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Pages and posts about liteblue and usps.
Royal Post Office vs U.S. Postal Service
Post Offices in the United States are cutting staff through offering voluntary early retirement and other means of attrition. The Post Office is also considering closing many facilities and cutting back on the hours and days facilities are open. For Postal Employees, early retirement was offered to managers and supervisors initially with no monetary incentive to leave the service. The next round of early out offers to supervisors and managers came with a $10,000 monetary incentive.
The Post Office’s 500,000 employees have already been cut by 200,000 with plans to trim another 100,000. There are many changes slated to take place in the Post Office to create efficiency by incorporating technology that will answer the growing needs of customers.
The United Kingdom’s Royal Mail services will open up about 100 facilities on Sunday afternoons. The program will initially start off as a pilot to evaluate its effectiveness. Most of the Royal Post Offices are open six days a week. The Royal Mail service is also anticipating a Sunday delivery for online shoppers. The Royal Post will begin Monday delivery for online purchases made on Saturday and Sunday.
The Service is also experimenting with a number of new ideas to increase efficiency and services to its customers. While U. S. Post Offices are scaling back the United Kingdom is revving up.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
Other LiteBlue Related Pages
LiteBlue; Online Access to More Than Just Your USPS Earnings Statement
What Postal Employees Should Do On LiteBlue Before Retirement
Changing Your LiteBlue / PostalEase Password Through ssp.USPS.gov
eRetire for Postal Employees – Retirement Applications on LiteBlue
LiteBlue Honors Its Own
I want to share something else humane the Post Office did recently. As a matter of fact, it is done annually. The Richmond, Virginia District Office, not far from where I live, honors postal employees who served in the military. They also pay homage to active duty employees and deceased civilian coworkers who recently passed away.
The Richmond District Office has an annual celebration where employees and family members attend. The Richmond office adds bricks to a memorial walkway around the flag pole at the District’s entrance each year to honor members who pass away.
The walkway honors the mail carriers and the important work they do to carry out the mission of the Post Office. They move the mail. I recently found out about a pretty special mail carrier during a ceremony honoring women. The woman’s name was Mary Fields, the first African American female mail carrier. Ms. Fields did not become a mail carrier until age 61. She drove a covered wagon carrying the mail in the old West. During inclement weather she walked. She never missed a day carrying mail. She was respectfully called “Stage Coach Mary” because if the stage coach was there so was Mary and the mail.
The Post Office has a long history of serving the nation. Carrying the mail has not always been easy. Many carriers had to carry rifles and pistols to ward off stage coach robbers. Mary Fields knew how to handle a gun. Fortunately laws have been made to protect Mail Carriers and the mail. There are more than 200 Federal Laws that have been enacted to protect and secure the safety of the U.S. Mail.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
LiteBlue Heroes
I read something recently that made me rethink how important Letter Carriers are. We always think about them delivering the mail just like a habit that will never stop. We absolutely never think about the possibility that the mail will not be delivered. Mail Carriers are a constant in the lives of most Americans. We know our carriers and we depend on them to deliver the mail.
A customer in New York can add something else to her list of what we depend on Mail Carriers for – SAVING HER LIFE. Yes, saving her life. The carrier in Yorktown Heights, NY noticed that his customer had not collected her mail for several days. The carrier knew that was not her usual behavior. He got very concerned and contacted Emergency Responders (ERs). The ERs went to the woman’s home and found she needed medical attention. The woman was transported to the local hospital where she was able to get additional care and as a result, fully recovered.
What a story. The carrier didn’t simply determine that the mail pile-up was not his business but acted in a most humanitarian manner. The Good Samaritan’s name is Robert Womascko. The ERs credited Mr. Womascko for saving the woman’s life. I think Mr. Womascko needs more than a thank you from the ERs and the woman, he needs a hero thank you from the Postal Service and from the Commander-in-Chief. Mr. Womascko did something that was more than humane, he did something that was honorable to the highest degree. Mr. Womascko cared about another human being’s life. He didn’t just look at a condition and walk away. He cared about the life of a woman who could have died had he not thought quickly to get help.
Letter carriers don’t just deliver mail, they save lives. So if you read this post join in a letter writing campaign to the Commander-in-Chief-the President of the United States, the Post Master General and see that something of noteworthiness is done to recognize this Good Samaritan, this Honorable Man.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
LITEBLUE’S July 17th
July 17th is an important day for the Postal Service. July 17th is the last day to submit ideas about what the next generation of Post Office vehicles will look like and how they will need to function. Let’s give the Post Office a big round of applause for including the people in the process who know it best.
Many organizations make decisions in a vacuum and use individuals in the organization who have absolutely no hands-on knowledge about the process. The best folks to tell a baker whether his cake is good is not the baker, but those who eat the cake. The best individuals to give input about Postal Delivery vehicles are the ones who drive them, repair and maintain them. They are by far the very best authority to assist in designing the next generation of mail service delivery trucks.
The Post Office has an aging fleet of vehicles and are by all estimates not getting the efficiency of more modern vehicles. Postal carriers and Vehicle Maintenance personnel have been asked by their supervisors and managers to submit ideas and thoughts about what is needed in the Post Office’s next generation of service vehicles. Postal carriers and Vehicle Maintenance personnel will submit their best suggestions in a number of categories by July 17, 2014.
The Post Office got it right – by including its people in the strategic planning process.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
Other LiteBlue Related Pages
LITEBLUE, Shared Services and You
Who can you trust to get your retirement documentation right? Recently that question was posed to Postal Workers about their retirement. The Postal Service uses HR Shared Services as their pre-retirement, all things human resources information and advice arm. Upon retirement the go-to-gurus will be the Office of Personnel Management?
The question posed is one of those rare life-line questions. OPM handles the business of all Federal employees when they are active and inactive (retirement). The mere premise is mind boggling and sometimes things get mixed up and you might have to wait longer than you’d like to get your benefits or at least your correct benefits. In a past article, we talked about getting your house in order, taking care of the things necessary to make your transition to retirement smooth and complete.
The question posed simply reiterates and underscores the need to do just that. It is recommended that Postal Employees download a copy of their eOPF (Electronic Official Personnel Folder). You can print out the information or save it to your computer. Once you separate from the Post Office you will no longer have access to your information on LiteBlue. Pay a visit to the LiteBlue website and follow the download and print instructions so that you will have all the information that is in your folder at your fingertips when you need it.
Downloading your folder and setting it aside is not enough. Prior to OPFs becoming electronic, they were paper. Hopefully your agency passed on your paper folder to you. Further, over the years you might have kept copies of your information in your at-home file. Always as a rule of thumb, keep your end of the year W-2s. Each time you choose or switch health insurance carriers, keep a copy of your records. Make certain that the service computation date (SCD) shown in your folder matches what you have. Most of us remember the exact date when we started to work. Agencies, even OPM, make mistakes or are subject to an oversight.
Take care of your business. Be in charge of the business of your life because no one cares about your business as much as you do. Many Postal Workers will be eligible for incentive payments. Make sure you submit PS Form 3077 to your employing agency so where you want your incentive payment mailed will be on record. If you are attempting to use any electronic means to transmit information to HR Shared Services or your employing office and the mechanics are not responding, pick up the telephone and notify the appropriate entity right away.
Stay in charge of your business now so that you can relax, enjoy and retire well.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
The Inevitable
Some of our posts have focused on postal employees in general. We have not dedicated any of our posts specifically to those men and women who actually carry the mail through towns, cities, states and rural areas across the United States. These fine men and women are called Letter Carriers.
We call them our post men and women and we know them personally because we have gotten used to seeing them on a regular basis. My carrier’s name is June just like the month and she is as pleasant as a Summer day. We all stop to chat with her just long enough not to interfere with her work and then we move on knowing we will see her tomorrow.
But what happens when an Active Letter Carrier Dies is the name of a pamphlet put out by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC). It is a neatly compacted pamphlet filled with information to assist family members through a most trying time.
Individuals who have lost loved ones in service know all too well the pain of having to fill out forms and notify the appropriate personnel of a family member’s death during an absolutely traumatic period in any family’s life. Becoming familiar with the information in the pamphlet will help to lessen the pain of dealing with the death of a loved one.
Planning for the business of the end of our lives is inevitable. Talk to your family members about your end of life plans. Read and become familiar with information made available to you through your employer or member organization. Also make sure the information you are reading is current as laws, policies and regulations change that might impact the way your family members and survivors handle the business of the end of your life.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
Other LiteBlue Related Pages
What Postal Employees Should Do On LiteBlue Before Retirement
eRetire for Postal Employees – Retirement Applications on LiteBlue
Use LiteBlue to Manage your FEHB
You can use LiteBlue and PostalEase to manage your Allotments
Requesting Duplicate Postal Employee W-2 Forms Using LiteBlue
LiteBlue and Other Tools For Planning
The question of having enough money to live in retirement always looms over our heads. Is over-planning equivalent to under-planning? I am not sure if the degree of planning is what is at issue. Rather, it is the act of planning period that should come into play.
The Postal Service, along with LiteBlue, provides many tools to its workforce to begin the process of moving into retirement with confidence. The Postal Service has structured a National Retirement Counseling System (NRCS) that enables all employees eligible for retirement to receive in-depth training on retirement benefits, how they work in retirement and what to expect. NRCS wants every employee to receive all the information necessary to make the best decisions possible to turn the years they have worked into a satisfying retirement future.
The NRCS allows persons eligible for retirement to ask all the questions necessary to assist them in the process of transitioning from work to retirement. Twice a year an annuity estimate is mailed to the homes of those persons currently eligible for retirement. The computer-generated estimate allows postal workers to assess and evaluate their financial picture and to make changes where needed in their plans for retirement.
Most organizations begin to counsel employees within a fews years years of retirement. These employees are able to get annuity estimates that will assist them in the planning process. Organizations tend to concentrate on retirement during this period because the likelihood of things changing significantly in the work profile of these employees is fairly remote. Generally, in calculating an annuity estimate, the high-three average salary is key. Therefore, if you are about to retire in 3 – 5 years, your salary may not change significantly.
Remember these are only your annuity estimates and what your numbers will really look like depend solely on when you submit your application for retirement and the actual process begins.
Start planning early so that when the actual time comes, both you and your spouse will have more than a basic understanding of how your benefits work in retirement.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
Other LiteBlue Related Pages
What Postal Employees Should Do On LiteBlue Before Retirement
eRetire for Postal Employees – Retirement Applications on LiteBlue
Use LiteBlue to Manage your FEHB
You can use LiteBlue and PostalEase to manage your Allotments
Requesting Duplicate Postal Employee W-2 Forms Using LiteBlue
Postal Employee – STAPLES® Survey
Postal Employee – YOUR OPINION MATTERS
The USPS has opened over 50 ‘Test’ USPS locations inside of STAPLES® locations throughout the Country. Your opinion about this event matters – Our results will be published and we will be forwarding our findings to the USPS for review and consideration.
www.PSRetirement.com is conducting a Survey of USPS employees.
PSRetirement.com, through the ‘Postal Employee – STAPLES®‘ survey is requesting feedback from Postal employees about the USPS’s decision to open USPS locations in over 50 ‘test market’ STAPLES® stores.
If you were selected to participate in this survey please do so –
If you have NOT received your survey and would like to participate please request your survey by submitting your email address in the comment section below – we will promptly send one to you.
Your opinion matters – Make it count.
* To say ‘Thank You’ for the time you spend filling out the survey PSRetirement.com is offering survey participants a Retirement Benefit Analysis free of charge.
Postal and LiteBlue Related Pages
What Is LiteBlue?
PostalEase / LiteBlue
What Postal Employees Should Do On LiteBlue Before Retirement
eRetire for Postal Employees – Retirement Applications on LiteBlue
Use LiteBlue to Manage your FEHB
You can use LiteBlue and PostalEase to manage your Allotments
Requesting Duplicate Postal Employee W-2 Forms Using LiteBlue
LiteBlue: How To Use USPS LiteBlue
On LiteBlue.usps.gov, enter “I Am A Craft Employee”
How to use LiteBlue
To use LiteBlue and view your information, visit the website (LiteBlue.usps.gov). You will find the site by clicking HERE. The site is maintained by the USPS as part of the United States Postal Service employee service extranet.
You will need to fill in the required fields on the login screen (see below for visual instructions). You will also need several forms of identification in order to access USPS.
What You Will Need to access your account;
Your USPS employee ID number.
You can find your USPS Employee ID Number on any one of your earnings statements if you do not already know it.
Your USPS PIN number, which was given to you for access to PostalEASE.
Stay up to date on your USPS career development;
By navigating the menus on USPS site you will be able to stay up to date on your career and access other important information.
You can find information about your;
USPS Service performance,
Your Postal Employee benefits package and
USPS revenue.
Leave feedback on USPS.
If you have suggestions or need additional information, select the feedback option.
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Contact us for more information
Related LiteBlue Articles
How To Bid Assignments / Routes On LiteBlue
What Postal employees need to do before retirement
What Postal Employees Should Do Before Retirement
Changing Your LiteBlue / PostalEase Password Through ssp.USPS.gov
eRetire for Postal Employees – Retirement Applications
You can use PostalEase to manage your Allotments
Requesting Duplicate Postal Employee W-2 Forms
The information on this page and website, including links, images, and references are made available to you for information purposes only. Public Sector Retirement, LLC (PSRetirement.com) is NOT affiliated with the USPS or any other Government Agency. PSRetirement.com makes these links available but does not guarantee the information or administer these unrelated sites. PSRetirement.com also cannot access your private employee or retirement information and we cannot reset your PIN numbers or provide you with Tax information. Please review the Terms of Use for clarification and please contact Shared Services or your Post Master for further information.
Medicare Part D
Medicare Part D
Medicare Part D is an option that you may want to consider as you become eligible. Medicare Part D eligibility is based on the standard eligiblity factors associated with Medicare but the Medicare Part D coverage has more expansive benefits for those recipients who have larger prescription drug costs.
Medicare Part D was;
- Implemented in 2006 as a voluntary prescription benefit.
- Premiums averaged approximately $32 per month with a $250 deductible for Medicare Part D plans.
- Is a cost-sharing benefit, with Medicare paying 75 to 95 percent based on drug costs.
- Individuals with lower incomes may be exempt from the cost-sharing and instead pay small co-pays per prescription.
- Managed by private health insurance companies for a monthly premium.
- Open to everyone on Medicare without income consideration.
- Generally includes low co-payments or co-insurance for brand and generic prescription drugs.
- Can be chosen as a stand-alone drug plan or it may be a part of your Medicare Advantage Plan.
- There are many plans available, comparison shopping is a wise choice to find the proper fit for your budget.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
Because of the unique health benefits that Federal and Postal employees receive in retirement you may wish to consider some additional reading on your FEHB coverage.
If you are a Postal employee click HERE for your LiteBlue account
