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Audit Reports

Dec
18
2014
Report Number:
HR-AR-15-003
Report Type:
Audit Reports

Hiring Practices in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Background

This report responds to a request from Representative Donna M. Christensen of the U.S. Virgin Islands to review concerns about the hiring process used to fill the Postal Support Employee (non-career) laborer custodian positions in St. Croix and St. Thomas. She also inquired as to whether the Postal Service hired any employees in St. Croix in the past 10 years.

In November 2013, the Caribbean District needed seven laborer custodial positions for post offices in St. Croix and St. Thomas. Our objective was to evaluate the hiring practices for Postal Support Employee laborer custodial positions in St. Croix and St. Thomas.

What The OIG Found

Overall, the hiring practices for the Postal Support Employee laborer custodial positions in St. Croix and St. Thomas were adequate to ensure fairness to applicants. In total, seven applicants were hired to fill the Postal Support Employee laborer custodial positions in St. Croix and St. Thomas in 2014. Further, in the past 10 years, 12 people were hired for various Postal Service positions in St. Croix, including four from the seven hired in 2014.

Although five of these seven positions were eventually filled by residents from the U.S. Virgin Islands, there were inaccuracies and problems in the job announcement process that may have resulted in the perception of improprieties. For example, we found that three job announcements for St. Croix were initially canceled because of an inaccuracy in the announcement or because the test site was unavailable. Also, one announcement for St. Thomas was canceled because of an inaccuracy in the work location. District personnel resolved the errors by issuing three valid announcements.

In June 2014, the Human Resources Shared Services Center (HRSSC) took over responsibility for external hiring for the Caribbean District. HRSSC was given overall responsibility for the entire hiring process from creating job announcements to making job offers. Creating and posting job announcements is now done by a team of three specialists in HRSSC. The HRSSC has standardized procedures to ensure the accuracy of job announcements, including quality review checks and enhanced supervisory oversight. Therefore, we are not making any recommendations at this time, but plan to review the HRSSC in the future.