The USPS delivers to 167 million addresses almost every day. That takes 640,000 employees, 30,000 post offices, 250 processing facilities, and one of the largest HR operations in the country. Jenny Utterback, VP of Organization Development at the United States Postal Service, is the person responsible for the people side of all of it.
She came in through recruiting nearly 20 years ago and never left, because the problems kept getting harder and more interesting. Today, she leads workforce development, succession planning, and a full modernization of HR infrastructure for an organization that competes with FedEx and UPS while also guaranteeing delivery to every address in America, every week, no exceptions.
In this episode, she gets into how you upskill a workforce where 35 to 40-year tenures are still common, how she thinks about internal versus external hiring decisions, and what it actually takes to lead people through change when the change isn't stopping.
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Connect with Jenny: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyutterback
Learn more about USPS: www.usps.com
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[00:00:00] Jenny Utterback: You put a letter in a mailbox, and your carrier picks it up. They're bringing it back to one of our 30,000 post offices, and then that gets transported to one of our 250 mail processing facilities. So the size and scope of our logistics network is unparalleled.
[00:00:16] Dave Travers: So what does it really take for your business to attract world-class talent today? I'm Dave Travers, President of ZipRecruiter, and on Talent All-Stars, we shine a light on the people and the day-to-day processes behind recruitment and retention at some of the world's most influential businesses
Almost every day, the USPS delivers mail to a hundred and sixty-seven million addresses. For most Americans, it's one of the most consistent experiences in their lives, and it just works.
But behind that consistency, the organization is in the middle of one of the most ambitious transformations in its history. Jenny Utterback is the VP of Organization Development at the United States Postal Service, and she's leading the people side of that change across six hundred and forty thousand employees, many of whom stay for their entire careers.
From rebuilding recruiting systems to deploying AI, Jenny's responsible for modernizing an institution most of us take for granted. And today, we'll learn exactly how she does it. Jenny Utterback, welcome to Talent All-Stars.
[00:01:20] Jenny Utterback: Thank you. Great to be here.
[00:01:22] Dave Travers: Very excited to have you today. All of us have experienced the joy of getting a piece of mail we were looking forward to, so thank you to you and your team for making that possible every single day.
And we want to talk today about how you make that all possible. But I want to first start sort of earlier in your career. How did this journey to being a leader of a huge organization, where you're h- responsible for talent and for workforce development and all the organizational development, how did that come about? Where did you originally get the idea, "This might be a path for me"?
[00:01:57] Jenny Utterback: I got a call from a recruiter, and it was the manager of talent acquisition at the time. He was starting a brand-new talent acquisition group, so an in-house recruitment firm, if you would, for the Postal Service, and I was one of the inaugural members of that team.
So I got a blind calling, or call from the recruiter. Sold me on the opportunity. I had some prior HR experience working at a civil engineering firm and thought, "Why not?" Uh, did not know what I was getting myself into in terms of the size and scope of the Postal Service. But almost nineteen, twenty years later, I am still here.
[00:02:35] Dave Travers: Awesome. And so tell us, like, for so many people who've been involved in talent and recruiting and people who listen to this, you know, they know what it's like in a private company, but they don't know- necessarily know how is it different, how is it similar working in a government organization like the Postal Service?
What are the things that are the same, and what are the things that are different versus a private sector way of viewing it?
[00:02:57] Jenny Utterback: The unique thing that I love about the Postal Service is while we are quasi-government, we also are expected to generate our own revenue. So we've got our foot in the commercial, private, competitive space as well.
So when we talk about, you know, bringing in new talent, I'm able, and my team, uh, is able to sell them on the size, the scope. The level of complexity of the infrastructure that it takes to run an organization our size is relatively unparalleled. I've been here now for almost two decades because every opportunity that I've had a chance to step into has led to interesting projects, really challenging business problems that we're trying to solve.
We operate in this really complex ecosystem in the mailing industry, again, both trying to compete with your UPSs and your FedExes, while also trying to make sure that we are adhering to our universal service standard, which means that we deliver to every address almost every day, every week
[00:04:04] Dave Travers: Amazing. And so the scope of that is almost so huge to even, um, begin to understand is even, um, challenging.
When you're thinking about the complexity, give us a just a sense of some of the scale of that. So, you know, we all think of the one person we see per day that's maybe delivering our own mail, but what's the infrastructure and size of organization behind that?
[00:04:25] Jenny Utterback: So when you go, and you put a letter in a mailbox, and your carrier picks it up, they're bringing it back to one of our thirty thousand post offices, um, and then that gets transported to one of our two hundred and fifty mail processing facilities.
So the size and scope of our logistics network is unparalleled. When you think about the various jobs and skill sets that you have to run the business behind the scenes, I mean, we have one of the largest IT infrastructures. We are in the process right now of honing and competing with the rest of the market in trying to bring in new skill sets, strategists, AI architects, AI engineers.
We've been doing a lot of work around modernizing our broader, you know, both our physical infrastructure and our technology infrastructure.
[00:05:14] Dave Travers: I wanna double-click on that 'cause I know the Postal Service is in the middle of this ten-year strategic plan, Delivering for America. Talk a little bit about that 'cause I don't think most people, when they think about the post office, necessarily think about some of the things like AI and things you just mentioned as you're delivering, you know, an IT infrastructure that allows you to deliver to people's homes and businesses every single day. Talk a little bit about what that entails.
[00:05:39] Jenny Utterback: Over the last three, four years, we've been making a lot of investments in our buildings, in our network, in the technology that allows us to move to more of a centralized network planning approach. On our side specifically, on the HR side, we have been modernizing our HR infrastructure at our HR shared services center, so we've been bringing in new call center technology.
We've been leveraging process robotics. We have been looking at what we can do to replace some of our old antiquated systems. Um, one of the projects that we initiated a number of years ago was introducing a new HR website that serves as the front end for all of our various technologies. They look and feel like they're in one integrated solution, but it's allowed us to then go after a best-in-class recruitment platform, a best-in-class performance management system, a best-in-class learning management system.
So all of those different projects have allowed us to really help focus on improving the employee experience, starting with when we recruit initially, and we're going out and looking at talent, regardless of whether it's for a letter carrier or an attorney. We actually have an inspection service, which is the oldest law enforcement agency in the country.
So you name the role, we have it at the Postal Service. So the thing that we are so, so proud of is you can come into the organization as a carrier or a clerk, you can step into a frontline supervisor position, either in the plant or in our retail services, and then given your education, your background, and your desire to continue to advance and grow with the Postal Service, most of our employees have a thirty-five to forty-year tenure, uh, which is still unheard of in a lot of other organizations, and we're proud of the growth opportunities and advancement opportunities that we provide our broader workforce.
[00:07:42] Dave Travers: Amazing. Okay. So that is incredible scope and scale sitting behind this very tactile thing that we've all experienced as consumers and in our business lives of having mail delivered. So now you're in charge of organizational development, like, how do you think about transforming a workforce where the tenure is as long as you just talked about, and it's not necessarily about churning and burning through people every six months or every two years?
How do you think about, in this rapidly changing world, you're in the middle of a strategic plan, but the rest of the world is going-- undergoing this transformation as well. How do you think about how do you-- so you have systems and processes, but how do you think about developing people and bringing them along a career journey as the world's changing so fast?
[00:08:29] Jenny Utterback: We've been partnering really closely with our operations leadership, and so when you've got a workforce that has the tenure and the longevity that we do, it's less about, to your point, churning and burning talent, but what can we do to continue to upskill our current workforce as the work is changing, as our strategies are changing, as we're continuing to really hone and drive our level of productivity and accountability all the way down to our frontline supervisors and to those carriers who are the face to the American public.
So we've focused a lot on really driving functional technical skill sets, and we've been redesigning training for our drivers. We've been redesigning training for-- We've got carrier academies that both city and enroll carriers go to. So you name it, we've got the learning and development opportunities.
The thing that I've really been focused and leaning in on with my team the last several years are our succession planning efforts. So, in addition to building that functional technical skill set, we really need to make sure that we've got people who can lead in the way that our current workforce wants to be led.
And so how we treat our employees, how we speak to our employees, how we teach our leaders to make sure that we're leading through change at the rate of change that we're, we're experiencing with the rest of the world, we've really been focused on baking that into our core leadership programs and our succession planning processes over the last few years.
[00:10:01] Dave Travers: I think so many people are struggling with leading through change right now. I experience this, I'm sure you do, too, where every once in a while somebody comes in and says to my office and, or pulls me aside and says, you know, like, "I just feel like it's not stopping. Like, when do you think we're gonna be able to take a breath?" And the answer is never. Uh, you know, like-
[00:10:21] Jenny Utterback: That's-
[00:10:21] Dave Travers: It's just
[00:10:23] Jenny Utterback: like
[00:10:23] Dave Travers: buckle up. It's only gonna..
[00:10:23] Jenny Utterback: The cliche, of course, is it's the new normal, you know? Yes. And my, my staff hates that. That we used to joke, we used to say, "It was just a crazy week." And then, you know, three weeks later, "Oh, it's just..." So I've stopped saying that.
I've stopped saying, "Oh, we're gonna complete this in six months." So, you know, at the end of the day, you gotta have a little levity. Uh, you gotta connect with your employees. You really, in my mind, our focus, and this is my focus with my team, and this is what I desire to have the leaders across the Postal Service do, is really make sure that we're connecting with our employees on a human level, in building the relationships, because that goes a long way when you're dealing with nonstop change, stressful situations, ambiguity that you can't control.
Outside influencers are just, you know, impacting what we're doing, the direction that we're doing, going. And so, dealing with that level of change can be hard. But for me, connecting with my leaders and focusing on coaching and developing them so they can lead their workforce effectively is incredibly important.
And then we've invested a lot of time and resources in training with our frontline supervisors, our frontline managers, and a lot of our executives and directors on how can you effectively manage through change. It's emotional. It's something you've got to connect with the employee's emotions first to help work them through the broader change management process, and only then can you get the results you're looking for.
[00:11:57] Dave Travers: That is really smart, but often really hard, especially for a younger manager who, or younger leader who's just coming up. You want to play this role of, like, I now have a bigger part in the organization. I've got responsibility to drive just not myself, but my team to do something, and having the confidence to not just push in every single interaction and push to the next milestone, but to check in and think about how, where's somebody at and how's it going with them emotionally and things like you were just talking about is hard and sometimes counterintuitive.
Because what got me to be, as a young leader, often what got me to be promoted into the position of leading is that I was the person who was charging ahead sometimes. So how do you coach someone who's, like, developing that skill? If that's a new muscle for them and they're like, "Well, you know, every year I have a performance review, and in the last five minutes I ask them how they're doing. You know, like, how do I take it to the next step?"
[00:12:54] Jenny Utterback: For people who are transitioning from that technical expert into that manager or that leader, they do have to take a step back, and they need to take an inventory of what got them there. And then they really need to, in my mind, think through, you know- What is the best way to get the work done?
So I have a lot of conversations even with some of my directors who like to keep the work, 'cause they thrive, right? Like they, they went to school for this. They like being the ones with the answers. And we have to have some really open, tough conversations around how you give feedback, particularly because we've got such a diverse workforce.
Investing the time in giving their team that feedback and helping them solution and come to the answer. And so it's flipping the script on telling versus how do you ask open-ended questions, like to guide your employees to the answers. But it is absolutely a challenge, particularly when you've got a new muscle that you need to flex.
So in our leadership programs, we've been focusing a lot on developing some of those competencies in giving practice space and opportunities for them to practice in a safe learning environment, and then go back on the job and flex those muscles. And then when they come back in the second week for training, reflecting on, you know, what worked, what didn't work, what might you do differently to really make sure that we're setting them up for success?
[00:14:26] Dave Travers: Yeah. I think giving that, that space to practice something that's the uncomfortable part, the developing skill part is really smart because the what got me here won't necessarily get me there, but I'm gonna try to use it anyways, is a very natural impulse, and it limits the, if you're not willing to try new things or able to try new things, it limits your bag of tricks, so to speak.
And you really need the space, whether it's with a mentor, a formal training program, or whatever, to be able to try stuff. So I think giving that space proactively is so smart. Okay, let's talk about recruiting, 'cause you're not just keeping people for incredible tenures, you're also recruiting at scale, and by the nature of your scope and scale of your operation and the distribution of your operation, you're recruiting everywhere.
It's not just a, you know, we recruited in DC or something, or one big hub. So how do you think about recruiting talent when you're so distributed? And how do you adapt, you know, to the vagaries of a particular location versus enforce a centralized process for consistency and measurement? How do you think about that?
[00:15:36] Jenny Utterback: For me, we've gotta have a national corporate recruitment and marketing strategy. So, the last probably 12 to 18 months, we've really focused on what are the mission-critical jobs that we're recruiting for? So our carriers that you see, we've talked about them. We've got our clerks, so our retail services and sales and services associates that you see when you walk in the post office, the people that actually process the mail in the plants.
We have redesigned all of our recruitment and marketing materials, uh, and really looked at what is the employee value proposition? Why would somebody want to serve in that capacity with the Postal Service? We've been honing and really focused on hiring skilled maintenance technicians, and so it's... We're focused on, again, what's the sell?
So the level of technology that we have now in our mail processing facilities is state-of-the-art. People don't understand or know that, because to your earlier point, they just see their carrier. So we've really been focusing on driving what's happening behind the scenes, and why should they care, and what's in it for them from a recruitment standpoint?
We've been hiring for our vehicle maintenance technicians. One of the sells for the Postal Service is that you don't need to bring your own tools to work. A lot of auto mechanics who work in a car dealership are responsible for bringing their own tools. We provide those. So thinking about those different nuances and how we stack up against our competitors in the competition are things that we've really tried to hone in on for some of the subset of our jobs.
We already talked a little bit about, you know, the IT positions. We also recruit externally for a lot of attorneys as well. We've got three hundred plus attorneys that support our operations, both corporately and in out, uh, in our field operations. We have a very large sales workforce, so part of our broader strategy is balancing how do we drive revenue.
So over the last couple of years, we've realigned our sales workforce to areas where there's the most growth potential. We've redesigned the sales training, and we've really been looking at what we can do to recruit those sales professionals and bring them into the organization where we have gaps. And then we've also, as we normally do, are continuing to develop our existing workforce because we've got such a great talent pool when you look at our sales and services associates, and some of our employees who live and breathe.
We say you bleed postal blue. So all of our employees who, uh, work in the plants and in the post offices, they're so familiar with our products and services. So when you're starting to sell in those entry-level sales positions, it's a great steppingstone position as you want to transition and take on a new career in the organization.
[00:18:30] Dave Travers: As I hear you talk about all these different topics, like the scope and scale of what you're managing and thinking about, you know, your workforce that is, you know, cybersecurity over here, sales over there, and, you know, people wouldn't think of sales in a government agency, but you're out there selling against private sector and selling against people who might not think about otherwise sending a piece of mail.
That is such a broad scope. So many possible things you could focus on today. So many things I'm sure just coming into your inbox to respond to. How do you decide, like for somebody else who's feeling out there like, "Wow, I feel like my job is full of an incredible variety of things I could focus on today."
Give a tip. Like, how do you decide what to focus on right now? Is it, like, where the fire is burning? Is it, like, I ignore the urgent, and I just focus on the important? Like, what, what, how do you do it?
[00:19:24] Jenny Utterback: Honestly, it's a balance. So you always gotta be responsive to some of the incoming day-to-day fires. One of the things, though, that I challenge myself and my team to do is to make sure that we have a very clear roadmap, and tied to that are organizational priorities.
And so whenever we're assessing what projects we're gonna take on or what we're gonna lean into, we look at what's gonna have the biggest impact for our operations partners or the biggest impact on the broader business. And so it is a struggle bus sometimes because everybody has great ideas and different projects, but what I've appreciated about our leadership, you know, our postal leadership, is that we've really tried to stay focused on A couple of key areas, right?
So we... Things that are within our control are driving efficiencies in looking to improve service for the American public. Tied into that are the investments that we're making in our facilities, in our people, and then, of course, the revenue generation. So what I try and challenge my team to do, as we are doing right now, we're setting our goals for the next fiscal year that'll start in October, is we look at those key areas, and we look at our projects, and then we consult very closely, uh, with the business leaders.
Because I wanna make sure that anything that we're doing, it can't just be a fluffy HR academic exercise. It's gotta make sure that it's really actually driving true business impact, or it's not. If it's not driving true business impact, then we shouldn't be spending our time on it.
[00:20:56] Dave Travers: I think that is so true and difficult because there's no way you can say, "I'm just going to focus on whatever the urgent matter of the day is."
You'll never zoom out and think about what's important, most important rather than what's, you know, screaming the loudest on a given day. And at the same time, as you said, you cannot afford to ignore the fire of the day either while you drive against this roadmap. And so I think, as you describe it, like this process where you're now in your annual process of goal setting.
There's a time and a time limit around the amount w- when during the year we're gonna think about what's on our roadmap, what's the right set of goals. And then the rest of the year we're gonna deal with stuff as it comes up, but we're gonna, no, we already set our roadmap. Like, we can reorient. We have a North Star to go back to when we're thinking about what should I focus on right now because we've committed we're gonna deliver these things.
But how you juggle those things as real life comes at you, that's, that's hard.
[00:22:00] Jenny Utterback: It's hard, and it takes discipline. I would not be open and transparent if I said I get it right every time. But we've been putting some things in place, uh, with my leadership team, and as new projects come in, we have an open conversation around current priorities.
How does this new ask stack up against them? But that's probably the most challenging thing that we have because most of these projects are value to the organization. The question is what has the biggest impact?
[00:22:27] Dave Travers: Yeah, and the complexity is so high, and the interdependency is so high. I think that is a fascinating management conundrum.
Okay, there's so many places we can go, but we always end these episodes with a rapid-fire section. So I want you to think, like in a rapid-fire, quick format, you know, if you were to say, "Hey, how should the US Postal Service measure workforce development, how should we measure how we're doing in terms of workforce development and organization, and developing our people over the next couple of years? How would you do that?
[00:23:03] Jenny Utterback: I would measure it in the true culture change that we're looking to drive at all levels of the organization around how our supervisors and leaders manage, and that would then, that then gets translated into improved performance, service, and accountability at all levels of the organization.
[00:23:23] Dave Travers: I love that. Okay, and then another one. You talked so much about the longevity of some of the people in the US Postal Service, including you having been there for twenty years. As you're thinking about internal candidates for the next promotion and succession planning as you think about it, how do you think about how do I evaluate if I'm thinking of not just an external interview process for a role, but who internally who's not currently taking on a role like the one we need? How do you evaluate somebody internally?
[00:23:56] Jenny Utterback: I do a couple of things. I look at their current background, the roles that they've served, and I compare that against the role that we're either developing them for or that they're interested in stepping into. And if there are gaps I focus a lot on architecting those experiences that will close those gaps, and that's a lot of what I work actually with broader leadership on as not just I'm assessing candidates for my own roles, but in my role as the vice president of org development for the Postal Service, how do we make sure we're architecting those critical experiences so people are ready to step into those director and executive-level roles and officer-level roles, uh, when they become vacant?
[00:24:37] Dave Travers: I think that's such an interesting framework because so often if you go external, you can find somebody who has all the skills and background to be perfect for the role, and maybe has done the very similar role somewhere else, oftentimes, but they don't know the Postal Service. They don't bleed blue, or however you put it earlier.
And so often you're weighing that against somebody internal who you know knows the organization inside and out, has proven themselves multiple times over, but doesn't have, hasn't exactly done that role. How do you weigh those two things when a, when an open role comes up that you have those internal versus external differences?
[00:25:15] Jenny Utterback: So it really, in my mind, it depends on what we're trying to drive in the short term and the long term. So, in some ways, so as an example, I just hired externally. That was a tough decision, but it was a good opportunity to bring somebody with fresh ideas, relevant skill sets. So for me, it's got to be a combination and a balance.
So I usually like to have a combination of both internal candidates and external candidates, but it depends on what's needed. That particular team needed a great jolt of other experiences that I had the opportunity to grow in-house. It gives us an opportunity, or gives me an opportunity to be able to look and say, "Who's the best fit in that moment?" depending on what we're trying to drive.
[00:26:00] Dave Travers: Jenny Utterback, it is so clear why you're a talent all-star. Thanks so much for taking the time with us today.
[00:26:05] Jenny Utterback: Thanks, Dave.
[00:26:10] Dave Travers: That's Jenny Utterback, the VP of Organization Development at the United States Postal Service. We'll put her LinkedIn profile in the episode description. And just a reminder, we put the video versions of these conversations on YouTube too, on the official ZipRecruiter channel. If you have feedback for us or ideas for future episodes, send us an email at talentallstars@ziprecruiter.com.
I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All-Stars. See you next time