Productivity in the USPS DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM Statement o

This purpose of this study is to examine productivity in the United States Postal Service (USPS). Several years ago, the USPS was converted from a governmental department to a quasi public corporation. As a quasi public corporation, the USPS is charged with the responsibility to fund itself to the maximum extent possible through the conduct of its own operations, thereby reducing the need for funding the USPS through the federal budget (National Academy of Public Administration, 1982, p. 5). Productivity improvement, thus, became a major goal of the USPS.

Unfortunately, the USPS has not made as much progress as desired over the past dozen years in the area of productivity improvement (USPS on track, 1993, p. 10). The new chief executive at the USPS, Bill Cockburn (1993, pp. 4447), however, states that the implementation of team organization, employee empowerment, and other human resource initiatives will enable the USPS to attain productivityrelated goals in the lasthalf of the 1990s.

Unfortunately, at the operational level, the USPS continues to be plagued by managers who are not sympathetic to change. These lower level managers are a threat to the ultimate success of the drive to improve productivity at the USPS.

Setting, History, and Background of the Problem

The USPS Postal Service Center located in Bentonville, Arkansas is the setting for this study. Marginal morale, poor

organization, and outmoded decisionmaking practices lower the productivity of th

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