The percentage of USPS employees who reported being engaged during this year’s Postal Pulse survey increased, although the number of workers who participated in the survey dipped.
The results, released last week, show 26 percent of survey respondents feel engaged, up from 25 percent last year and 17 percent during the first survey in 2015.
Employee engagement is generally defined as feeling involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to your work. Gallup, the organization that conducts the Postal Pulse survey, defines engagement through 12 principles that each correspond to a question on the survey.
The latest survey results show the Postal Service’s grand mean score is 3.36 on a scale of 1 to 5, up from 3.34 last year and 3.16 in 2015. The grand mean is the average score on the survey’s 12 questions.
“The Postal Pulse survey results are encouraging,” said Employee Engagement Executive Director Kelvin Williams. “Improving an organization’s workplace culture is a continuing process, but we’re moving in the right direction.”
Engaging, equipping and empowering employees is one of the Postal Service’s core strategies. Research shows that employees who feel engaged deliver better customer service, have better attendance rates and work safer.
More than 226,000 employees completed this year’s survey, which Gallup conducted from May 14-June 14. This figure equates to about 38 percent of the postal workforce, down from last year, when about 42 percent of USPS workers completed the survey.
Postal Service managers and supervisors received their teams’ survey results last week. Managers and supervisors are now required to share the results with their teams.
The Employee Engagement Blue page has tools to help managers and supervisors conduct discussions with their teams. Employees with questions can email them to Engagement@usps.gov.