Diversity down to the letter: the U.S. Postal Service sends a clear message about equal opportunity for its workforce

HR Magazine, June, 2004 by Pamela Babcock

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night ..." has long been the U.S. Postal Service's credo when it comes to delivering the mail. Today, the agency's commitment to hiring a diverse workforce is equally steadfast, according to postal officials. Over the past decade, the agency has taken steps to level the playing field by committing to hiring, promoting and retaining an inclusive workforce.

Its efforts have not gone unnoticed. In 2003, for the fourth consecutive year, Fortune magazine named the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) one of the "50 Best Companies for Minorities." Today, more than 36 percent of USPS' approximately 729,000 employees are minorities:

* 21.1 percent are black.

* 7.6 percent are Hispanic.

* 7.9 percent are other minorities, including Asian American/Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska native.

Minorities also have a strong showing in management: At the end of last year, nearly 25 percent of the agency's top-paid executives and 32 percent of officials and managers were minorities, according to USPS statistics. In addition, 48 percent of the 8,934 new employees hired last year were minorities, says Murry E. Weatherall, USPS vice president of diversity development in Washington, D.C.

A look at USPS' diversity structure and initiatives, as well as tangible results of the programs, may offer ideas for other human resource and diversity executives. (See "Major USPS Diversity Initiatives" on page 94.)

USPS Diversity Structure

At USPS, a self-supporting federal entity, diversity development is designed to ensure that the cultural makeup of local communities is represented in the workforce.

The Postal Service's Diversity Development organization was created in 1992 to serve as the agency's "social conscience and to increase employees' awareness of and appreciation for ethnic and cultural diversity, both in the postal workplace and among customers," says Weatherall, a 33-year USPS veteran who has extensive HR and operations experience.

Weatherall adds that the diversity of USPS' markets and suppliers reinforces USPS' goal to provide universal mail service with affordable products and services for the entire customer base.

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The diversity development organization has 80 diversity development specialists--one at each of USPS' "performance clusters," or districts, throughout the country. Most of the specialists have HR backgrounds. In districts with large Hispanic populations--such as California, Florida and Texas--USPS has put in place Hispanic program specialists.

Diversity development and Hispanic program specialists undergo 120 hours of training on career development coaching skills, spending 80 of those training hours in the classroom and the rest doing fieldwork.

In addition, each of USPS' nine area offices has one senior diversity development specialist and one manager of diversity and human capital development. The managers provide technical advice and support to area executives.

The reporting structure for diversity at USPS is unique in that diversity specialists in the field report directly to management, rather than to HR.

"Being a direct report to the district manager--the senior position at the performance cluster--gives these diversity specialists high visibility," says Weatherall. "This person needs a direct relationship that ensures involvement in planning and implementing programs that directly relate to diversity development initiatives, and that's part of our strategic plan."

HR does have a role in the USPS diversity structure, with senior diversity development specialists reporting to their areas' managers of diversity and human capital development--who, in turn, report to area HR managers.

And at the national level, diversity development falls directly under HR; Weatherall reports to the senior vice president of HR at postal headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"There's always a connection with diversity and HR; it's a dotted line in some instances and a solid line in some instances, but there is always a connect," Weatherall adds. "There's not a diversity person in the organization who is not tied into HR operations."

Having diversity specialists report to field managers, as USPS does, creates a supportive link between diversity efforts and line activity, notes Davina Askin, a human resources practitioner in New York and former vice president of Global Workforce Diversity at Lehman Brothers. "This is sending the message that diversity is linked with the business efforts and, therefore, the potential for people management success is higher."

"Where diversity resides in an organization is significant because it sends a strong message about how that organization regards diversity," says Askin, who is not affiliated with USPS.

Linda S. Gravett, SPHR, a senior partner with Gravett and Associates, an HR consulting firm in Cincinnati, estimates that 20 percent of organizations that are as large as USPS have a dedicated diversity development position.

"I'm seeing more and more organizations devoting staff to diversity development as opposed to just dumping it on HR and saying, 'You handle everything else that involves people, so you handle this,'" says Gravett, who is not affiliated with USPS. "Having a vice president for diversity development is a positive because HR has so many distractions and activities ... that if there is a dedicated person or department for diversity development, then the initiative is going to be better served."