Background
The U.S. Postal Service relies on pre‑career employees to supplement its regular workforce. Pre-career employees are temporary workers who do not receive the same employee benefits as career employees and are not always guaranteed a regular schedule. The Postal Service’s 10-year strategic plan identified “unacceptably high rates of pre‑career employee turnover” as a key challenge and created a goal of stabilizing and empowering the workforce, which included a reduction of pre‑career workforce turnover by 50 percent.
What We Did
Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of the Postal Service’s national and local initiatives to improve the pre‑career employee experience and retention. We conducted site visits at 12 judgmentally selected facilities and interviewed district human resources personnel, facility managers, and pre‑career employees to understand the Postal Service’s retention initiatives.
What We Found
The Postal Service created the 511 Initiative, which is designed to stabilize the workforce and improve the employee experience by focusing on reducing the separation rate and improving the retention rate of the pre‑career workforce. However, opportunities exist for the Postal Service to improve the initiative and its national standardization of the pre‑career employee experience and retention. Specifically, we found the Postal Service has not expanded its pre‑career pilot site locations since 2022, and did not create any new pre‑career retention pilot programs in fiscal years 2023 or 2024. In addition, we found the 511 Initiative was not fully understood nationwide and challenges exist with pre‑career employees receiving coaching and feedback from facility management.
Recommendations and Management’s Comments
We made five recommendations to address the opportunities to improve the 511 initiative and its national standardization identified in the report. Postal Service management agreed with all five recommendations. Management’s comments and our evaluation are at the end of each finding and recommendation. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) considers management’s comments responsive to all recommendations as corrective actions should resolve the issues identified in the report.
