, given managements track record is not very likely…………
November 30th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Not sure if they are now going to mail these surveys to the “home address” of all craft/bargaining employees! That would be a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Surveys MUST be completed “on the clock” for hourly employees. Also, I sure hope they are giving the home addresses out to an outside company PERIOD!!!
November 30th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Oooops, I meant “NOT” giving out home addresses… sorry about that…
December 1st, 2007 at 5:43 pm
The entire audience of the approximately 800,000 employee population will be sampled during each year. The USPS will provide the name, mailing address, indication of bargaining/non-bargaining employee status, area, performance cluster, work location, and email addresses (as appropriate) for each career employee.
B. Conduct the data collection process through both mail-out and web-based processes.
The current mail-out process includes: producing sufficient quantities for all survey recipients; providing outgoing and return white envelopes and preparing the mail-out of the survey, including collating and stuffing surveys, cover letters, instructions and return envelopes. Employee address information needs to be printed so that the recipient can peel or tear off this information to preserve anonymity.
Sounds like the company will be invading employees privacy. Another gestapo tool, that doesn’t protect employees anonymity one bit. Probably will have a barcode somewhere, number, ,etc. just as every prior survey done.
December 18th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Why dont the surveys ever ask about the real problems of the PO. Like have you ever been bullied,harrassed, or intimidated by your supervisor? All violations of the joint statement on violence and behavior in the workplace.
December 25th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Hehehehhe….just a charade by the management…don’t trust them…ever…
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Trust Postal management, OIG or Board of Governors? They can all go to hell. Everything they do treats employees like we are not human-just a managagment variable.
February 7th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
i agree why do the voe not let us say what is really happening in our p.o. the harrassment and the violation of having the voe opened by p.m. is only the start of what is being done. used to think this was a great job now it’s just a rotten job that pays okay
February 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
the other problem is that when you do tell some one in upper management about the problems they don’t do anything about them anyway. if the person in management is a problem the just promote them and make them somebody else’s problem. and they wonder why postal stress and medical bills are so high. if someone would just listen for once things could be better in a lot of offices around the country
February 19th, 2008 at 3:56 am
The surveys are not for addressing problems, they are for Pay for Performance!!! TEAR THEM UP & THROW THEM AWAY.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
The VOE is a waste of time and money. Nothing really changes because we fill out or don’t fill out these surveys. There must be better ways the Postal Service can spend it’s spare change than to commision these window dressing, face saving, at least it looks like we’re trying surveys.
March 4th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
management is evil, they stick together,some even watch you fill out the voe forms. i feel the management team should be demoted for such behavior. this abuse and harassment needs to end.stop the faking of the voe and get real.
also, bring us back in early, at6:30 a.m. to satisfy our customers.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
i never get the voe survey.Are they mailing it out if not i will pay the postage because i have a lot of mmmmm tosay with names included on the survey.