The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General has issued a follow-up report to a February 2020 audit on the effectiveness of the Postal Service’s efforts to reduce non-career employee turnover. As a result of the 2020 audit, the Postal Service created its 511 National Initiative to address the two biggest reasons for turnover identified in the non-career exit surveys: challenges with schedule flexibility and supervisor relations.
For this audit, the OIG reviewed non-career employee turnover and retention for fiscal years (FY) 2019 through 2022, nationwide. They conducted site visits to 26 selected facilities and held interviews to identify underlying causes of non-career employee turnover. In addition, the OIG interviewed headquarters personnel regarding their responsibilities, processes, and procedures on non-career employee retention strategies and initiatives.
The audit found numerous instances of postal employees working extreme hours and days.
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- Twenty-one of 102 (21 percent) non-career employees stated they worked more than 12 hours per day after their first 30 days. One RCA stated she occasionally worked as much as 17 hours.
- Seventeen of 102 (17 percent) non-career employees stated they worked more than 12 days in a row after their first 30 days, including one RCA who stated she worked 35 consecutive days.
- 115,221 instances where non-career employees worked more than 11.5 hours.
- 162,241 instances where non-career employees worked more than 60 hours in a week, with one RCA who reportedly worked 114.4 hours.
- One processing PSE reportedly worked 84 consecutive days.
The “lack of schedule flexibility” was cited as the top reason for non-career employees leaving the Postal Service. Overall, the non-career retention turnover rate for 2022 is an astounding 58.9 percent, up from 38.5 percent in 2019.