The Voice of the Employee (VOE) survey began in 1999. The survey has had the same focus of gathering employee opinion about the work environment over the years. As the mailing industry changed and we were faced with new challenges, it became necessary to refocus the VOE survey measurement. We needed questions to reflect issues that are critical to organizational success and employee engagement. External research showed a connection between employee engagement and business performance as a stronger indicator than any other measure of employee attitude and business performance.
What is significant about employee engagement? Employee engagement fosters and drives discretionary behavior, eliciting employees’ best ideas and their genuine commitment to the success of our organization. Thus, the result was a revised VOE survey, implemented in fiscal year 2010, that measures employee engagement and asks employees to express their opinions on eight “dimensions”: USPS strategic direction, trust, growth, communication, diversity and respect, commitment, personal safety, and work effort and quality.
The fiscal year 2010 end-of-year results for the VOE survey are completed. More than 340,000 employees — 59 percent of those surveyed — responded. Of those who responded to the survey, 62.3 percent replied favorably to the dimensions. The majority of our employees understand the Postal Service’s strategic direction and how their work affects the organization’s success. Seventy-five percent of employees say they are proud to work for the Postal Service™. Seventy-nine percent are aware of the security measures in the workplace, and the same percentage believes they have been properly trained to do their jobs.
Ensure you and your employees are heard. Make sure all employees are given the opportunity to confidentially complete our employee engagement survey
— Selection, Evaluation, and Recognition, Employee Resource Management, 11-4-10
REMEMBER they don’t care what we think!!!! Don’t help Management SCREW US on CONTRACTS!! This is the ONLY REASON they give us THESE TRICK QUESTIONS!!!!! DON’T FALL FOR IT.. Tell your Supervisor you are going to take it with you, if they say you can’t, they are LIERS! Take it HOME and SHRED IT!
Those surveys are whack anyway. If you really want to show them what you think, do as i did, and mail the envelope empty!!! All you doing is helping your local PM get a retarded bonus for not doing anything!! If they want to earn a bonus, then they actually need to do some “WORK”!!!!!!!!!
It’s unbelievable that, so many employees still sit down and fill out these surveys and think it will be well for them. The union has told them not to fill them out and they have seen, first hand the results thrown back in their faces at contract time. So, they found over 100,000 brown-noses that were so proud to work for the USPS. They were proud to work nights and have no chance of ever seeing day hours. They are proud of being working in an environment of intimidation by supervisors who don’t have any idea of what it’s like to work the mail for 20 years and above and never receive any appreciation. UNBELIEVABLE.
More spin than a spider does in a lifetime.
Yes, it is contract time. This survey has always been used to throw back in the employees face and use against them. I quit filling it out years ago. USPS management couldn’t care less what the peasant employees think.
Mark Twain said there are 3 kinds of lies, statistics, lies, & statistics. So lets look at this then, keeping his writing in mind. You only have less than 60% that thought it was worth while, so right off the mark 41% saw it has useless and or tossed it as a protest vote. Then only 75% of that had a favorable view, which means then it becomes around 45% overall. If you then and I think that you can safely guesstimate that another 15% is from mangement, then your down to around 30% who who are happy with this disorganization. These things are a joke, plain and simple, it was seemingly ligit when it 1st started, when they had a spot where you could really write in and say what is actually going on but they fast got rid of that and designed it to have a false/positive result, just a peice of propaganda now.
We once had a supervisor that all he cared about is that we sent it back in, didn’t matter if we even filled it out, if we wanted to just write on it in big black marker that he sucked that was just fine as long as it was sent back. So ok what then does this say, it says that part of their bonuses are depending on a return rate response and not what it is reporting or even if it matters.
If this system is losing so much money and we need to save as much as we can and or generate revenue like they are always telling us, then why are we wasting hard earned money on this stupid useless window dressing?
Ok so avoiding the obvious answer of the bonus factor, there are 2 other possible theories, 1- someone up top has a relative working at this survey company, and or and I think this is the closest, 2- they hope to get a job there when they leave the PO. for throwing so much money their way for this complete waste of, time, cash, & paper.
My advice is to just toss it away, it is the only true clear message that can’t become a twisted statistic.
Must be contract time again?
This agency has always upheld it position by, time after time, failing to do right by its employees. If you’re accepted you can work; if not, there is despair treatment. Management has always tolerated its supervisor’s behavior and will find ways, to turn away from there responsibilities. The hundreds of thousand of complaints filed as; Grievances, Class Actions, EEO’s , MSPB’s , Congressional, and District Court complaints; speak for them self.
Yup, survey is a joke. They ask you questions like “rate your immediate supervisor” in various areas of criteria. I have one very good supervisor, two really stupid and incompetent ones, and a station manager that’s so fat she can’t walk thirty feet and also can’t sit for more than thirty minutes. Which one of my supervisors/managers is suppoed to be my “immediate supervisor”? No one can answer that, so how can I possibly rate my immediate supervisor?
Also, you got people who get everything they want from management, OT, schedule changes, short term leave. They always kiss ass on these surveys because they want to make sure they keep getting their way. Even though the surveys are “anonymous”, they still feel that if the scores plumet in a quarter they’ve taken the survey that the supervisors will suspect they were behind it. They purposefully rate extra high to “pad” the survey statistics to keep their good thing going.
Please….if two people would have responded, then out of those two, they would have compiled the same results. It is the old adage…liars figure, and figures lie.
Distortions, distortions, distortions! Sixty two percent is barely half, does the Postal Service consider this a victory? The grim reality of the workplace is that threats, intimidation and retaliation rule the workroom floor.
For management, it is all about bonuses and promotions. Whatever it takes is their modus operandi and no employee will get i the way of their goals.
For proof, follow the Office of Inspector General recent audits of varying postal operations, requested by Maine Senator Susan Collins; that uncovered a remarkable amount of waste and fraudulent business practices. If the Postal Service is to run better, if not like private business, but at least better, it must be held accountable to some sort of standards by Congress.
However, with the Republican goal of privatizing the Post Office since Reagan was in office the likelihood of an improved and accountable is poor.
One more chapter in the USPS “Book of Window Dressing”.
The USPS is no more interested in our thoughts as employees than they are
of any other source regarding their day to day and long term management of
our mail distributing “business”. To think otherwise is folly.
The “Voice of the Employee” survey is a sad, old joke.