As part of the ongoing redesign of the Postal Service, PMG Pat Donahoe yesterday announced USPS will close seven of its 74 district offices. This reflects continuing alignments within the organization to achieve core business strategies and, when fully implemented, will help realize approximately $750 million of annual cost savings .
The district offices scheduled for closure — Columbus, OH, (Eastern Area); Southeast Michigan, in Troy, MI, and Northern Illinois in Carol Stream, IL (Great Lakes Area); Southeast New England in Providence, RI (Northeast Area); South Georgia in Macon, GA, and Albuquerque in Albuquerque, NM (Southwest Area); and Big Sky in Billings, MT (Western Area) — house only administrative functions that will be assumed by surrounding district offices. The closures will not affect customer service, mail delivery, Post Office operations or ZIP codes.
“I am confident we have developed a strong plan that takes a key step toward a leaner and less bureaucratic structure. One that is fair to our employees and one that will meet the future needs of our customers and the mailing industry,” said Donahoe.
This organizational redesign builds on previous PMG announcements that included a 16 percent reduction in officer ranks, realigning revenue-generating business units, closing the Southeast Area Office, and further reducing the employee complement by about 7,500 positions.
While yesterday’s announcement focused on the administrative and executive corps, additional staff reductions will occur as the Postal Service makes necessary changes to its network and retail operations. The full scope and financial impact of these personnel actions should be realized in one calendar year — by March 2012.
5 comments:
Even with incentives, how many will actually retire? I am curious where the 7,500 total comes from? Seven Districts approx 450 employees, 1 Area possibly another 100, and Postmasters 2,000, which only equals 2550.
I'm leaving with the incentive. That said... I'd like to comment on some things that happened yesterday. The new Employee/HR branch, under Sean Lacey, has 4 sub-branches. 3 are headed by PCES level employees. They will each supervise between 10 - 15 employees. The fourth sub-branch is NCED with 65 Postal employees. The manager's position was a PCES level and that position has been eliminated and replaced with a less than PCES level manager. A new pay grade called a sub-band. It makes no sense that a manager with 65 employees, a 900 room housing unit, and a major facility should be a lower level than 3 folks in Headquarters with no facility, no housing unit, and 15 or fewer employees. It definitely comes across that Headquarters is taking care of its own. These actions also show absolutely no respect for NCED and the work of those employees.
Also, it was mentioned in a meeting yesterday that the new corporate structure is now built and Headquarters is going to adjust and figure out the duties of these new positions and the rest of the changes "as we go".
It seems to me we are putting people on a rocket ship and saying "we'll figure out everyone's duties and where we're going and what we'll do" after we get there. Wherever there is. These actions come across as a distinct lack of planning.
I've loved my career and the Postal Service. I definitely want it to, not only survive, but to thrive. I know changes are necessary but I had hoped the restructure was better planned.
i agrre with the above coment. Postmaster General wants to close rural offices.Makes no sense.I run a 6-hour office, if the incentive would be offered to us ,I would probably take the early out.Why does the higher management need so many employees in their offices?
Now the Postmaster General hires an outsider as Deputy Postmaster General--More than likely at a salary that could have hired four employees who actually touch the mail. So much for cutting top level management positions.
We have built an infrastucture that is not built on trust. So upper management needs all the staff to micromange the post offices. When an area office is looking at the Christmas overtime in a small rural office and we have to justify why we pay 15 minutes of OT...that is rediculous! The area and district offices are constantly writing SOP's that take away the authority of the postmasters. Authority that is granged by regulations. They don't like the way we use that authority, so they simply write an SOP that requires more oversight....and more staff. Until we break that "need for hands on" and trust that we are making the right decsions...we will have a top heavy organization.
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