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For almost 250 years, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has provided an essential service to the nation, connecting communities and supporting commerce by delivering mail and packages to more than 160 million addresses. Yet, decades of financial challenges, aging infrastructure and shifting customer demands have highlighted the urgent need for transformation.

In a recent episode of The Talent Transformation Podcast, Dimitri Boylan visited their headquarters to talk with Jenny Utterback, Vice President of Organization Development at USPS, and get an inside look at how one of America’s most iconic institutions is navigating profound change.

Central to their transformation is the ten-year strategic plan, Delivering for America. This $40 billion initiative seeks to modernize infrastructure, enhance service standards and adapt to evolving customer needs. Initiatives like transitioning to an electric delivery fleet by 2035, reducing non-career workforce turnover by 50 percent and upgrading processing facilities and IT systems demonstrate the organization’s focus on immediate improvements and future readiness.

The lessons from USPS’ transformation resonate far beyond the public sector. The Postal Service demonstrates that even organizations steeped in history can adapt, innovate and thrive in today’s business landscape by modernizing operations and empowering their workforce.

Let’s explore how they’re doing it.

Transforming the Public Sector

Transformation in the public sector is no small feat, and USPS’s journey has been shaped by formidable challenges. Over the past 14 years, the organization has faced $87 billion in financial losses, partly due to chronic underinvestment in infrastructure. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated these issues, as workforce illnesses, quarantines and a sharp shift from mail to package volume placed additional strain on operations. Outdated networks, redundant structures and high turnover among non-career employees have also underscored the urgency for systemic change.

Despite these hurdles, USPS is rewriting the narrative. With 640,000 employees, 31,000 facilities and daily service to 167 million addresses, one of the biggest challenges for the Postal Service is the sheer scale of its operations. In fact, if it were a private sector organization, the Postal Service would rank 52nd in the 2023 Fortune 500. As Utterback highlighted, its unique position—independent from federal funding yet committed to universal service—requires the organization to function with the agility of a private corporation while fulfilling its public service mandate. This dual role amplifies the urgency behind its transformation efforts.

We service over 167 million addresses, five to six days a week. That’s an incredible responsibility, and we take pride in it.”

Jenny Utterback
VP of Organization Development, USPS

What’s more, USPS competes directly with private sector giants like FedEx and UPS. In this sense, Boylan noted the unique standpoint of the organization in the face of modernization efforts:

Most government agencies don’t have that kind of direct competition. It adds an entirely different layer of complexity.”

Dimitri Boylan
CEO of Avature

Redefining Leadership: Meeting Workforce Needs Across Generations

Amid this vast endeavor, the institution’s approach to digital transformation is rooted in process redesign. Upgrading systems is just one component of the equation; equally important is fostering the cultural and behavioral changes necessary to support those systems. In this context, technology serves as an enabler rather than a standalone solution. The ultimate goal is to deliver personalized and adaptable experiences for both employees and customers. To achieve this, agility and efficiency are central to USPS’ roadmap for replacing legacy solutions.

One critical aspect of USPS’ strategy is balancing its deep well of institutional knowledge with the need to modernize. Utterback highlighted that preserving the expertise and practices developed over decades is equally critical while adopting new technologies and processes.

At the same time, fostering innovation and testing new approaches is essential to stay aligned with a rapidly changing world. This dual focus ensures that USPS leverages the wisdom of its experienced workforce while becoming agile and forward-looking.

Utterback noted that transformation involves addressing the diverse needs of one of the country’s most varied workforces, “a microcosm of the nation,” in Utterback’s words. With employees spanning multiple generations, USPS recognizes that a one-size-fits-all approach is not enough.

Taking learning and development programs as an example, Utterback highlighted that while younger workers gravitate toward collaborative, technology-driven learning environments, more tenured staff often prefer structured, in-person training. By tailoring training methods to these preferences, USPS fosters a cohesive, inclusive culture that values diversity while driving progress.

The newer generation learns differently. They are used to working in groups and using technology constantly, which makes their needs very different from those of previous generations.”

Dimitri Boylan
CEO of Avature

To meet modern workforce expectations, USPS is also redefining the role of managers. Traditionally burdened by administrative tasks, managers are now equipped to focus more on engaging directly with employees.

We need our managers to be agile, resilient and ready to embrace technology. It’s about creating an environment where employees want to come to work.”

Jenny Utterback
VP of Organization Development, USPS

To achieve this, USPS has redesigned its leadership programs, ensuring supervisors and mid-level managers gain next-generation skills such as agility, resilience and digital literacy. These programs provide frameworks for embracing digital transformation and applying it effectively to daily operations.

Component-based learning ensures consistency across soft and technical skills, fostering a new generation of leaders who balance operational oversight with employee engagement: “Instead of being behind a desk trying to crunch numbers and reports, we want to retain our new employees coming in, and who will become that next generation of leadership,” Utterback explained.

These efforts also extend to frontline supervisors, who are encouraged to focus on setting performance expectations, providing feedback and fostering a motivational workplace environment. This shift enhances the broader employee experience and supports the retention of new hires who represent USPS’ future.

Retention Through Career Growth

USPS is renowned for its long tenure of employees. However, in an era of increasing employee turnover, the organization is working to buck the trend by practicing exceptional retention strategies.

There’s an incredible commitment and loyalty to the organization. People come in and stay five, ten, twenty years. And we’re still seeing that.”

Jenny Utterback
VP of Organization Development, USPS

These initiatives include USPS’ career conferences, which function as internal job fairs where employees can explore new opportunities. “In the past three years, we’ve had over fifty national conferences to educate the broader workforce about advancement. We offer virtual supervisor job fairs, which allow us to share the expectations of the job. Employees hear directly from our operations leaders and learn how to apply. They also learn what skill sets we’re looking for,” she pointed out.

Boylan was notably impressed by the muscularity of the mobility program: “You might be ahead of some of our corporate customers on that.” He added that although a robust internal mobility program can serve as a powerful driver of organizational success, many organizations face hurdles in achieving it because of the politics of mobility, mainly because of resistance from line managers reluctant to lose top talent to other departments.

However, companies that overcome these barriers can unlock significant value. As Utterback pointed out, securing support from operational leadership transforms internal mobility into a win-win proposition:

We actually have an incredible amount of buy-in from our operational leadership, who also see the value because they’re beneficiaries too. They are the people who come in as our frontline employees, get promoted to supervisors, get promoted to managers and then make for more productive admin and support staff because they know the business.”

Jenny Utterback
VP of Organization Development, USPS

Such alignment ensures that mobility benefits not just individuals but the business as a whole.

USPS also invests in professional certifications and leadership development programs and tailors employee value propositions for diverse roles, from mail carriers to cybersecurity engineers. “We have employees who start as letter carriers and retire decades later, having built multiple careers within USPS,” Utterback shared. “It’s about creating lifelong opportunities in one organization.”

A Vision for Sustainability

Utterback’s leadership is guided by a commitment to sustainability, not just environmental but organizational. By embedding data-driven decision-making and commercial best practices, USPS ensures that changes are not temporary but build a lasting foundation for success that reaffirms its fundamental role in American life.

Transformation doesn’t have an endpoint. As our customers and employees evolve, so must we. That’s how we stay relevant and competitive.”

Jenny Utterback
VP of Organization Development, USPS

Through transparent communication, investments in infrastructure and consistent leadership, USPS is positioning itself to thrive for another 250 years. The ultimate goal is to continue serving Americans reliably while evolving to meet the needs of future generations.

In this sense, Boylan concluded, “What USPS is doing is nothing short of remarkable. They prove that even public sector organizations can set the bar for innovation and transformation.”

Dimitri

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Talent Transformation Podcast. Today we are at the US Postal Service with Jenny Utterback, the Vice President of Organization Development. Jenny, pleasure to be here.

Jenny

Thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to it.

Dimitri

Yeah, well, I’m actually your guest in a sense here because we are in the Post Office headquarters. I’m really looking forward to this. Can you start by giving me an idea of what it means to be the Vice President of Organization Development at the Post Office?

Jenny

This is a pretty incredible role. I’m responsible for helping shift and shape our workforce of today and in the future. So, I’m responsible for your traditional, some of your org development functions, org design, org effectiveness. I lead all of the leadership development, succession planning, talent management, training, talent acquisition functions within the organization, so I’ve had the opportunity to really leverage all of the deep expertise and experiences throughout my career.

Dimitri

So how did you get into the post office?

Jenny

Great question. I started at the Postal Service in 2007 as a recruiter. At the time, the Postal Service, like many organizations, was struggling to fill some of the hard-to-full, hard-to-recruit professional positions. So, leadership at the time created a new talent acquisition and retention group, and I was one of the first recruiters hired here at the Postal Service to bring in other external talent to fill some of those niche jobs.

Dimitri

Okay. I spent seven years as a recruiter myself, so that’s interesting. And was that accidental or intentional in a sense? What did you think when you were coming to the Post Office to do recruiting? What was in your mind?

Jenny

It was a little bit accidental and a little bit of luck. Prior to coming to the Postal Service, I worked for a civil engineering firm, and in more of an HR generalist capacity. Okay, recruitment and hiring were part of that. But one of the recruiters, the director at the time, sourced me, reached out, and shared about the opportunity.

I thought, well, this will be interesting, you know, why not? So, I applied. I had the opportunity to join. At the time, I did not understand the depth and breadth of what we offer here at the Postal Service. But it was a really great opportunity to come in to build our university relations recruitment group and leverage some of my prior recruitment experience.

I thought I’d be here a couple of years and 17 years later, I’m still here now getting to lead the org development group.

Dimitri

Time does fly. What is the scope of the US Postal Service? Because I know it’s pretty broad. It’s much broader than I thought it was. I think you even have a jail. Is that true?

Jenny

Well, we do have, our postal inspection service, which is the oldest, law enforcement agency in the country.

Dimitri

Oh, okay.

Jenny

You go. Yeah. But we are the second largest employer. We service over 167 million addresses, you know, five, or six days a week. We’ve got 31,000 postal facilities across the country. We have over 600,000 640,000 employees. We deliver to every community across the country. And that’s something we really pride ourselves on.

Dimitri

And you have the largest, basically, the largest retail network in the United States.

Jenny

We do.

Dimitri

I don’t think anybody has 30,000 physical storefronts. So, you’re at the top in several categories there. But also, in terms of employee mix.

Jenny

You name the profession, we have it.

Dimitri

Yeah, you’ve got…

Jenny

We’ve got doctors, nurses.

Dimitri

Oh, you do? I didn’t know that.

Jenny

Yeah. We have some doctors, nurses on staff, that are tied in. We have, a large general council. We’ve of course got your HR professionals, your marketing, finance. We’ve got a large salesforce.

Dimitri

A salesforce?

Jenny

Yes, we have our own salesforce, which we are continuing to… That’s also a part of our transformation. So, a part of our Delivering for America plan, one of the pillars is really focusing on revenue growth and opportunities. And our salesforce is large and strong and is a critical part of our ability to really get into some of those markets.

Dimitri

Right. So that really places a challenge in front of talent acquisition and talent management. From a normal operating perspective and also from a transformation perspective. Right? So, you have to go to market in every market and in many different ways for many different communities in each market.

Jenny

Absolutely.

Dimitri

The post office today. Okay. You are on a digital transformation journey.

Jenny

We are.

Dimitri

And I think this started a couple of years ago. Right. So, tell me about that. And tell me what the scope of that is and what it is you’re trying to accomplish with that transformation?

Jenny

So, in terms of our, digital and, and technology transformation in the air space, we’ve really taken a step back, and we’ve looked at, you know, our suite of different systems and technologies that we have. Like many organizations, many are old, they’re legacy systems. They’re antiquated. And so, we have put together our roadmap, we put this together about 4 or 5 years ago, and we started first looking at what could we do to move to a best-in-class recruitment and hiring system.

We’re looking at what we can do, really to help drive, the performance. And really, for me, when we talk about this digital transformation, the technology transformation has to start with the behavior change and cultural change that we’re trying to drive. Right? And so, for us, that is incredibly important. So, when we talk about the suite of technologies, the first thing that we do, as an organization, as a leadership team, is take a step back and really look at what are our current processes and how do we need to redesign them.

And I’ve been challenging our leadership to really think about how we can redesign the process and then let technology enable versus going down the path of having technology behind the wheel.

Dimitri

Right, right. And for you, from what I understand, it’s much more than just being more efficient. Yeah. You have some really defined objectives beyond that. Let’s talk about those. Let’s talk about, you know, agility, the ability to define experiences, change experiences as market conditions change… You know, it’s interesting because, of all the government agencies, I just want to point out something that you know well, but maybe some of our listeners don’t think about. But the post office competes against commercial companies and other agencies do not. They are just an agency. They’re the only organization that does what they do. But you actually live in a competitive world.

Jenny

We’re an independent agency of the executive branch, and I think it’s important for the listeners to know that we’re not federally funded. So, we are not supported by U.S. tax dollars. Because of that, we do need to look at, yes, you know, how can we, as an agency, as an organization, as a competitive organization, be as efficient as possible?

But right now, we have really been executing on a ten-year strategic plan that’s really helping us take a balanced approach to make sure that we can cover our costs while continuing to deliver for the American public. So, we’re looking at, you know, what’s within our control that we can drive the efficiencies, we’re reinvesting back into the organization in terms of our mail processing facilities, in investing in our employees, we had some legislative change that was passed a couple of years ago and then there’s an area, in terms of revenue growth. And that gets to that that competitive piece that we’re trying to drive.

So, all of that complexity makes it challenging from a human capital perspective when you look at recruitment, hiring, performance and how you support the different segments of the workforce on this, you know, large-scale transformation that we’re having as a business. But then also we got to bring the people along with us, right?

Dimitri

And that transition is actually going at a pretty good pace right now. We see a lot of transitions and it’s obvious to me that it’s moving pretty fast. How long do you think you spend doing this? I mean, what’s the horizon for this? Where does it stop?

Jenny

It doesn’t. The short answer is, if you do it the right way, it doesn’t. We continue the momentum in the progress. But as soon as you think you’re done, you know. Yeah. User demand, employee interest, and employee experience continue to evolve and change. So, as the world changes, our employee base and our customer base change. So yeah, we’ve got to make sure that we can evolve with the changing expectations.

Dimitri

How are you dealing with the idea of change internally? With the employee base?

Jenny

That’s a great question. We’re really trying to tackle it head-on. Part of it started with outlining our postmaster general, who is our CEO, so it’s similar to other organizations.

Dimitri

Who came from outside of the government, right?

Jenny

About five years ago, Louis DeJoy came in externally. And it’s been perfect timing in terms of what the organization needed. He’s come in with a fresh set of eyes and really has taken a step back and challenged some of our past practices. He’s worked with the executive leadership team to really define a path forward on how we can transform our business model.

So right now, we’re in the process of establishing some of our regional processing and distribution centers, our local processing and distribution centers. These are really large facilities that give us the capacity to really drive some of the revenue growth that we’re looking for. We have been standing up sorting and delivery centers, which allow us to reach a greater density of employees.

With all these changes, we’ve got to make sure that we’re bringing the employees along with us. So, we’re investing in training for the employees. There is an incredible amount of communication around what’s happening, why it’s happening, what’s changing, and what it means for them. So, we’re trying and working really hard to equip the middle managers, as well as those frontline supervisors to work with their employees to be on the forefront of adopting the changes that we’re going through.

Dimitri

Yeah. Let’s, let’s zero in a little bit on those managers for a minute. You know, we often talk about them as sort of the next-gen leaders inside of organizations, and they are pretty vested in the digital transformations that are going on inside of companies. So how are you thinking about the next gen manager? What is your archetype? And how far along are you in terms of creating that inside, or facilitating that inside the organization?

Jenny

So, we’re tackling that on a couple of different fronts. We are investing in redesigning some of our training programs and our leadership programs to equip them with some of the skill sets of that next generation. So, we need them to be agile, resilient. We need them to be able to leverage technology, to be honest with you, and really embrace the digital transformation and how that translates to impacting their day-to-day work.

As we look at the work of our frontline supervisors and mid-level managers, we’ve really been investing in, how can we provide them with the tools and resources that they need so they can focus on the employee side and manage the work room floor and setting performance expectations, giving feedback, creating an environment where employees want to come to work instead of being behind a desk trying to crunch numbers, crunch reports, you know.

All of that converges in the broader employee experience as we want to really retain our new employees who are coming in, who are becoming that next generation of leadership for us.

Dimitri

Yeah. And the next generation behaves very differently. So how are you dealing with the generational changes that, you know, that we see in the market, in terms of labor and, you know, are you looking very specifically at the, at the particular generational groups and how they behave and what you have to provide in order for them to be successful?

Jenny

That’s a great question. When we look at the different segments of our workforce, we focus on the fact that we all have the same basic human needs, right? So, we all want to be successful when we come to work, we all want to be developed, and we all want to feel like we’ve accomplished something. I think that piece transcends generations.

Dimitri

Yeah, it does it.

Jenny

To be fair, I think in terms of how we recruit, hire, retain and train, that varies. We’ve got to introduce new training modalities. But we also can’t leave the other generation behind us.

Dimitri

No, you can’t. And that would create a huge crisis just in terms of manpower anyway. So, nobody wants to do that, particularly because, and this is one of the challenges with many of our commercial customers, the generation that has been in that company for a while has a lot of hidden knowledge, okay, knowledge that’s not explicitly documented or made available anywhere. Right? And, you know, you can’t let that intellectual property slip away and walk out the door or maybe retire. But it’s the same thing if the knowledge goes, no matter how it happens. And you don’t want that to happen.

At the same time, you need to create new kinds of, you need to generate new knowledge, okay, from new experiences. And so, you know, how are you thinking about learning, for example? So, you know, we know that the newer generation prefers to learn differently, and we see that now just because of their experiences as they grow up. I mean, their experience in school was different than my experience in school. You know, we memorize things, they don’t memorize anything, information is always available, so you don’t need to memorize anything. Kids grew up working in groups, you know, on projects. We didn’t do projects in school. So, there’s a lot of differences there. I mean, how are you thinking about the transformation accommodating those types of things?

Jenny

So, depending on the segment we’ve got different approaches. So, we still have employees who start with us as a letter carrier or processing clerk or retail and service associate and they have an opportunity within two years to convert to a career position with us, which is a great retention tool for the organization. We also then really invest in a lot of our frontline leadership training for our supervisors, our managers.

We’re looking at different modalities. So, we’re really focusing a lot on in-classroom learning and balancing that with experiential learning on the job, which is how most adult learners learn best.

We’ve had some, you know, mixed use in terms of going from an in-classroom approach to a virtual approach. That in-person piece is still important to us in terms of creating that that cohort and having shared experiences and creating a safe learning environment where people can practice some of the skills that we need them to.

In terms of the generational, the next generation of leaders, though, we are seeing people who are being promoted quickly into supervisor and manager roles. And in the past, you know, they had that institutional knowledge and knowledge. Yes. And so, we are focusing more on some of our management and leadership classes on those functional technical areas, whereas in the past we were able to make the assumption that…

Dimitri

It was a given.

Jenny

And it was coming with them. Now, on the flip side, there’s value, I think, in bringing in the new thought processes. So, we do that with the next generation of employees and leaders. We also have balanced in some areas where we haven’t quite developed the skill set and we’ll bring people in externally who also bring their commercial experience to the table in an awesome mix in terms of our ability to really think through and work collaboratively to solve some of these large problems that we’re tackling as an organization.

Dimitri

Yeah, because you’re actually hiring cyber engineers. We are cybersecurity engineers. Right. And so, you’re going to pick them out of the market. You’re not going to grow them from, you know, from just getting out of college. Although you can bring in young people out of college that are very technical. But if you want an expert, you need somebody who’s been in the field for a while. So, as you change the organization internally, how do you communicate that from a talent acquisition perspective? Because you can change your organization. And a lot of our customers are changing their organizations, but then their brands are very big. And the post office has a very big brand, too. So, you know, we spend a lot of time talking to them about the brand because, you can improve everything inside your organization. If nobody outside the organization understands that it’s really hard to bring new people in.

Jenny

It is. When people think of the Postal Service, they think of your carrier, they think of the physical footprint that we have. They don’t always think about the incredible infrastructure that supports that. So, we have different tacks that we take depending on who we’re recruiting. Right. So, we have a different employee value proposition for some of our professional hires.

The employee value proposition that we have for some of the skilled maintenance workers that we’re looking for, which is a big focus area for us right now is that we have an incredible amount of technology that we’re introducing as we’re standing up these new regional processing and distribution centers.

Dimitri

That’s a very hard segment to hire in, right now.

Jenny

It is a very hard segment.

Dimitri

So, everybody is really struggling with that category.

Jenny

Yeah. And we’re successful in some markets. And then there’s others, because we’re a microcosm of the nation, you know, where we’ve got to put a little bit more focus and effort. And what we’ve started to do is to tackle some of those positions, like we do our professional hires. Yeah. We haven’t had to do it in the past.

But the sell is the amount of change in technology and opportunity that we have in the postal service with some of these new sites. And it’s not just in the new sites. We’re making investments in our existing facilities. We’re really trying to make sure that, you know, next year, we’re going to be 250 years old, and we’re really hoping.

Dimitri

Well, congratulations.

Jenny

Thank you. We’re really trying to be around for another 250 years.

Dimitri

That’s a lot of candles on the cake.

Jenny

Yeah, it’s a lot of candles. Forest fire.

Dimitri

Yeah.

Jenny

But we’re really trying to make sure that we’re here, you know, and we’re in a sustainable spot, both financially and in terms of the processes that we’ve put in place.

Dimitri

Right. And do you look a lot at the competition?

Jenny

I think from a talent acquisition competition space. We compete everywhere because we’re in every market. And yeah, and again, our challenge is I think less about, you know, some of our specific competitors, but we are competing for talent in every community in America. And we have tough jobs. Yeah. I mean, our careers are walking. You know, they’re out in the elements. You know, we’ve got a mix, of course, of walking and driving routes, but they’re out in the elements.

Working in our mail processing facilities is a physical job, and it’s not for everybody. So, I think that’s also part of our challenge: making sure that we’re really open with our employees or potential prospective employees about what the job entails while balancing that with the great benefits, you know, the opportunity to step into a lifelong career.

So, you know, we talked a few minutes ago about, you know, current generations aren’t staying with organizations like they used to. I’m hoping and I’m hopeful that people will realize that once they start with the Postal Service, you’ve got an opportunity to have multiple careers within the same organization given our size, scope and the vast opportunities that we have.

So, I started as a recruiter. I thought I’d be here a couple of years, but 17 years later, this organization continues to challenge me and get me excited about the future, and I want to be a part of the transformation and changes that we’re driving right now.

Dimitri

That is the objective of all of our commercial customers. Nobody buys into the idea that people will just come in and work for three years in your company and then go off to another company. I mean, from a company perspective, that’s not good at all. No, I mean, you are really only hitting your stride in your third year, and your best and highest value that the company can get out of you is that next decade to 15 years, where you’re super energetic about your career, you’re really interested in doing new things, you have a high level of curiosity. But you have some knowledge that you can apply.

And so, you know, I think everyone is trying to figure out how to make that experience an interesting and exciting experience that you just want to stay in.

Jenny

Yeah. And we have those same thoughts around our current employees, to be honest with you, because we really do value the internal mobility, the internal advancement. And we have an incredible number of resources, training materials, professional certifications that we invest back into our workforce because we have, we you, you, you hear sometimes, you know, our employees bleed postal blue.

There’s an incredible commitment and loyalty to the organization. And so, people come in and they will stay five, ten, 15, 20 years, 30 years. It’s not uncommon for people to have started right out of high school and retire from the organization. And we’re still seeing that because we’re still seeing even where people have come into the Postal Service over the last 4 or 5 years.

When I speak to our leadership programs, I hear that managers or our senior managers, and even some of our executives, have been here five, six, seven years.

Dimitri

But you have a great asset there because, some of our customers are challenged because they have a very high rotation, and high turnover, and it’s hard to get the internal mobility programs off the ground. It’s hard to get the training off the ground when you have a very short amount of time to actually get people involved with it.

You know, a lot of people will spend the first year of their job, in a state of minor confusion, right? You know, certainly when we’re talking about large companies, where do I go for this? Where do I go for that? You know, after that dust settles and they start to figure out how to operate in the company, you know, that’s when you can start talking to them about, you know, where they could go if they learn new things.

And some of our customers are just challenged by the fact that they don’t get to have that conversation before the person is already thinking about leaving. So, it sounds like you have enough time. How are you communicating this to the workforce? And when do you start talking to them about this? Do you talk about this in your pitch when you’re bringing it into the post office? Or do you wait until the in the company three years?

Jenny

No, we do talk about this in the pitch as we have prospective employees and that’s at all levels of the organization. We also have an incredible amount of communication around some of our career conferences. So, similar to an external job fair that you do for prospective candidates. We have what we call career conferences for our internal and the last few years, we’ve had over 50, 55 conferences across the country.

We offer virtual supervisor job fairs, which allow us to, you know, share the expectations of the job. They hear directly from our operations leaders. They learn how to apply. They learn the skill sets that we’re looking for. And so, there’s a lot of things there that we’ve been doing the last two, three years to really educate the broader workforce around advancement.

Dimitri

You might be ahead of some of our corporate customers on that. That sounds like…

Jenny

Don’t let our secret out.

Dimitri

No, that sounds like a very muscular, internal mobility, program. You know that. I mean, I think that for a lot of our customers, what was holding them back about internal mobility was the politics of it. You know, the managers buying into the fact that their staff could leave their role and go work somewhere else in the company was something that, you know, the company as a whole… HR was very sure that they wanted to do it, but the line managers were not so sure. You know, and it sounds like you you’re beyond that. Yeah.

Jenny

We actually have an incredible amount of buy in, from our operational leadership who also see the value because they’re beneficiaries, too. They are the people who come in as our frontline employees, get promoted to supervisors, get promoted to managers, and then also make for more, I think, productive admin staff and support staff, because they know the business.

Dimitri

Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Jenny

We are lucky in that respect that we do have a lot of support.

Dimitri

Yeah. I think for managers in some companies, it comes down to, “I get what it’s about.” But I’m being evaluated on a short-term basis. And if I’m only being evaluated on my next three quarters, then maybe I don’t care as much about the overall. But you know, you have to go out and sell it, right? You have to go out and sell it. And of course, you’re getting people with a fresh perspective on what you’re doing. But at the same time, they understand your organization, which is a tremendous thing. Right?

I mean, to have somebody come in and say, you know, I’ve been in the company for six years already. I know how those other areas operate that we interface with. So, that sounds, as I said, I it sounds like a very strong program.

And so, you started 17 years ago, talent acquisition. Where did you go after talent acquisition? Did you go into a generalist role or?

Jenny

No, I, I transitioned into our organization effectiveness group at the time, which handled our, our org design, making sure we were aligning strategy to structure our job classification work. I stayed there for a few years taking on, you know, increases of responsibility, had an opportunity to work in our leadership and career development group. And then, honestly, I took a step back and I went out and I did a couple of roles in operations because I had a lot of deep human resources and org development expertise, but I really wanted to understand the impact of what we roll out nationally on our employees and in our customers, which for me is our internal customer.

Dimitri

Right. And do you think that that was, that you were the driver of that process throughout your career, or do you think that the organization was really, guiding you in that way?

Jenny

I think it was a combination. I was a willing participant. I always wanted to take on larger roles because I was interested in having a greater impact and making sure that HR could have a seat at the table. And organizationally, a lot of our leadership has worked and grown up in the organization. And so having the ability to walk in their shoes and to be able to then sit at the table and understand their pain points, what they’re going through, has made me more effective in my role in serving them in this capacity.

So that was incredibly beneficial. But we also have awesome succession planning programs and processes in place. And I am a beneficiary of all of our leadership programs and succession planning processes. And one of the things that I’ve appreciated the opportunity to do in this role is to really challenge our practices of the past. So, when I came back from my operational roles, I led the HR Technology and Innovation team, which was my first formal foray into the technology space.

That gave me an opportunity, really, to build my own competency in the technology world and where we were trying to go more directly with the digital transformation on the HR side. And that is a competency, I think, that’s really important for leaders to have, particularly as you continue to grow them. And you talk about the changing, you know, pace of the world changing at a great pace, companies are changing, and the way to really keep pace with the evolution is to leverage technology to enable your business processes.

Dimitri

Right, exactly.

Jenny

And that is something that we focus on. And I’ve seen, you know, either inside or outside of the organization when you’ve got a little bit of that background, at least enough to be dangerous, it helps really push the HR, human capital mission and the broader mission of your organization.

Dimitri

It might even be an essential ingredient, really.

Jenny

I would agree.

Dimitri

And I think that that is also I think we were talking about that earlier about the next-gen manager. And they need a certain technical aptitude. And, at any level in your career, it’s interesting that you did it at that particular stage in your career. But I think that the way I view it being, you know, coming from technology itself, is that it’s really available to anyone. Okay. You know, there’s a lot of mystique around technology, but, you know, every technologist, just like every scientist knows that there’s always somebody else who knows more than you in some area. And if you’re coming from an operational perspective, you kind of know what it has to do, which is as important as knowing how it does it. So, I think I think sometimes, managers are more fearful, unnecessarily fearful. Yeah. Okay. Of getting engaged with the technology.

Are there new programs that you are just in the idea phase of thinking about? I want to dig in a little into your brain. What would you do if you had to do something next that you’re not doing now?

Jenny

So, we’ve been teeing up, we took an inventory of all of our leadership and management programs over the last year or so. And we are redesigning them, into more of a component-based training. So that way we can make sure that when you go through management 201, all leaders are going through the same okay program. And so, they’re learning the same soft skills.

We’re overlaying that with our functional technical training at all levels. So, we’ve taken a step back and now have our two-, three- and four-year roadmap. We also are looking at, and this ties to our maintenance function, which is important to us, is that we today have a lot of training that is based on specific machines, and we are in the process of looking at how to move to more of a component-based, skills-based approach.

Dimitri

You abstracted a little bit from the machine itself.

Jenny

And really, you know, kind of have that vocational school expertise, regardless of the technology that they’re using in their specific facilities. And then just have machine-based familiarization as required. So, I’m incredibly excited about where we’re headed in some of that space. We’ve been building some expertise and capabilities within my team to be able to support, I think, the business in ways that we haven’t been able to support, maybe as readily or as, you know, be as agile and responsive as we’ve wanted to and really trying to bring in different types of modality.

In the past, I think we’ve done a little bit too much death by PowerPoint and not really figuring out how to meet the learners where they are. Everyone has different learning styles, right? So, that’s really our focus. Stay tuned because in the next two or three years, I think you’ll see some really big things from the Postal Service in this space.

Dimitri

Right. Your role, you seem very engaged, very excited about what you’re doing. Did you did you think it would be this exciting a couple of years ago?

Jenny

I don’t know if I realized how exciting it would be. When people would say, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” A number of years ago, I said, “The job doesn’t exist yet.” Four years ago, they created this role.

Dimitri

And you said, oh my gosh.

Jenny

I said, “Oh my goodness. I absolutely want to lead that team.” And I am incredibly proud of the level of expertise and discipline that my group has brought to our HR transformation, which enables some of the broader DFA strategies. But yeah, I’m loving this opportunity. When I look back, it feels like I just started a couple of years ago and I’ve got, you know, many years ahead. I want to see this through. I mean, at the end of the day, I want to see these changes through. I think we’ve got an incredible impact, positive impact that we can take. But we’ve got to have clear, consistent leadership and commitment to regardless of who sits in our seats, we’ll leave the place in a better spot.

And what we put in place is sustainable. Not the flavor of the moment, which is why I think the process re-engineering is so critical. Yeah. Because it takes the politics or the personal preferences out of it. And it’s a data-driven approach. It helps us get at how can we be more efficient and effective? How can we leverage some of the commercial best practices? And ultimately, the goal is so HR can pivot and meet the needs of the business. Yes. That’s why we’re here.

Dimitri

Yes, yes. And it isn’t that a great place to be professionally when you’re when you’re in something like that. And if you can bring that to everybody else in the organization. Yeah. That’s amazing. Yeah, yeah.

So, Jenny, it’s been great chatting with you. I’m so glad you could spend some time with us. I’d love to have you back to talk as you move further through that transformation. Thank you very much.

Jenny

Appreciate the time.

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