Why in the world did we have a ERI Survey this year

[scratch_king]

As one of the senior drivers in my center, I was one of the first to take the ERI a few weeks ago. After trying to work us to the point of exhaustion this past year, I wonder why in the world did they think anything positive would come from this?

 

[toonertoo]

Good question, kinda like having it right after 9/11/2001. Duh

 

[speeddemon]

so they cant act on it.

 

[pd109]

Think about it,has there EVER been a year that you felt that things had improved? Me neither.But every year ,they ask us to do it,and they tell us that the issues are beind addressed.
I hate how Jim Caseys dream has become a corporate nightmare of red tape.In an effort to constantly increase production,they have made the drivers job next to impossible as far as making the customer happy goes.I really believe that if all the account execs and supervisors would all brown up and help us overdispatched drivers,then the lack of missed deliveries,and service failures,would drop dramatically.Its fine to go out and get 10 new major accounts in a week and get a bonus and a promotion,but they lose them within a few months because they are too busy celebrating to notice that the promises they made to the customer are not being fulfilled.I personanly have given up.On the ERI it asks if you have any comments to add,why bother,they`ll be off to a nice lunch meeting and maybe a round of golf while we`re out there getting killed and expected to do everything.
Does the ERI have any merit?
I strongly disagree...there I got that off my chest

 

[rushfan]

I'm not taking it. Hell they never review the results with us in our center. It's a waste of time anyway.

 

[johnny]

It will always come out positive for them.

 

[dannyboy]

as the most senior driver in our center I have only been allowed to take it once in the last six years. I dont guess they want to know what I really think.

d

 

[air_upser]

This is another example of how things are different between support and operational groups. Here, every employee is encouraged to take the ERI. Seperate rooms and PCs are set up to make sure employees feel they are not being monitored or something. The results and comments are passed down from upper management. The overall score is an element on our(management) QPR. Any scores that are deemed "bad" have action plans and follow-ups with district managers. It's a shame some centers don't take it seriously. If they really cared how people felt, they would. I'm sure some centers do....please tell me they do!

 

[upsdawg]

pd109-----why bother,they`ll be off to a nice lunch meeting and maybe a round of golf while we`re out there getting killed and expected to do everything.


I was looking at the Brown Cafe from my expensive laptop while I was at the country club and wanted to get back to you before I tee off on the back 9 holes.....what a life! Regarding the ERI---no big deal if you take it or not----you will probably complain about the way it is administered anyway---easier to complain about the process, the results--so why take the time to complete it??

air upser

Thanks for your feedback--actually in our district we do the same thing--we want people to take it and we do follow up and put action plans in place to correct any areas that are less than acceptable on the ERI. We have also lost some Business Managers and Department Managers in the past because of their poor results on the ERI.

 

[feguy]

What did 9/11 have to do with UPS's ERI survey?
How would one affect the other?

 

[tieguy]

interesting thread. It shows how the management and hourly perspective is so different on the ERI survey.

1)Folks the ERI is on the management teams QPR which means it affects their ratings.

2) The biggest fear management has is that you will rate them negatively on the issues they cannot control. Danny my guess is that they are afraid you will not be objective and therefore automatically give them all negative answers.

3) Hopefully your management team will act on some issues on the survery. I think an honest answer would be that they did fix something in the last year. If you're looking for a fix on PAS , ED or the number of drivers your center team is allowed to work than you're probably going to be dissapointed. When you sit down to take the survey at least give your management team the chance to explain what areas of the survey they tried to improve. We usually sit down and do a mini-review with each driver where we tell them what we specifically tried to improve in the last year. If you agree with what they tell you then try to give them the appropriate credit on the survey. What I often find out is that the drivers sometimes forget some of the things we did during the year or may have been on vacation.

4) If you're pissed about PAS or your dispatch or one particular management person you think is an idiot than the comments section is definitely the place to vent. Believe me those comments are read by all managers and above in the district.

 

[toonertoo]

Gee FEGUY, I dont know.AS I remember it tho, it was given in the same week as 9/11 happened, and all people wanted to do was get home and be with their families. Not take a survey.
And when I do take it I give answers according to my present mgmt. Not all neg coz Im mad at one section of mgmt. But I only started taking it again, since they have the comment section.

(Message edited by toonertoo on September 23, 2005)

 

[over9five]

"I wonder why in the world did they think anything positive would come from this?"

Because THEY can make it appear to be positive. Don't you wonder why the ERI isn't done by a dis-interested third party?

 

[dannyboy]

"Danny my guess is that they are afraid you will not be objective and therefore automatically give them all negative answers"


Actually, I am more positive than negative. And I dont have respect for those drivers that claim they answer all in the negative. Someone that is 100% negative should be discarded, and that whole survey suspect.

But then again, as has been said, some centers and districts do not place much effort or importance in the survey. I have not heard the results of our surveys now in three years. I dont guess they care enough to share the results.

d

 

[pd109]

Well dawg,I take the survey because they ask us to.Why would I complain about how its administered? You sit in front of a computer.Not necessarily an "expensive" laptop,any old computer running windows 95 will do.You have every right to come in here and give guys like myself,pkg drivers,a hard time when we have opinions that differ from your view of ups through your rose colored glasses.You may not know it,but we paid for that laptop.You might feel more at home at upsers.com,they have nothing but good things to say about the company.I guess you`re here because they dont have a message board where us employees can be honest and talk about the reality of being employed there.I wonder why they don`t have one at upsers.com.? I guess it`d be redundant since they learn all they need from the ERI.

 

[boswharfs]

Funny you mention 9/11/2001. That was the last time I took the ERI. When the city of Boston for the most part evacuated, 2 routes were left on the road. Mine was one of them. When I pulled into the barn after 7pm I was told that I had to take the ERI. I told them I would be more than happy to take it the next day, but I just wanted to get home to my family. Was told I had to take it, so I did. Later in the week I was talking to some other drivers about it before start time and the center mgr. ran over and asked me what my problem was. So we went to a more private place and had a discussion about it. When I told him the situation, he demanded to know who told me I had to take it. I told him the oncar, Gary. The mgr then proceeded to tell me that it was my fault because it's voluntary. I asked him what made him think that giving it under these circumstances was a good idea. He said he had things he was accountable for. How can you be accountable for something that is truly voluntary. Anyway for me it's been voluntary ever since.

Our manager openly takes pride in the fact that his center had the lowest ERI in the district last year.

BTW I think that what passes for negativity is often frustration of very pro company employees who know what is the right thing for the company to do, but see it not happening because too many supervisors are only worried about their little corner of the operation and their own butt, more than the big picture of what's best for the company and its employees.

 

[air_upser]

Over, I'm not really following you. How can they turn a negative into a positive? How can they turn, say, a 45% negative score into something positive? If the score goes up next year, sure, they will say positive things are happening. But to say we can make a negative score look like something positive seems a little outragious to me. If the survey was administered by your management team, I'd say there was a conflict. It isn't. You can be completely negative and make comments about a specific person and that will go straight to corporate and be reported back down through the management ranks. So I'n not buying the idea that if the survey was done by a vendor the results would be any different.

 

[ok2bclever]

I am not saying that UPS skews the ERI, but to state it cannot be done when it is run entirely by the home team is naive.

I think more fill in the blank and less straight jacket multiple choice to broad spectrum, carefully worded questions would give a more truthful, if more complicated answer to the problems and areas that need improvement.

 

[trapped]

toonertoo: "Good question, kinda like having it right after 9/11/2001. Duh"

They have always given it at this time of year. I always thought they gave it to us now because we (well most of us) get our raises at the beginning of August and this is a good amount of time for us to really start feeling it.

We have about a month to take it and management in our center in past years has usually stretched out having everyone take it. This year, they had everyone take it in about a week, pretty early too.


scratch_king: "As one of the senior drivers in my center, I was one of the first to take the ERI a few weeks ago. After trying to work us to the point of exhaustion this past year, I wonder why in the world did they think anything positive would come from this?"

Why do we even take it at all? A lot of those I have talked to about the ERI survey also have negative feelings about exactly why management has us take it in the first place.

One of the problems I have with the survey is what it focuses on, and more importantly what it doesn't. A lot of the questions on the survey are too broad and can be interpreted a lot of different ways. The survey also doesn't ask the right kind of questions.

We were also told that when the survey asked about
management, we were to base on our answers only on our direct supervisor, and the full time manager we worked for; not any other supervisors we work with, not the sort manager, not the building manager, etc. Now I like the full time supervisor I work for and think he does a good job (not so much the p/t sup I report to). However, I am very disappointed with the managemnet team as a whole.

Now about the comments section....
It stated on the survey that if we did choose to type in a comment, it would not be shared with anyone in management above the district level. What is going on with that?? I want EVERYONE as high up in management as possible to read my comments. We also are not given nearly enough space to say what we want (or at least what I want) as I always run out of space. Even if I try to limit myself to one of the many topics I want to "comment" on, I can only touch on a few highlights.

Anyway, do I hope that management will act on the issues brought up on the ERI survey? Yes I do.
Do I think that any real, long term positive changes will be made? No, unfortunately I do not.

 

[scratch_king]

I actually like my management team and I give them a good score usually. As far as I know, everyone in my center takes it every year. I have taken a lot of leadership traing courses for a charity I volunteer for and I know how hard and frustrating it is to persuade people to do a difficult task.
UPS has been very good to me in the sense that I gotten good pay to get the material things that my family wants. Nobody forces me to get up out of bed every morning to go to work. And I got my "Thirty Year Recognition" on Founder's Day!
The reason that I started this Thread is that I probably don't like the way that the ERI questions are worded. Statements like "Do you have time for your family?" or "Would you recommend UPS as a career?" always get a lot of sarcastic laughs from my peers.
I took this survey after what I consider a "Year From Hell". It used to be that your body had a couple of weeks after Peak to heal physically beecause of holiday volume drop. I am a residential driver in a high-growth Atlanta area and it seems that Peak Season never ended. My stops per hour has stayed the same but the Dispatch keeps increasing. I wonder if the IE Department has any idea that the human body can only take so much abuse and it doesn't matter how well your truck is loaded that you can only do so much. I think that everyone in IE should drive a manual steering package car in 90+ degree weather, have a crackhead preloader, and run sratch with 150+ stops.