A division manager gathers the operations sups and reams them out prior to an audit and in in a threatening, nasty, intimidating manner tells his group "you better pass this audit or else".
A sort supervisor says to his sorters prior to a sort some "suits" are coming to check handling so they can help reduce handling related damages make sure your handling is perfect tonight."
An unload supervisor says to his people "there has been a report that unload stands are not being used and our extendos are not being used correctly, and egress is not being maintained. Some one is coming in to audit us tonight, make sure everyone has an unload stand, is using the extendo correctly and maintains proper egress at all times tonight."
It's time for the "dog and pony show", ever heard this one?
When Keter is Coming:
A district anxiouly awaits the announcement. Keter is going where? Once the notification comes, the district mobilizes a management team to the announced location to try to correct any deficiencies that are currently in place and may have been in place for months prior to this audit. The employees have been exposed to these deficiencies for an indefinite period of time but we dare not expose them to the Keter Team if we can get to them first.
A center manager says to his people, " we are having a seat belt audit today please make sure you are all wearing your seat belts".
These are just a few examples of real situations. I have many more but please feel free to add your own.
My point is:
The status quo at UPS is a fear based culture and a deceptive approach to audits of any kind. The purpose of an audit is to examine, verify and correct a situation. Trying to influence the results is dishonest. It may give us all an opportunity to say "yeah us, we got a 98, 95 or whatever, but it does little to examine, verify or correct the situation, elements or practices that the audit is intended to.
My experience has revealed that this culture exists on the corporate, region, district, operations and even the hourly employees play a small part in perpetuating this culture.
Enough on this for now.
Your thoughts?
I