Not that the numbers are completely legit, but is it possible that they scored higher because of overall economic fears, i.e. "I like Fedex alot more now after seeing other possibilities in the economy dry up almost overnight."?
The SFA doesn't evaluate "economic fears" it evaluates the opinions and perceptions of the employee towards their immediate manager, their manager's manager, FedEx upper management and if the business is serving customer needs. NONE of the questions address anything like "economic fears".
The survey is used a tool for FedEx to evaluate employee opinion towards all levels of management, dissatisfaction levels with compensation levels and overall opinion of FedEx as a company (How do you feel about working for FedEx?).
The questions remain the same every year so that FedEx can develop a trend line of what is normal and what isn't. The SFA is a barometer of employee discontent with the company that the company uses to gauge the likeliehood of unionization efforts or sentiment. The questions relating to the employees immediate manager are used to compare the line managers and identify managers which are causing problems with employees. FedEx will can managers that have extremely poor scores from their employees. The ops managers know that in the greater scheme of things, they exist to both implement FedEx work practices while attempting to keep employee discontent at a minimum. I learned very quickly I wanted nothing to do with this so I stayed as a wage employee.
By very definition, one cannot have a sampling tool that remains consistent year over year AND have constantly rising satisfaction with the company (higher scores) - statistically impossible over time. The statements that predictably come out each year of "We've scored higher this year" are Kool-Aid to the gullible intended to make them think that everyone around them is just fine with the way things are going. Most people don't want to make waves, so hearing the company state that everyone is pleased tends to make the more gullible think that any issues they have are isolated and they'd best keep their mouth shut - which is precisely what FedEx wants.
Whenever FedEx makes the mistake of having "open" meetings where employees are encourage to speak out, the meetings invariably tend to go poorly for FedEx. Some employees will speak out about an issue, management will pull out the corporate canned response to that question, other employees will recognize that they are getting a snow job/their intelligence insulted, then they'll speak out and the whole meeting starts to turn ugly. Then the meeting is abruptly ended with management realizing they have a problem and need to do something. A few positive OLCCs are handed out, the Ops managers tend to say please a lot more often and they cross their fingers in the hopes that tempers cool. There aren't many open meetings now unless management is absolutely confident everyone has drank plenty of Kool-Aid.
Any employee that has more than 3 years with Express knows the Feedback and Action part of the SFA are bad jokes. Most locations now aren't even really attempting to have feedback meetings, they just have one-on-one meetings between manager and employee. With compensation levels having been essentially frozen and pensions gutted, there isn't much to talk about. They tried the line of "We're here to provide the Purple Promise", but when promises to the employees have been broken, even the dim-wits have realized that FedEx isn't keeping its side of the employment promise. The Purple Promise is between FedEx and its customers; it ISN'T between FedEx and its employees. Years ago the employees came first, now we come last.
The situation at Express is quite simple now.
The topped out wage employees aren't going anywhere (they would've years ago if they had viable options), so they keep doing the job praying that things don't get any worse - which doesn't seem to work.
The mid-range employee recognize that they have no viable career at Express, so they are looking the best they can at getting out. Even in this economy, MANY mid-range employees have left, cutting their losses.
The employees at the lower end of the wage scale know that they aren't going anywhere (career wise), so they are merely working to have income and think of their employment in terms of being "temporary" (like I do) . They are looking for other things and many are leaving even in this economy.
Since there are no real payraises or pay progression, the stick and carrot of the annual performance review has been invalidated. Employees don't care. They aren't going to receive any pay progression, so as long as they don't get a warning letter, nothing matters now.
What many employees are beginning to realize, is that the gap in compensation levels between the Ground "helpers" and Express Couriers is narrowing each year. The topped out employees hope (they are a hopeful bunch) that they can retire before things get to the point where Express is compensating at the same levels as Ground. The lower end knows there is no hope, so we all have our exit plan made up. The mid-range employees are the wild card. They are the ones that are doing the most agitation for unionization. They've worked the years side-by-side with the topped out employees, realizing that they aren't making any headway towards reaching that status themselves.
Fred knows damn good and well if he loses his RLA status, he'll have to massively reorganize Express quickly (his exit plan) to prevent his having to pay middle class wages to his work force. That exit plan is already being worked up by Express should its status be changed to NLRA from RLA. Either way, the wage employees are screwed. The only option the wage employees have is to have Express reclassified under NLRA rules, organize quickly and strike. There is no hope of having a collective bargaining agreement absent a strike at this point and most realize it.
