To date, the USPS has been slow to respond to competition, particularly in relation to the adoption of the bar coding system that has long been in use by UPS and FedEx and that is considered to have been instrumental in their increase of the market share (Brewster & Dalzell, 2007).
The USPS already has formal plans to adopt such mechanisms by the year 2013, but those plans preceded the economic crisis of 2008 and the precipitous nature of funding issues affecting its operations in the current political climate. In that regard, the USPS is also saddled with significant pension obligations that have inspired considerable attention in Washington from legislators intent on reducing resources available to the USPS for its necessary evolution into the modern era rather than funding that evolution. As a result, it is quite likely that postal operations will soon have to be reduced such as by eliminating regular delivery services on certain days of the week.
Human Resource Strategies
Despite various efforts to implement reforms intended to improve employee morale at the USPS, the organization is still characterized by McGregor's Theory X dynamic rather than by Theory Y (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Specifically, the USPS is generally not a vocational environment in which self-motivation, self-control, and the minimization of distinction between employees and management prevail (Anonymous, 2011). To the contrary, the USPS workplace is largely characterized by self-interest, relative dislike of work, and by motivation more by the negative consequences of poor performance ratings than by anything in relation to genuine initiative or a culture of inclusion in decision making and workplace contribution. It is a highly transactional vocational environment in which a higher than average proportion of employees would prefer to work elsewhere if a comparable opportunity arose that provided similar pay and benefits (Robbins & Judge, 2009).
Generally, there is a culture of antagonism between many employees and many supervisors as well as on the part of local postal managers toward headquarters. Decisions of supervisors within individual post offices are widely considered by employees to reflect favoritism as much as can be exercised subject to applicable laws and federal rules. In the opinion of the interview subject, there is sufficient room "in between the lines" of applicable regulations for managers and supervisors to freely penalize employees without actual justification to the extent they are expert in the application of formal policies.
As a result, the culture reflects a CYA ("cover your ass") approach among postal employees and a climate of mistrust between postal employees and management. According to the interview subject, many employees believe that their managers do not respect them or care about their well-being necessarily. Many supervisors are inflexible and arbitrary in their decisions and seem to make no attempt to be more fair than they are absolutely required to be by law. According to the interview subject, letter carriers generally do have a concern for their customers but USPS employees who work in the post offices are typically frustrated by customers on one end and by supervisors on the other end. They often develop a negative attitude toward both and approach each shift as though the primary objective is to avoid hassles and get through the day as easily as possible. Virtually nothing at the post office is self-directed or self-motivated and the interview subject expressed the belief that, at least under current conditions, it would be impractical to imagine a workplace that reflected the principles (phrased as part of several questions by the interviewer) of McGregor's Theory Y in the workplace.
Model I or Model II Characterization
As part of the same interview, the interviewer briefly outlined the concepts of Model I and Model II workplace environments (Robbins & Judge, 2009) in connection with continued questions. That explanation actually elicited laughter from the interview subject in relation to the use the terms advocacy and inquiry, in response to which the subject asked "What's the exact opposite of that?" According to the interview subject, working at the USPS is dangerous psychologically because it is very difficult to know whom to trust and also because there are inherent physical dangers...
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