This purpose of this study was to examine productivity in the United States Postal Service. The USPS Postal Service Center located in Bentonville, Arkansas was the setting for this study. Marginal morale, poor organization, and outmoded decision-making practices lower the productivity of this organization. Local management has been apathetic toward suggested change.
The option selected for this study was an alternative policy proposal to the decision-making authority in the USPS. An organizational design intervention would have been the preferred option; however, the USPS managers exercising decision-making authority over the USPS Postal Service Center, Bentonville, Arkansas would not accept the intervention option.
Three alternative strategies were evaluated in this study. These alternatives were as follows:
1. The first alternative approach to the solution to the productivity problem involving the mail sorting and distribution functions at the Bentonville Post Office was to work within the existing system. Essentially, the system in place at the Bentonville Post Office is the same system that has been used by the USPS for decades.
2. The second alternative approach to the solution of the productivity problem involving the mail sorting and distribution functions at the Bentonville Post Office is the development of work teams within the existing organizational structure.
3. The third alternative approach to the solution of the productivity problem involving the mail sorting and distribution functions at the Bentonville Post Office is the reorganization of the personnel assigned to these functions into self-managing work teams.
The findings of this study provided a clear indication that "business as usual" at the United States Postal Service will not enable the organization to continue to exist as a viable entity into the next century, which is just a short six years in the offing--2001. A team-based organi...