Academy vs. The Real Deal

[hockey94]

From comments that I have seen on here, new hires are not given enough time to become proficient at delivering. You cannot expect ANYONE to do a minimal amount of casing, shadow day, then deliver 1/2 the route one day and then the other 1/2 the next day. Then after 3 days or so they are trained, especially now with all the packages, even before covid 19.

The PO tries to take the cheap way out on training and most ppl end up quitting and of course most mgt are aholes toward the new hires. What is the turnover rate for new hires ?? Very high, I am sure. The vehicle situation is another story !

 

[Voglio-il mio]

From comments that I have seen on here, new hires are not given enough time to become proficient at delivering. You cannot expect ANYONE to do a minimal amount of casing, shadow day, then deliver 1/2 the route one day and then the other 1/2 the next day. Then after 3 days or so they are trained, especially now with all the packages, even before covid 19.

The PO tries to take the cheap way out on training and most ppl end up quitting and of course most mgt are aholes toward the new hires. What is the turnover rate for new hires ?? Very high, I am sure. The vehicle situation is another story !

The solution to this is to take some time off so that your new RCA can get some consecutive days in a row, much more will be learned working two or three days in a week. Take one for the team, besides you could probably use some time off if you haven't had a RCA for a while. Doing this will only help in the long run! I caution you from taking a full weeks vacation when the RCA is brand new (they might get overwhelmed), but to work up to that by taking a long weekend once or twice a month.

 

[kingu]

For those that have gone thru academy recently:

How was it? Did you feel you got enough info? What things would you change?

Change 1: Anytime someone says 'do it like your regular does it', I want a stinky fish to drop out of the ceiling and slap the trainer across the face.
Change 2: A LOT more focus on postage due, certifieds, express.
Change 3: How to load a LLV.
Change 4: What the hell to do when you get back to station.

Of course, most of this would be covered if there was any OJI. But I honestly don't expect any real OJI for at least another year.

 

[kingu]

All I know.......two subs hired two months ago, now two subs quit. One lasted 1 month the other 2 months! Do they really prepare them?

I know that a hell of a lot of the life of a sub is made easier when a regular gives a shit about the route. Boxes marked, names inside, forwards listed, all that combines to make for an enjoyable time for a sub. I did half a route from another office, it was a breeze, everything was identified, the turn by turns were mostly accurate, almost every house was actually numbered - it was maintained by a rural who cared. Did a half that wasn't maintained, it was hell. Guess what the number is for this box, have customers come up to complain, etc.

And yes, every customer who came up and complained, I pointed out that their box has no number on it, no names inside, their house is unmarked. "But everyone knows this is house XXXXX.' Really? I live 45 miles away, I'll tell you how much time I'm spending trying to figure it out before tossing it into the bin to take back and moving onto the next address... About 3 seconds.

And to the two guys pretending that they're on King of the Hill, yeah, there's a line of boxes, it's after 7pm, the two houses that have identified numbers will get their boxes at the door, and the rest of you will get your parcels at the line of boxes. Feel free to call and complain. But the sign there says 'no entry' and there's a gate across and my powers of mind reading to know the code is zero when helping out someone who should have been able to finish the parcels 3 hours earlier. I'm not driving 8 miles to get cell signal so I can send a message in to retrace to enter a code.

Honestly, that's been my biggest problem as an RCA, poorly maintained routes with half the boxes falling apart (or falling off their posts.) Your regular might like getting out every time to pick up your box, but the relief who was told to show up at a PO that's nearly 50 miles away ain't going to.

 

[RDruckus]

Don't sweat the fallen box thing.
If the box falls to the ground, the customer can pick it up.
If they put it back up, I will deliver their mail.

 

[kingu]

Our solution? We push anyone in our offices who does the interviewing to look for the right type of candidate, share some of the REAL truth up front with them, put them through academy, THEN retrain them using our senior carriers and RCA's so they know the right stuff they need. Our group bring them into the team, helps, responds even after hours. The newbie better return the effort, or the whole team shows it's displeasure and if they don't fit they leave on their own. We have a good team.

I've got a great team at my office (I specifically turned down offices with awful teams. But please realize that I was hired by HERO, not by the PM; no interviews, no communications from offices, etc. Often the first time the new hire is introduced to the office is when they show up for shadow day, and it's follow behind in POV. Many offices don't even let the new hire get out of the car if the regular stops at a NBU.

As a process, it leaves much to be desired as to showing a new hire what they're getting into.

 

[callofthewild]

Once again I totally agree with you, kingu. I recently had a RCA transfer to the Route. When I started, there was about 1/4 of the mailboxes marked. It was a nightmare to run the route for the first couple of weeks and this is years before the parcel apocalypse. I swore this would never happen to the Route if I was EVER made a Regular. True to my word, now EVERY box is marked inside and out, arrows pointing towards the house or instructions, the case is updated daily with new delivery point, I keep a book of addresses (indexed by the roads they are on) with names or any special instructions, if the house is more than 1/2 mile from the line of travel the address on the case in underlined in RED INK, There is a weekly hot sheet of all recent changes, new dogs or any other instructions, yes it is a little more work; but it is so worth it for the RCA. A person could take the 4003 and run this route with some proficiency.

In my opinion the Rural Academy was next to worthless.

 

[kingu]

From comments that I have seen on here, new hires are not given enough time to become proficient at delivering. You cannot expect ANYONE to do a minimal amount of casing, shadow day, then deliver 1/2 the route one day and then the other 1/2 the next day. Then after 3 days or so they are trained, especially now with all the packages, even before covid 19.

The PO tries to take the cheap way out on training and most ppl end up quitting and of course most mgt are aholes toward the new hires. What is the turnover rate for new hires ?? Very high, I am sure. The vehicle situation is another story !

My station is run by a former carrier, he has the RCAs come in and case for a week, taking 1/3rd of the route for 3 days, two times half the route, before the first time doing the route alone. Even with the stimulus parcel volume, considering the lack of OJI, I'd say that the RCAs are mostly competent at doing their routes. Anytime district whines about training costs, he blows them off. There really is support for new RCAs (little less so from the mid seniority list RCAs who see us taking their hours...)

I clearly saw the difference helping out another station and their RCA. Another new RCA from another station took the other half of the route, and immediately caught how all the parcels were marked in delivery point order. That's also how she's been handling the parcel avalanche. Aside from leaving the station without arrow keys on a route she delivered part of the day before, she seemed to me to be someone who'll make it. The station's RCA? I can't say he's hopeless, just the utter lack of training and repeatedly throwing him in the deep end really shows.

I don't expect to see him next time I help that station.

 

[LostinDakota]

The academy trainer I nominated from our office quit as trainer after about 6 sessions. She's a 15 year regular, decent carrier and good communicator. Why did she resign her academy job and return to delivering?

The curriculum was in serious need of revision. Yeah, I know there's a task force who just did that. Hello, it's all stuff directed my management to be included, in the flow they approved. Teaches lots of what a new carrier doesn't need to know and not much of what they do need. The trainers have ZERO flexibility in what and how they train. As long as you spout "safety" every other word you're half way trained.

I've seen the package. (Sidebar disclaimer: I ran a training department for a Fortune 100 responsible for training 15,000 employees years ago) I was asked about it -- I REFUSE to get involved because I REFUSE to be a puppet for management as they're going to dictate what is included and how it's presented no matter WHO or WHAT tries to change it.

Our solution? We push anyone in our offices who does the interviewing to look for the right type of candidate, share some of the REAL truth up front with them, put them through academy, THEN retrain them using our senior carriers and RCA's so they know the right stuff they need. Our group bring them into the team, helps, responds even after hours. The newbie better return the effort, or the whole team shows it's displeasure and if they don't fit they leave on their own. We have a good team.

District does the interviewing and if you can fog a mirror you are hired. No input at all from local management is accepted. This makes for lousy employees and they barely make it through the days of in office training before they leave or are let go by local management. However, to be fair, learning a route with the amount of parcels due to pandemic Christmas is next to impossible. Add in the heat, the extra steps due to Covid19, and the new RCAs says, "forget it!"

 

[callofthewild]

Our PM, was a former Rural Carrier, she gets it. She don't waste hours; but she does give help to newer RCA's until they can run the Route they are assigned close to Evaluation. It is so pointless to keep hiring people then setting them up to fail.

 

[kingu]

District does the interviewing and if you can fog a mirror you are hired. No input at all from local management is accepted. This makes for lousy employees and they barely make it through the days of in office training before they leave or are let go by local management. However, to be fair, learning a route with the amount of parcels due to pandemic Christmas is next to impossible. Add in the heat, the extra steps due to Covid19, and the new RCAs says, "forget it!"

I'm sorry if this is something new to you, but literally, I was hired without talking to a human being. The only time I saw a person prior to the first day of orientation was the I-9 and fingerprinting.

 

[kingu]

Add in the heat, the extra steps due to Covid19, and the new RCAs says, "forget it!"

I neglected to address the rest of your comments, The previous RCA that was hired had no clue that if you're a rural, you have to watch paychecks like a hawk, and literally screamed at the rural supervisor about her paycheck being short. Mine's short, I need to fix it, no way will I scream about something like that, but yeah, she didn't work out.

As for the heat (central valley, Northern California,) that is NO joke. COVID-19 isn't AS bad, so long as you've read the stand-up. Luckily our academy trainer made sure to go over that part, but a new RCA who didn't have that help? Forget it. Would have absolutely no clue.

Myself, there's a part of me that says forget it. The PM is extremely enamoured with the 7 day rule (which somehow becomes 6 day rule when it comes to myself.) All the supervisors know I answer my phone and am almost always ready for work (I did take some time off to say goodbye to my mother in law who just passed away, and will be filing for berevement leave to attend her memorial service and to help close out the house.) Which is good, gets me hours, which is bad, because I go over $600 in a week, I lose an additional $600 in pandemic unemployment asssistance.

I think that it's like that facebook relationship status... It's complicated. I love working an out of the window route, the longer the better. Make it 100 miles, I'm happy as a clam. My relief route is 150 rural boxes and 52 NBUs.

 

[LostinDakota]

Sorry, but what 7 day rule are you referring to? Every district seems have made up these so-called rules with no actual contractual language. This even differs between local offices.

 

[kingu]

Sorry, but what 7 day rule are you referring to? Every district seems have made up these so-called rules with no actual contractual language. This even differs between local offices.

Ahh, our office has a rule that no one can work 7 days in a row. Which is moderately enforced by the district which sends a list to all PMs of any employee who works more than 6 days in a row, with a requirement that an explanation be made for each employee on the PM's list who worked 7 days in a row. And yes, no contract language which forbids it, but in my district it works out well as hours get spread around and while I've personally been harmed by it on occasion, it has helped me get more hours as well, so kind of a wash.

 

[Gotrope]

I'm sorry if this is something new to you, but literally, I was hired without talking to a human being. The only time I saw a person prior to the first day of orientation was the I-9 and fingerprinting.

True. Hiring is strictly online process now. Has been for at least 6 months. Everyone expects the academy to be something it's not. It only purpose is to familiarize new rca with basic job tools, forms and how to use the information the case labels are giving you. It was never intended to replace office training.
An example is if they gather experience on accountable items( recognize, knowing what to take to the door to deliver, vehicle keys, 3849, scanner, scan it, pen if notice is left,etc) it presumedly will save them time if they know to take all that stuff to the door when actually delivering instead of backtracking to the vehicle all day long for forgotten items. The academy is for setting a sequence of events to follow during work duties. If an rca follows the concept trading from academy, they should be able to reason out difficult problems( apartment delivery up front or in back of vehicle while on their own in the field, you drop a tray of mail- how do you resequence it, etc) and if all else fails call their mgmt and get clear direction. Have mgmt repeat direction if it doesn't make sense.

The shortcut terminology used in the USPS is difficult for most new hires. Like English as a second language course.

 

[Old Fart]

District does the interviewing and if you can fog a mirror you are hired. No input at all from local management is accepted. This makes for lousy employees and they barely make it through the days of in office training before they leave or are let go by local management. However, to be fair, learning a route with the amount of parcels due to pandemic Christmas is next to impossible. Add in the heat, the extra steps due to Covid19, and the new RCAs says, "forget it!"

The PM in one of our offices does the interviewing. We have input. Perhaps the system dictates District is the interviewer, but we've apparently avoided it. Yes, some wash out in the process, but when they make it through to ride along day, we get a good feel for the potential.

If someone is hired, our local management looks to OUR regulars and RCA's for the most important input as to whether we keep the newbie or terminate them. We work as a team. We're fortunate.

We've not had to hire since Covid, so I'm not up to speed for hiring during that time.

 

[Old Fart]

I've got a great team at my office (I specifically turned down offices with awful teams. But please realize that I was hired by HERO, not by the PM; no interviews, no communications from offices, etc. Often the first time the new hire is introduced to the office is when they show up for shadow day, and it's follow behind in POV. Many offices don't even let the new hire get out of the car if the regular stops at a NBU.

As a process, it leaves much to be desired as to showing a new hire what they're getting into.

Joining a great team is a great plus! Ours is the best I've worked with at the PO.

Although training leaves so much unsaid, we take the responsibility in our office to do the complete job correctly, If the newbie is responsive, positive, hard working and honest, as the last four have been, we do everything we can to educate them, be a resource to them, and help them succeed. Our route training has the trainee in the second seat (we're all LLV, an advantage of course) and helps with, and then changes seats with the regular and delivers the route under the tutoring of the regular. We provide training on every route the newbie is asked to work. Everyone gets respect, both ways. Regulars provide hot sheet forwards, anything to help the new sub learn the routes and deliver like the regular. We take the lead with management's full approval.

 

[Justhuman]

More emphasis on work history would go a long way rather than the test mgmt relies on so heavily. Also consider driving records, specifically as it applies to previous employment. If ya cant drive ya should not be delivering the mail on the rural side. As emphasized, job shadow and OJI prior to the academy. As far as retention, most importantly the wage should differ yearly as an RCA as most have a long wait. No way a 6 month RCA does the work a 2 year sub is capable of doing therefor wages should not be the same, not the tier system either, every year should count. Small offices may not need a sub for every rt to help procure hrs for RCA’s and time off for the overworked Rcas. In other words a little humanity and consideration would go a long way. Mgmt could find out easily who wants the hours and who is content with minimal work. I suppose thats asking mgmt to care, many dont. But hell many of the supers have no work experience either so incapable of relating to employees. Off topic but maybe put more emphasis on the rural side in general. How many offices are rural rt dominate, specifically rural customer dominate rather than city rt/customer. My office is 3/1 rural and nearly 6/1 rural customer to city customer. In other words the rural side carries the PO in every office i have visited. My academy was informative, I just had zero PO experience so the terminology lost me creating minimal retention. And if i am needed to help another rt wait until i finish my rt rather than call me 17 times in an hour to see when i will be finished. Talking on the phone may make some faster but not this guy.

 

[HardearnedTan]

In other words a little humanity and consideration would go a long way.

 

[Sandygirl]

I don't think academy really "taught" me anything much about carrying a route. It was really a brief orientation on most things. I know they had to skip some of the slides/videos. It seems like it was just a routine and a vacation for the instructors.

I do remember there being an emphasis about the shadow day and investing all this time and money into training a new hire if the job isn't for you ... blah blah blah. Why as a new hire should I be hearing that? Maybe that's on USPS for hiring the wrong people.

The hiring process is slow and dysfunctional. When someone submits an application to the time they are officially hired is around 3 months. Speed this up ... especially from the initial applicants. When someone applies, don't wait a month before contacting them... prioritize applicants based on their application. Communicate with them. I think we lose a lot of good people right from the get-go. They get hired on somewhere else and all we have left is people that couldn't get hired at the grocery store.

They should let new RCAs shadow and train with senior RCAs for a few days before training with their regular. And have a line of travel birds-eye map and a list of the roads of the route for new hires to take home to learn.

Birds eye view of route ? Train with senior RCA first? Ingenious!!! This would work !!