Redesigned mip

[proups]

Let's think about what you are saying for a minute.

UPS went public in order to raise funds to buy companies that would help to build it's supply chain. Look at all the acquisitions since 1999 and how many more services we have to sell our customers.

In 1999, UPS was primarily a ground transportation company, which I would agree that we still are, but we had little else to offer.

We are light years ahead of the competition in technology.

We have many more services than other transportation companies.

We can cater to all companies, not just the big ones where we can show big volume growth by winning them over with low rates, like FredEx, only to lose them back to UPS with poor service.

If the compensation for management is so bad, show me a warehouse management job that pays more (or any other supervisory level job), with the Triple A rating that UPS has (cash rich, little debt), the bright future UPS is building, and I will agree that the young supervisors should flee to those companies ASAP.

 

[teddyr]

There is a serious drain of respectable managers in our building. We have a bunch of clowns running a circus in the HUB. If managers were compensated better I feel it would make a big difference in the quality of operations. I do not own stock based on what I see on a day to day basis. The managers are horse-whipped by upper mgt. to produce good numbers and the result is poor svc. The part time sups dont care and as a result neither do the hourly employees. For the time supervisors and mgrs. put in they are severely under compensated. I have seen the quality of mgrs. decline over the past 18 yrs something needs to be done for you guys soon.

 

[tieguy]

pro I don't see us using the capital we secured. We are still sitting on a ton of cash. The most recent earnings shows where the investers minds are at. We present glowing reports about our international growth as well as our logistics business in general. We recieve a downgrade on the fact our domestic ground growth is stagnent. I'm tired of catering to these investment "gurus". I think we have lost our UPS soul catering to the public market.

 

[interested]

Proups,

Lets look at some examples.

Warehouse Distribution Manager - Up to $120,000 per year

Location: Orange County / Irvine, CA 92630 Salary/Wage: Up to $120,000 per year, based on experience
Status: Full Time, Employee Job Category: Transportation and Warehousing
Relevant Work Experience: 5+ to 7 Years Career Level: Manager (Manager/Supervisor of Staff)
Education Level: Bachelor's Degree

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Job Description

Warehouse Distribution Manager (CA - Los Angeles & Orange County)
A rapidly growing Orange County-area (California) B2B industrial supply company is currently looking for a Warehouse Distribution Manager.

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

"Hands-on" management for 3 pick/pack distribution centers in excess of 300,000 square feet

Coordinate all inbound/outbound parcel, LTL carriers and inventory management

Analyze daily reports and develop/implement recommendations for improved efficiency
Schedule, motivate and lead a team of 150+ warehouse personnel

JOB QUALIFICATIONS:

Supervisory experience within 100,000+ sq ft distribution center

Experience with various types of equipment including stand up reach trucks, stock pickers, and forklifts /

Example # 2

Specialty Representative for Midsized Biomedical Company
Company: Management Recruiters International
Status: Full Time, Employee
Location: US-CA-Orange County
Job Category: Sales

Salary: USD 65,000.00 to USD 85,000.00 per year
Uncapped: $50,000 at goal
Education Level: Bachelor's Degree

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Job Description


-To be considered for this opportunity you must submit a Word formatted version of your resume.

-Our client is a progressive, mid-sized Biomedical organization in search of a Specialty Representative.

-The successful applicant will have at least 6 years of existing Sales experience as well as documentation of success, and a bachelors degree. This unique opportunity requires the ability to translate and communicate strong scientific data to a designated subset of Specialty Practitioners as well as institutions.

- Our clients corporate structure and culture were designed to promote autonomy, best practice utilization and room for advancement. Outside of these "softer" benefits the organization is offering:
* Company Car
* 401k and Performance Based Stock Options
* Paid Vacation and Time Off
* Educational Reimbursement
* One of the most competitive bonus structures within the Biomedical / Pharmaceutical industry, with a 50k target (uncapped).

 

[interested]

Proups,

That took all of 10 minutes on Monster.com to find two professional career options to fit the profile of a UPS management person who has other career choices.

Both of those are good jobs with very solid companies, are they UPS no. Do they have the credit rating, no. Do they have a stock option program, The warehouse job does not, the pharmaceutical sales job may have one. Do they have higher compensation pacvkages, Yes. Do they offer similar benefits and perks, Yes. Do they offer a higher compensation package all things considered, Yes.

The sales job involves a company car. That means no car payment, no insurance, no gas , no maintanence, all on the company. No they don't expect you to only use the car for work. It is expected that you will use the car for personal use-You can't tow your boat with it, but you can drive it to the grocery store or anywhere else you like. That $50K uncapped that they speak of-That is the comission that you are expected to earn based on sales performance-in addition to the salary.

The bottom line is that the opportunity to earn substantially more income is out there. If you have the opportunity to earn this type of salary you will have many opportunities to invest that additional income in any way you see fit, including buying UPS stock. UPS'ers are very talented people. The outside perception of our organization is stellar. Sometimes we are so caught up in our vacuum that we don't really know what is out there. Could a UPS management person handle either of those Jobs-You bet they could. Would the employer consider someone from UPS as a potential candidate for either of those jobs...Man you better believe it.

 

[proups]

Interested: you showed me jobs in California, specifically Irvine. We all know the cost of living in California is astronomical when compared to the majority of the U.S.

So I did a search on realtor.com, that took about two minutes, for houses in Irvine, CA. I searched for a single family home between $0 and $500,000. Here is what I found:

2 properties match your criteria:

Irvine, CA 92618
$489,900
2 Bed, 1 Bath
864 Sq. Ft.
0.07 Acres
Single Family Property, Area: Orangetree, County: Orange, Approximately 0.07 acre(s), Lot is 2988 sq. ft., Year Built: 1976, Garage,...

7 Windrow
Irvine, CA 92618
$496,000
2 Bed, 2 Bath
1,000 Sq. Ft.
0.06 Acres
Single Family Property, Area: Orangetree, County: Orange, Approximately 0.06 acre(s), Lot is 2739 sq. ft., Year Built: 1977, Garage,...

So, if the average UPS supervisor took those jobs in California, they could reduce their standard of living with real estate prices alone!

I don't know of many UPSers willing to do that. Drivers in the majority of the U.S. live in newer, nicer homes than what I was able to find in California.

Do you want to try again?

 

[moreluck]

proups.....true that real estate is sky high, but most folks working in Irvine don't live in Irvine. Cheaper to live in Lake Forest. There's lots of communities within a half hr. drive to Irvine that would be cheaper housing than Irvine.
Just my

 

[interested]

Proups,

Pick a community anywhere in the country and you will find some very affluent real esate surrounding that area. It does not mean that you have to live in that specific geographic area. In fact that sales territory may very well be in another part of California. Interviewing for a job that is located in an specific geographic region is by no means a true indicator of what your cost of living may be. Let's take the most expensive city in America to live and work in, New York. Millions commute into that city every day from New Jersey and the tri-state area. Bedroom communities have popped up in areas like Putnam county that 30 years ago were sleepy summer towns. The economics of working in a specific city are skewed in some respects by cost of living and real estate expense, but that can be offset by the examples above.

The discussion centered around demonstrating some examples of higher paying jobs in a warehouse, that a UPS management person may be qualified for. In a few minutes time, a simple search on a popular on-line job forum substantiated said jobs.I listed the name of the on-line job forum in my last message, I am sure if someone wants to preuse that site they would find commensurate job opportunities in almost any state in the union.

I am all for the discussion but we are comparing apple and oranges. Do other jobs exsit in warehousing, Sales, Human resources, operations, fleet maintanence and a host of others that are compensated at a higher level than UPS? Yes. Are many UPS management folks qualified for thsoe jobs? Yes.

I have provided some examples of just that argument.

 

[traveler]

confused1

Just back and catching up on the board. You stated and I didn't see any answer to -

"Look at insider trading on any financial web site. You will see how a board member will aquire stock on one day and sell the same amount the same day. Thats right , the same day. and they tell everyone u should not sell. That is bull!!!!!!!!"

That is just and accounting quirk that has to be reported that way when "options" are cashed in. Division manager and above received options on the stock annually that are due five years forward. When they mature, stock is turned instead of cash and shares are reissued. I won't go into the boring details but it is not what it appears to be in the insider trading information.

 

[brownmonster]

I agree with Tie. Someone needs to explain to Wall Street that the real money is not in ground. Or maybe we are just waiting for Fedex Ground and DHL to find that out for themselves. Did we not say years ago that we made as much profit on 1 Intl. Express as we did on 54 ground pkgs?

 

[proups]

Interested: I perfectly understand about long commutes to work to get a bigger house. I drive 30+ miles a day one way to get to work.

I don't think we need to debate about cost of living, but I would like one question answered: if the compensation package is so bad at our Fortune 100, one of six Triple A rated companies in the U.S., then why do people stay?

Why do you stay?

I know why I stay: security. I've seen and read about too many businesses going down the toilet and throwing people out on the street with nothing to show for it but years of service - downsizing is the word they use. When has UPS done that?

....and we have people complaining about MIP - just asking our people to perform.

 

[speeddemon]

But having that ground is key in getting thier Int. packages too. One company, one shipping solution. What can BROWN do for you?

 

[ups79]

UPS downsizes daily. If we have 30 drivers and only need 29, for a particular day, someone is laid off or downsized. I believe that is what makes us so financially stable, we work a little fewer people than necessary and get the job done.

 

[ups79]

UPS downsizes daily. If we have 30 drivers and only need 29, for a particular day, someone is laid off or downsized. I believe that is what makes us so financially stable, we work a little fewer people than necessary and get the job done.

 

[ups79]

UPS downsizes daily. If we have 30 drivers and only need 29, for a particular day, someone is laid off or downsized. I believe that is what makes us so financially stable, we work a little fewer people than necessary and get the job done.

 

[trickpony1]

proups,
Is outsourcing the same as downsizing?
We had management cuts several years ago. Several management people, some of whom weren't worth a flip, took the severance package and ran.

 

[interested]

Pro,

Nobody has said the package is "bad". We have stated that many feel that they are undercompensated. We have also provided examples of jobs with commensurate benefits and better compensation. We absolutely love to talk about other companies downsizing at UPS. The reality is that there are also many companies that are growing as well. The majority of career choices all have intangibles. The landscape of a particular industry and job is key to the decision making process when choosing a new career path. Downsizing is usually at the end of a long road of change, often the careers that are contracted are on someones radar screen long before someone would take a job. There are situations like Enron, but they are few and far between.

The bottom line is that there are many many good jobs out there with helathy growing companies that are not in any danger of downsizing. They offer attractive packages for talented people and United Parcel Service has an outstanding reputation out on the street.

Why don't more people leave? There are two reasons that come to mind above all else. First, The investment in time and money. Many of our management folks have been here for years and years. They have quite an investment in this company and they have accrued quite a bit of stock in that time. It would still be theirs if they left, but many are determined to see their career through. This is not an organization that a lot of people leave after 10 or 15 years in management.

The other may be a lot more unpopular, but I believe it is fear. Fear of the unknown. If you think about the process that most of our people go through in their UPS career path, it ends up being the only job they have ever known, at least in a professional sense. That does not mean that our folks are not talented or dedicated, it just means that they can become institutionalized. It can be a very scary proposition facing the job market at 35-40 years old after you have had only 1 professional management job your whole life. You have never been on an interview outside of UPS, never networked successfully, calling people for favors whom you do not know. You may have the skillset, talent- and in more and more cases, even the college degree, but it can be scary to actually start the process of looking for a new job. Your UPS peer group sure isn't going to be sympathetic, and everything you are told when you work at UPS- is that the glass is half-empty in the job world outside of Big Brown.

Why do I stay? I am a little different. I had considerable outside experience in my chosen career, sales, outside of UPS. I was actively recruited to work at UPS and was hired directly into management. (My first day was the first day of new sup school!!!) The compensation plan that I entered UPS with was based on my abilities and performance in my sales career BEFORE I arrived at UPS. I am compensated pretty well. Are there other jobs out there that are better, Yes. Do I have an updated resume and have I listened to other offers while I have been in the employ of United Parcel Service, sure. I know how important it is to manage my professional career. I am at UPS now because I think the experience for what I am doing will be invaluable in my career in the future. Does that future include UPS? It remains to be seen.

There is a larger issue here also, it is one we have discussed before at length, but we should touch on it again. If an employee is unhappy with a decision that UPS makes, like the restructuring of the MIP-Are they bad employees because they discuss that issue or openly voice their concerns about the change in policy-?

I'd like to hear some other thoughts on this.

 

[proups]

I think we are getting to some common ground here.

I was at UPS during the buyout - ERO/VSB - and saw many people take it. My experience with that program was UPS had many very good people leave - people the company valued as management people.

Speaking from personal experience, I had two close friends leave at that time - one a manager, the other a supervisor.

The manager, two years after the ERO/VSB, was on his third job. He was by no means considered a deadbeat by UPS - he ran a package center that consistently met it's numbers and he ran his division when the Division Manager was away. He could not find a company that he felt, after having worked with them for a several months, that had near the business savvy that he experienced at UPS. He never caught up with his total compensation, and was not satisified that his deferred compensation would get him where he wanted to be financially when he retired - and that retirement would not be as early as it could have been at UPS.

The supervisor that I knew was also considered to be a up and comer with UPS. He had a great work ethic, graduated at the top of his college class with a double major, and nobody had any issues with his work performance. The last I heard from him he was going for his fourth job, for the same reasons my manager friend was - the total compensation package and the length of time he was going to have to work to get to retirement age.

I see from Interested's last post that he came to UPS as a supervisor in sales - recruited to work at UPS. While I have seen some very valuable, good UPS people come from the outside, and this is not meant to be an insult to those people, I think they don't fully understand what it means to "bleed brown."

People that start at UPS while in their late teens, some in college, and decide to hang on are the people that I think truly bleed brown. Again, it is not that I don't value people brought in from the outside - we need people who have expertise in sales, LTL, ocean freight, supply chains, financial analysts, marketing analysts, and the list goes on and on....but it is hard to walk away from something that you have been doing for many, many years, and feel good about your chances to have the same earning power on the "outside."

This is in every full-time job category at UPS. As one of those long-term UPSers, I don't think of myself as "institutionalized", just realistic about life after UPS and what I have coming down the road. This is a personal business decision to me.

But, I digress. We were talking about the new MIP. I think if any of you would ask a long time management person, or a retiree for that matter, you would never find one that became rich simply by getting MIP every year and hanging on to it. The people that end up millionaires all bought as much stock as they could through payroll deduction and hypothecation. They never solely relied on the annual MIP award to get them where they wanted to be financially. The same holds true today, and the younger management people need to realize this, and make some personal financial decisions.

I try to live within my means. I invest every dollar I can to enrich my retirement package. My compensation is much better than some, not as good as others, but none of them can beat the security of the job at UPS.

By the way, questioning change is never a bad thing, nor does it make one a bad employee.

 

[onetoofar]

From proups:
"The people that end up millionaires all bought as much stock as they could through payroll deduction and hypothecation. They never solely relied on the annual MIP award to get them where they wanted to be financially. The same holds true today, and the younger management people need to realize this, and make some personal financial decisions. "

I'm a "younger" management person and from my point of view, the hypo/deduction are not solid bets anymore. When the company was private, these were good investments; there was some risk but very small. Now, with the public controlling the stock price, it is a very risky proposition.

My concern is all the extra work I do may or may not make a difference in the MIP. I'm no longer a 'business partner' as I'd always thought of myself' we are now 'shareholders'.

 

[interested]

Pro,

Fair enough, you make a solid argument. There are definitely two sides to every coin. Without question UPS provides a great measure of job security and for many, many years financial security as well. The finanacial security landscape has changed dramatically at UPS but there is still much security in the job. That doesn't erase that there are also jobs out there that provide excellent security and tremendous compensation.

This is a good discussion, I hope we get some more input from some of the management people-Have you ever been close to taking another job? Was there a job years ago that you had an opportunity to take that you regret having turned down? What would it take you to look outside of UPS today? Am I off base stating that fear of the unknown has been a factor in looking for a new career?

Let's get some dialogue going-ProUps has proven that he is not afraid to step up to a debate.