November is HAZMAT Awareness Month

To protect the health and safety of our employees and the general public, the Postal Service™ has developed specific procedures for safeguarding the identification, handling, and delivery of hazardous materials (HAZMAT). Nonmailable hazardous materials that enter the mail stream — because these materials are not intercepted at the time of acceptance — pose a very real threat to that safety.

In the last year, we conducted a survey to request feedback from our sales and service associates (SSAs) on HAZMAT issues. Based on over 7,000 responses, my team developed an action plan to address the items brought up by our SSAs. Some of the highlights of SSA feedback were communication strategy, awareness, training, and job aids.

As a result, my team worked with other departments (e.g., Product Classification, Corporate Communications, Inspection Service, Law Department, and Safety) to create HAZMAT Awareness Month for November. Key objectives to reinforce our current HAZMAT messaging include the following:

• Sending Poster 37, Is Your Package Safe to Mail?, to offices for lobby display (see Poster 37, Is Your Package Safe to Mail?);
• Updating job aid reference materials at retail counters; and
• Featuring HAZMAT Awareness Month in targeted channels such as the Postal Bulletin, Retail Digest, Link, USPSTalk, Retail Systems Software (RSS), and My Post Office® messaging.

I wanted to thank all of the teams for their support on this important effort. We want to ensure this is a safe peak season while raising awareness both internally and externally on HAZMAT issues.

I appreciate our partnership as we take these first steps to standardize and develop effective and easily understood HAZMAT procedures for employees and customers.

Kelly Sigmon
Vice President,
Retail Customer Service Operations