PSS employees have a great deal of autonomy and are encouraged to make their own decisions with respect to how their jobs get done and how their work is organized. The basic rule is to do anything and everything to keep customers happy. Leaders will back up their employees in most cases. In the field, sales people use handheld computers that allow them to place orders on the spot, view a customer's entire order history, and obtain detailed information about inventory in all PSS warehouses. Orders are immediately downloaded to one of the 64 service centers.
Individual branches strive to create links between sales people and operations people in the office.
Many branches randomly team each sales person up with two people in operations. If the sales person reaches his or her projected monthly sales forecast, each person in the team receives a bonus. This encourages operations people to become more actively involved with salespeople and vice-versa, increasing awareness among all staff of the necessity of teamwork and the interdependence of everyone within a branch. The triad consists of a regional vice-president, a field leader from the region, and someone from corporate headquarters. The third person is chosen by the first two, and each year, the regions that perform the worst have first choice of corporate officers for their triad.