The United States Postal Service is being hammered by the Congress and its stakeholders to do something highly innovative with its Financial Management System. Is it the financial management system that needs fixing or is the Post Office being killed off by technology?   As more and more eTechnology takes over every single aspect of our lives, things will change and what we used to know as the “norm” will be outdated and extinct.
The Postal Service offered voluntary early retirement (VERA) last year to about 15,000 employees. They are again offering 3,000 postmasters the opportunity to retire early, this time with an financial incentive of $10,000. Post Offices are cutting back on hours across the country thereby needing fewer workers to cover the one-time around the clock effort. Postmasters and high-level supervisors have until August 18, 2014, to accept the offer. If the offer is accepted, the employee must separate from service by the end of September. The employees who are eligible for retirement can decline the offer and seek reassignment somewhere else in the system.
If the voluntary early retirement does not achieve the numbers intended by the Postal Service, they might move to a Reduction-in-Force by mid-October and separate employees by January 9, 2015. A USPS spokeswoman stated that if the postmasters do not accept the early retirement, take another postal job or resign, they would be laid off. I am drawn by that statement to a lesson from the late poet, Maya Angelou. She said, “When you learn teach and when you get give.”
Before I continue with the post I want to help the USPS spokeswoman restate her statement and I do that with the greatest amount of respect. That is what HR Leaders do, massage statements so they engender respectability. Often when people are under pressure to achieve a goal in a fishbowl, they may speak without their otherwise diplomacy. This is how the statement might have been said, “The Postal Service has been very fortunate to have a significant number of dedicated men and women to carry the mail and the many other duties we gladly accept. The Post Office is not exempt from the economic turbulence the nation has faced and is still facing. We are hoping that our employees who are eligible for retirement will seriously consider taking early retirement so that we will not have to entertain a Reduction-in-Force or a possible layoff. The Post Office is a family and we have always worked together to provide one of the best services to the nation I know. I am confident that our Voluntary Early Retirement efforts will be successful. Thank you.”
The Post Office has reduced the number of employees at facilities across the country significantly via attrition absent of a layoff since initiating the Postal Plan in 2012. I am sure they will continue the effort with much success and diplomacy. The nation appreciates the Postal Service.
P.S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
Other LiteBlue Related Pages
What Postal Employees Should Do On LiteBlue Before Retirement
eRetire for Postal Employees – Retirement Applications on LiteBlue
Use LiteBlue to Manage your FEHB
You can use LiteBlue and PostalEase to manage your Allotments
Requesting Duplicate Postal Employee W-2 Forms Using LiteBlue
