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The shifting demographics of today’s workforce have caused the Office of Management and Budget to revise the standards for the classification of federal data on ethnicity and race. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has adopted those standards and USPS is required to comply with the Commission’s new reporting requirements.

In the past, Postal Service employees were able to select either race or ethnicity and were unable to select more than one race. Because of that, the racial and ethnic information recorded when you were first hired may be incomplete or incorrect.

A survey being piloted this September in the Southeast New England and Suncoast Districts will change that. The USPS Workplace Survey on Ethnicity and Race opens the door for employees to update their racial and ethnic profile kept in employee records.

The office of National Diversity Initiatives is rolling out the pilot survey so that employees can voluntarily self-identify their race and their ethnicity. The national survey to all USPS employees will roll out in early 2008.

Employees are strongly encouraged to complete the survey even if they have submitted this information in the past. Individual participation is voluntary, confidential and has no impact on employment status.