how has the attitude of ups evolved to where it is today.

[ie guy]

In my opinion, the whole thing boils down to having an IE guy in charge....

...Until we get a CEO that comes from a background of business development or customer service, I'm afraid we're stuck playing the numbers game and we will be seeing things get worse instead of better...

lol. i think you start every post by saying that ie is the source of all problems. since my first day in the company 20+ years ago i recall center managers and drivers fighting over their dispatches. the drivers fought with managers when a BD guy was the CEO (Oz Nelson), fought with managers when an operations guy was CEO (Jim Kelly), and now fight with managers with an IE guy as CEO.

The difference between then and now is that UPS used to make the rules regarding customer service because we didn't have much competition. Now that we're getting our butts kicked by Fedex we're acting like a losing team in disarray and are starting to blame each other for the problems. We're going to keep getting jerked around by Fedex until we get on the same side in an effort to provide the best service in the industry.

 

[toonertoo]

Until mgmt can get their communication straight, which I know is hard, but they are in the same bldg, it will keep rolling downhill.
Had cods for a guy NM3, he begged me to come back, later, or hold for the next day. Wanting to provide a service although on 3rd attempt he truly had enough time to get a Money order, I told him, "you have to call here and if they say Ok, I will" They said Ok hold it one more day, sent me the msg. Today my center manager tells me 3 strikes and you are out, now you have 2. Because of the 4th delivery attempt. I didnt even tell him I was so instructed. It doesnt matter, I have protection, the sup doesnt. Getting gigged for providing a service which was above expectations I realize to make 4 attempts, but I put the decision in someone elses hands. It doesnt happen with this consignee often, he had some family emergencies that week. So the next phone call will be I was rude.
Something to the tone of this is the 2nd attempt, tomorrow is 3 strikes and your out! I guess thats the new approach to "service".

 

[JustTired]

lol. i think you start every post by saying that ie is the source of all problems. since my first day in the company 20+ years ago i recall center managers and drivers fighting over their dispatches. the drivers fought with managers when a BD guy was the CEO (Oz Nelson), fought with managers when an operations guy was CEO (Jim Kelly), and now fight with managers with an IE guy as CEO.

Sure drivers fought with managers back then. But back then they were the ones making the call. Now, managers are just the puppet. The strings are being pulled from up above. We used to have managers who would stand up for what they thought was wrong or what was needed to get the job done. Those guys are gone (either by choice or no choice). Sorry...I'll stand by my opinion.

The difference between then and now is that UPS used to make the rules regarding customer service because we didn't have much competition.

There's only one rule when it comes to customer service. And that's "give them the best service possible". It's not " give them service based on how much they spend" or "give them service at our convenience" or "give them service if the 'numbers' work out". UPS still makes the rules regarding customer service and blaming their "lack of service" on the competition is a copout. We are a "service" company. If you don't have that....you don't have anything!

Now that we're getting our butts kicked by Fedex we're acting like a losing team in disarray and are starting to blame each other for the problems. We're going to keep getting jerked around by Fedex until we get on the same side in an effort to provide the best service in the industry

I agree. Our disagreement comes with just what side is the right side.
We've got the drivers who know what their customers want and know how to service them. And we have management who seems to undermine the ability for drivers to give "customer service".

If you made your living as a marathon runner and fell on hard times and couldn't afford new running shoes.......would you cut off your legs to save the money??? Please, corporate.........stop cutting at our legs.

 

[FedexExEmployee]

If it makes anyone feel any better, this read reminds me of the big Purple Monster, minus UPS having a union.

Just take out the U P S and drop in the friend E D E X

Same BS

 

[samiam]

JMO on how you know if you have a good on-road sup or not. If He/She hates their job, they are a good drivers sup. The best sups I ever worked for were the ones that look like they wanted someone just to put a gun to thier head every morning. Some of them would say that UPS is full of bullstein. These were people that knew it's the people not the numbers that count, sups that looked at the driver as a person, not as a number. Most of these sups have quit. UPS management is the lowest common denominater of bad management. However, there are a few that still shine, saddly they are covered up by so much bad, they are hard to find.

 

[Channahon]

As a former UPS management person for 27 years, I have had the opportunity to work in 5 districts, within 3 different regions. I knew what to expect from whom every time I transferred, based on their position at UPS.

The vast majority of our UPS management people are good at what they do and are held accountable for their operations/departments.

I've said it before, there are good and bad UPS management, but the good, far outweigh the bad. The success of this company is due to ALL UPS employees doing their jobs to the best of their ability.

So you see, if you work with a UPS management person you feel doesn't know what's going on, hang in there, in time it will change. Or seek out their manager or division manager if you have a concern that needs to be addressed. And all concerns regarding UPS management are taken seriously by their division/dept manager along with the district manager.

 

[Captain America]

Until mgmt can get their communication straight, which I know is hard, but they are in the same bldg, it will keep rolling downhill.
Had cods for a guy NM3, he begged me to come back, later, or hold for the next day. Wanting to provide a service although on 3rd attempt he truly had enough time to get a Money order, I told him, "you have to call here and if they say Ok, I will" They said Ok hold it one more day, sent me the msg. Today my center manager tells me 3 strikes and you are out, now you have 2. Because of the 4th delivery attempt. I didnt even tell him I was so instructed. It doesnt matter, I have protection, the sup doesnt. Getting gigged for providing a service which was above expectations I realize to make 4 attempts, but I put the decision in someone elses hands. It doesnt happen with this consignee often, he had some family emergencies that week. So the next phone call will be I was rude.
Something to the tone of this is the 2nd attempt, tomorrow is 3 strikes and your out! I guess thats the new approach to "service".

Just put future to the next day,but make sure you C.Y.A.

 

[JustTired]

So you see, if you work with a UPS management person you feel doesn't know what's going on, hang in there, in time it will change.

I've seen a lot of them come and go. The good ones (while they may have been elsewhere) retired. The bad ones were shown the door. The OK ones were either shown the door or forced to retire. The 2 very good ones that I've had, retired because they didn't like the direction the company was taking. They could see that they were losing the ability to manage and didn't want to be a "middleman". I had a lot of respect for those 2.

They come and they go, but the one constant is that I'm still here.

Now that I'm thinking about it..........is that a good thing???

 

[dudebro]

I understand how most of us here feel and in my gut I agree with what's been said, but unfortunately we may be past the point where we can run the business just with our gut feelings.
I started 20 years ago as well, and our customer service here in Metro NJ then wasn't the rosy picture that's been painted on this board. We used to tell customers to install a door bell so we could ring it on the dock and not have to go inside. If they didn't want to do that, they could call someone else. One of the methods on a driver's OJS sheet was "discourages not ready situations on pickups". This meant that if the customer wasn't ready at 4PM and the pickup was at 4 PM, the drivers were instructed to tell the customer: "It'll still be here at 4 when I get here tomorrow, see ya."
Now the customer will happily hand that volume to FedEx Ground or DHL or anyone who'd be happy to wait 5 minutes, and in a lot of cases in our district (I realize some of you have different experiences), we'll wait.

Folks are also complaining that "IE types" up to and including our CEO are now dictating a "numbers-based" management style. Well duh. Did anyone notice we went public in 1999? The "numbers" we're all going after are not to please some overweight ie guy sitting in the air conditioning and complaining about wearing a shirt and tie to work. They are to please the ANALYSTS. Going public meant on some level we're going to be accountable to these folks, and that's never comfortable for anyone.

 

[dudebro]

For one thing, some of our people feel we're "getting rid of small parcel" by expanding in other businesses. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that the company has to grow, and quite frankly, the 80's are over. There's not much more small package to grow into anymore. We already move 7% of the national GDP. We're everywhere. Try to go on vacation for a week and not see a package car. It's almost impossible. But the analysts tell us we have to grow 15% per year because that's what healthy companies do. And they're right.
So we have to get into other businesses, but all of these businesses only work for us because we're already going everywhere everyday. Small parcel is still the heart of the company, and if we got rid of it, logistics and supply chain and all these other ventures wouldn't work because they're based on the fact that we have a huge distribution system in place.

 

[dudebro]

For another, I'm personally proud of the fact that we pay our drivers a true living wage, and I wish there was a way we could pay our people 100k a year because they earn every last penny of it. But we're competing against companies whose cost model allows them to pay their drivers 20-30% less, and buy and fix their own trucks. I would hate to treat our people like that, but how does anyone think we're going to make up that difference? It's obvious to the UPSer on the front line. Efficiency and service. We are going to put 140 stops on the car. Where we find it's dense, we're going to put 180 stops on the car. We won't sustain our cost model any other way. And we have to cut send agains right to the point where the claims would just start to increase, and no higher, because every stop costs $4 or so. Call me a "numbers" guy but those are the hard facts. Sorry for the long winded posts but I talk to our people every day about these things and that's how I believe it is.

 

[dudebro]

Lastly, I know someone's going to say we'll make that money back by cutting unnecessary people like you, IE guy. You don't deliver or pickup or sort anything. That's true. I don't (anymore).
We tried that. Anyone remember the mid 90's? We almost completely eliminated the IE department (my dept went from 44 people to 12). We pulled most of the P/T management out of our inside operations and called the remaining ones "coaches". The hourly workforce was to run the business themselves, and only rely on the coaches to answer the occasional question. Productivity plummeted, but we were told there'd be an increase in quality that would more than pay for that because everyone would have the time to do the job correctly the first time.
The quality never changed. The company was ringing alarm bells at the time because our op cost was rising faster than our revenue, and in a few years we were projected to lose money. We forgot all of this when the work stoppage came, and management had it's reason to go after productivity again because we lost volume and revenue afterwards that we needed to earn back.
We began asking our operations to run more productively and they replied with "someone bring their fat ass out of the office and show me how". And there was no IE team left. This was when the company began hiring all these college types, because we'd lost that knowledge base and had to rebuild it. And it was Kelly, an "operations" guy, who started that ball rolling.

 

[samiam]

I remember that experiment in the mid 90's. That started right before I went driving. Hell I wore a radio while on the sort isle for awhile. That idea did blow.

 

[westsideworma]

I agree with a lot of what our resident IE guy (which I hope you will stick around for) but that the same time its now getting to the point where enough is enough. People can only be so efficient....and we're hitting that mark. Expecting (though not able to be enforced) everyone to load at 220pph regardless of age, health etc. without misloading is ridiculous. Our IE guy was to be the shining example for us one day and you know what? He had 7 misloads as well...in one car. Its no so much that we don't want to work hard, its just when you (or operational management, not sure which it is) set the standards that are only achievable on everyones best day (collectively in all aspects of the shifts operation)...it weakens morale. People don't care because they know its near impossible to make it anyway so they do the best they can (which is all they have to do) and let the chips fall where they may. Do I hope we don't misload? sure, do I think its realistic that it should be that way everyday or be brow beaten for it the next? NO.

Then we have our glorious new technology that was supposed to make the job easier (therefore help with turnover), with less misloads and save us time. Well I'll tell you at least in our center this is not the case. The job itself is not any easier its the same as before, we have more misloads and any time we would have saved is sapped due to checking PALs vs Shipping Label, Peeling PALs and the additional truck that you likely picked up since it started. PAS was not the answer everyone hoped, it has the potential, but its just not there yet. Part of it is the seeming lack of ambition to fix it. They know parts of it are beyond busted, I just don't know if they have a plan to fix it (in my building). Part of it is also the training or rather the lack thereof. It seems most supes now have very limited operational experience. For example having a supe who has never preloaded training new hires how to load a brownie....not a wise decision. Not to mention since PAS started, it seems we stick a newbie in a car and tell them to "have at it". Also a bad idea. Then we have an even worse idea which is to point out everything they do wrong and never emphasize what they do right. Add to that the 8.50 hourly rate, which can be matched or exceeded by nearly any other employer and you have the mystery behind UPS' ridiculous turnover problem.

You could also add that upper managements laughable complaints such as a line not wrapping. Well one line in particular doesn't get hit until a certain load comes. This load arrives at the end of the day so we double the people in the primary, double the people sorting on the slide to the boxline to get it done and hope to god the same amount of preloaders can keep up with it (never happens, but they keep hoping for a different result). We make a mess then get a lecture the next day for not wrapping/stacking out at the end of the day....for something beyond our control. It gets old and its as though they think we're lying when we tell them why. Its really getting bad at my center as far as the trust + being in this together thing goes.

Its funny we don't get PCMs that often anymore, so we (the workers on our line) came up with our own: just remember you suck, you misload way too much, you're not fast enough and never will be, but hey thanks for showing up, now theres 500 percent left lets wrap it up.

I've been here almost 3 years (not long compared to some I know) but even in that amount of time I notice the place getting worse all to please a bunch of analysts that know precisely dick about this business and how it works....rather convenient. I like the people I work with (hourly and most management alike) its the only reason I'm still here, that and to see the new trends they come up with and to say I told ya so when they don't work out.

 

[BigBrownSanta]

IMO, going public was never about the shareholders (and it still isn't about the shareholders), it was about funding worldwide expansion.

According to D. Scott Davis, UPS's CFO, "The first priority for UPS is reinvestment in the business, either through capital expenditures or acquisitions."

"The second priority for our use of cash is return to shareowners through dividends and stock repurchases."

While UPS is out trying to grow worldwide, the domestic front is deteriorating. Sure, we have this new miracle PAS system that's supposed to increase efficiency (and maybe in some ways it has), but it sure seems to me that it was implemented then forgotten.

We've missed earnings twice in the last 2 years. Why? When we started using PAS and EDD, pickup volume on my old route dropped from 300 pkgs a day to 200 pkgs a day. My start time was moved to 25 minutes later and then I didn't have time to del bulk stops with my air. That meant that those bulk stops (shippers) started getting later deliveries (sometimes delivered and picked up at the same time). While I was more "efficient" in deliveries (SPORH), I was losing pickup volume (revenue?).

 

[dudebro]

220 pph on a boxline load is possible on some boxlines, in a week I OJS'ed a full time sup in one of our buildings to 212 PPH on the entire line, all different loaders. The MSD was 227 and we might have gotten to 97% or so if I had more time. But management has to create the conditions for that to work. It's not easy. The methods are key, I saw quite a few people working very hard, but double handling packages, stacking on platforms behind the car, etc. Getting them to stop doing that was the key, and the PPH shot up with no one working any harder. You sound pretty intelligent though, maybe on your line there isn't that much low hanging fruit because you guys know what you're doing.
In WORMA I imagine you're waiting for a HARCT load to get in every day, in my building it was the Harrisburg, PA load. We would do the same thing, double up the staffing, but we included the LOADERS. PAS right, anyone can load. We had the same primary ppl from the loads that were unloaded go to the same sets every day after they got done and we wouldn't wrap perfectly but when we did it right it wasn't so bad. I think the IE guy SHOULD be able to show the way to fix a problem, but there aren't many of us who came up through the company anymore.
Missed pieces were an issue in the building, but upper management had to stop "punishing" the PDS's by forcing them to shuttle them around all day for 16 hours. If there's a missed piece problem due to bad HINs, put the PDS behind the damn DPS machine for 16 hours and tell him to fix it the RIGHT way. No one wants to go through a few days where the missed pieces skyrocket like that though.
As for training and PCMs, that stuff should happen every day, but the turnover on all levels makes it almost impossible. I hope the newest labor agreement addresses the 8.50 an hour for part timers, which is a fiction on our preload where almost everyone gets the skilled position dollar just to try to make it fair.
PAS works when it's done right. It's only as good as the data we plan in it.

 

[DS]

I believe ups thinks that all employees are guility of something, and just havent been caught yet.

Coldworld,everything you said made sense,but this one line stood out.
A lot of drivers come in early and work off the clock.I used to do this till I learned its counterproductive and just plain wrong.Most drivers will respond when asked,I make it up on the road.This is just human nature
to think they owe it to you but if you get caught its stealing time.We had a center manager once that actually said,we know every driver steals time,because when we authorise a code 05,he comes back with an empty lunchbox,and we all know its unsafe to eat while you drive.So from now on no code 05`s.It would be much wiser to let us go on the clock 15 min earlier than our start time to reduce misloads and adjust our load.Things run much smoother when your sup respects you.

 

[dudebro]

Did that center manager ever go driving? I used to leave a sandwich in a box between the windshield and dash and take a bite during load and prepare, then buckle up, start the car, drive and chew. You're on and off the car fast enough that the sandwich is gone in a half hour anyway. It's not the right way to eat, but sups don't get lunch when they're pulling routes...

 

[browniehound]

I have to say there are a lot of naive people in this forum if you think UPS ever cared about service. The only reason we care about service is because its our largest producer of revenue, ie: our "bread and butter". Like any for-profit organization, the goal is to maximize revenue and minimize cost. You cannot fault UPS for caring about one thing, and one thing only: the bottom line.

Yes, we need to take care of the customer, but only because they give us money. UPS is not running a soup kitchen. They are in business to make money and it seems to me that they do a very good job of this.

At the same time, there is absolutely no excuse for them in treating their employees the way they do. Hourly and management included.

We are in the midst of good times. The economy is solid, the stock market was rallying, we have a pension, 401(k), discounted stock purchases, excellent benefits, and a great wage or salary.

UPS is making money, its senior managers are getting rich, the mid-level managers make a good living, and the drivers are getting paid handsomely. So why such a negative attitude towards each other???
Morale should be wonderfully high at UPS. Why isn't it? UPS could be the greatest place in the world to work. It would be if not for my last statement regarding the working environment. Its too bad. It really is.

 

[Braveheart]

Just want a serious evaluation on how the labor relations of ups has evolved since the start of this company. How are supervisors trained in dealing with their employees. It seems as if there are less "fair" management people around and all anyone wants to do is fire employees for the smallest of issues. I believe this is very poor employee relations and it is a sort of poison within the company. Common sense seems to be nowhere anymore. Does the union have anything to do with this? It seems that if there was no union things would be as bad or worse. Why would ups want this image of micromanagement and harassment/fear toward their employees both union and non-union. It just breeds bad employees who continue the cycle. Why doesnt anyone understand the saying, "happy employees are productive employees." Does anyone else feel the same. I believe ups thinks that all employees are guility of something, and just havent been caught yet. Seems like a very counterproductive thing to worry about, a waste of company time and money in most cases. Wouldnt using this time worrying about fedex be a better business plan?

I agree 100%! I think it all went downhill when we went public with our stock. I think all the past managers pushed it through and then flew the coup with all that money and are now sitting in the bleachers laughing at the big mess that is UPS. Over 90% of the write ups add up to nothing when the year is over yet they start it all over again in January. We have had countless management leave over the last few years and they are being replaced with either people who are too young and green, or stupid, or both.