In 1986, the mail sorters at the main Post Office in Reno, Nevada became the most productive of all the sorters in the entire western region of the United States, which stretches from Colorado to Hawaii. At the same time, the operators of one of their two mechanized sorting machines achieved the lowest error rate for sorting in the western region. What happened?

It began a few years earlier when the Reno Post Office was selected by the federal government to receive a renovation that would make it a “minimum energy user.” An architectural firm, Leo A. Daly, was hired to do everything necessary to reduce energy use. The post office was a modern warehouse with high ceilings and coal-black floors. It was quite noisy in the areas where the two sorting machines were run. The sorter was grueling to use. Once a second, it dropped a letter in front of the operator, who had to punch in the correct zip code before the next letter appears. If the operator keyed in a zip that didn’t exist or no zip code at all, the letter would immediately be sent back through the machine for repunching. If the wrong zip code was keyed in, the letter would be sent to the wrong bin and it would take even longer to track down the mistake. The job was so stressful that an operator could work a maximum of only 30 minutes on the machine at one time. The chief architect, Lee Windheim, proposed a lower ceiling and improved lighting. The new ceiling would make the room easier to heat and cool, while also creating better acoustics. The ceiling would be sloped to enhance the indirect lighting, and to replace harsh direct downlighting. More efficient, longer-lasting lamps that gave off a more pleasant light quality were installed.

Before starting the complete renovation, estimated to cost about $300,000, Windheim did a small test section of the lighting and new ceiling over one of the two sorting machines. The following graph shows the number of pieces of mail sorted per hour in the 24 weeks before the change, and for more than a year after the change.

4In the next 20 weeks, productivity increased more than 8 percent. The workers in the area with the old ceiling and lighting showed no change in productivity. A year later, productivity had stabilized at an increase of about 6 percent. Under the new lighting design, the rate of sorting errors by machine operators dropped to 0.1 percent – only 1 mistake in every 1,000 letters – the lowest error rate in the entire western region. Working in a quieter and more comfortably lit work area, postal employees did their jobs better and faster. The manager of mail processing, Robert McLean, says the data were “solid enough to get $300,000 to do the whole building.”

The energy savings projected for the whole building came to about $22,400 a year. There would be additional savings of $30,000 a year because the new ceiling would require less frequent repainting. Combined, the energy and maintenance savings came to about $50,000 a year; a six year payback. The productivity gains, however, were worth $400,000 to $500,000 a year. In other words, the productivity gains alone would pay for the entire renovation in less than a year. The annual savings in energy use and maintenance were a free bonus.

At the Reno Post Office, no one conducted any special experiment intended to raise productivity, and there was no unusual interaction between workers and supervisors. Productivity had always been measured. McLean, now Postmaster for Carson City, denies any personal responsibility for improvement. “We had the same people, the same supervisor, and I don’t believe I was doing any motivational work,” he says. Yet he notes that the data on the productivity and quality increase were “irrefutable.” The changes to the building were designated solely to reduce energy use. The increases in productivity were unexpected.