The ladies and gentlemen in brown know how to dance.
As this article on the Minyanville site explains, UPS
[D]rivers are expected to walk at a brisk pace (2.5 paces per second); to make as many right turns as possible ... and to carry their keys on their ring finger, which puts the key into optimal position for the index finger and thumb to turn the ignition in one swift motion with no wasted energy or time.
Those measures may sound arbitrary, but there's a purpose behind them. For instance, the article reports that approximately 90% of all turns made by UPS delivery vehicles are right turns, which cut total miles driven by 30 million, saving 3 million gallons of gas and reducing CO2 emissions by 32,000 metric tons.
UPS is a big company, with more than 400,000 employees, 250,000 of which belong to unions. The company dwarfs competitor FedEx both in terms of employees and market capitalization.
I'm glad UPS puts so much thought and effort into training its employees to do their jobs well and safely. It benefits employees, the company, and even the environment. As the company reduces its workforce to save money, training for details such as getting on and off the truck and walking over what might be a business' slippery floor becomes even more important to making sure the work gets done as efficiently as possible. Especially since the workload isn't going down. UPS saw an increase in overall domestic volume in the first quarter of 2010, thanks to increased demand in the U.S. small-package market, according to the company's most recent quarterly filing with the SEC.
After checking out the UPS training regimen, let us know in the comments box below whether the company is on the right track, or intruding too much on how workers do their job.
