GAO: New Delivery Performance Measures Could Enhance Postal Managers’ Pay for Performance Program
Summary of Report From GAO:
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) pay for performance (PFP) program for managers includes quantitative performance indicators. PFP ratings are the basis for salary increases and lump sum awards for nearly 750 Postal Career Executive Service (PCES) executives and about 71,700 other participants, mostly Executive and Administrative Schedule (EAS) employees. GAO was requested to provide information about USPS’s PFP system. This report (1) describes the key features of USPS’s PFP system, (2) provides information on the weight of its performance indicators in determining PFP ratings, and (3) identifies opportunities for USPS to incorporate delivery performance indicators into its PFP system. GAO obtained USPS documents and data, interviewed USPS officials, and primarily based its assessment on laws related to timely delivery and interviews with senior USPS officials.
Key features of the PFP program are quantitative corporate and unit indicators of performance and individual performance elements that are used to rate participants and provide the basis for awards. Quantitative performance targets are established for corporate and unit indicators. Corporate indicators apply to all participants and include measures of timely delivery, productivity, revenue, and net income, among others. Unit indicators apply to selected groups of participants and vary according to the groups’ responsibilities and span of control. Individual performance elements are tailored to the participant group and, within some groups, to individuals. Individual performance elements may be defined by narrative standards or may be quantitative indicators defined with specific target performance levels. The overall PFP rating is based on results of corporate and unit indicators and individual performance elements and is used to determine the salary adjustment and any lump sum award. PFP indicators related to three USPS strategic goals–increasing efficiency, improving service, and generating revenues–collectively account for two-thirds of the average participant’s rating (see fig.). However, indicator weights vary considerably by participant group, based on the responsibilities and span of control of various positions. As USPS implements requirements of the postal reform law for measuring delivery performance, it will have opportunities to incorporate new indicators into its PFP program, notably for timely delivery of Standard Mail (49 percent of mail volume in fiscal year 2007) and bulk First-Class Mail (25 percent of volume). Once new delivery performance measurement systems are fully implemented and mailers’ participation is sufficient to generate representative data, USPS will be able to incorporate new delivery performance indicators into its PFP program. These new indicators would create a more “balanced scorecard” that uses service performance metrics for the mail that is measured to support personal and unit accountability.
As USPS implements requirements of the postal reform law for measuring delivery performance, it will have opportunities to incorporate new indicators into its PFP program, notably for timely delivery of Standard Mail (49 percent of mail volume in fiscal year 2007) and bulk First-Class Mail (25 percent of volume). Once new delivery performance measurement systems are fully implemented and mailers’ participation is sufficient to generate representative data, USPS will be able to incorporate new delivery performance indicators into its PFP program. These new indicators would create a more “balanced scorecard” that uses service performance metrics for the mail that is measured to support personal and unit accountability
Chart: Average Annual PFP salary Increases for PCES executives
Chart: Average annual PFP salary increases for EAS managers, supervisors and non-PCES
Comments
5 Comments on GAO: New Delivery Performance Measures Could Enhance Postal Managers’ Pay for Performance Program
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BLACK WOMAN on
Thu, 11th Sep 2008 8:51 am
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Running the service into the Ground on
Fri, 12th Sep 2008 2:14 am
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Billy B on
Fri, 12th Sep 2008 9:33 am
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Remember 2010 on
Fri, 12th Sep 2008 1:43 pm
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Randy.S on
Wed, 28th Jan 2009 2:44 pm
SPEND ,SPEND ,SPEND MORE MONEY ,MORE MONEY. LETS GET THIS STRAIGHT! YOU ARE 2.1 BILLION IN THE RED….MAIL VOLUME DOWN, TO MANY SUPERVISORS ,MANAGERS. AND YOU KEEP SPENDING SPENDING. MAYBE IF YOU STOP SPENDING ON THE UNEDUCATED MANAGEMENT YOU JUST MIGHT GET OUT OF THE RED. THE USPS ASK THE INDIANS TO EARLY OUT AND YOU DO WHAT WITH THE SAVING????? THE USPS IS GOOD WITH CHARTS…..
I have never ever seen a operation that “Wants there employee’s to take a VER (Volunteer Early Retirement) because of “Supposedly” cost deficits.
(How I wonder Now)!!!????
Then turn around in almost that same breath pad the debt more by giving (non-producing) Postal Managers a Performance measurement pay rewards?????
You must thing the public & Employee’s are “Idiots” along with blind and deaf thrown in!
Damn it, you haven’t any consciences do you?
The GAO and other govenoring bodies have spoken many times of your wasteful & stupid spending to no avail for What?
Potter on down–Don’t you ever whine about paying out contract— raises & COLA’s to any of your employee’s—NEVER-NEVER-NEVER!
Because they perform more duties in (1) hour, than all you blood sucking leaches!
12 Sept 08
NO buy outs for the VER people, but you’ll line your pockets with more money, after getting a $800,000.00 bonus by Geoge Bushe’s bill that he signed last year increasing your pay and Donahues’by $700,000.00. That’s $1.5 million dollars. How can you sleep at night Jack Potter
Management will get their’s when the USPS has to be in compliance with the “SOX” law. Any financial account + or – 5% out of tolerance will place lazy managers on the chopping block. Clerks, Carriers & Mail handlers, do not perform management duties. Let them fall!!! If management ask you to complete their required financial check off sheet before they sign it, make them pay!
Hard to imagine how they can sit back and take a $800k bonus and 700k raise in pay when my carrier lost 10k in salary and covering more territory in 2008, and in a few weeks, another pay cut coming from another mail count, no wonder my mailman is losing incentive!!!!