Employees who recently completed the Management Essentials course
Postal Service managers are strengthening their leadership skills through a new program that goes beyond traditional training courses.
The eight-week Management Essentials course is required for new managers in processing, maintenance and customer service operations. USPS introduced the program earlier this year, part of a broader effort to provide employees with more professional development opportunities.
“This program definitely made me a much better manager,” said Santa Barbara, CA, Maintenance Operations Manager Joe Santoli, who recently completed the course. “It showed me how to positively influence employees [and] set clear goals and expectations.”
One of the program’s main goals is to help managers improve their relationships with employees by better understanding themselves.
Participants practice and apply skills such as critical analysis, decision-making and social acuity. The course culminates with each participant devising a strategy to improve a specific aspect of their workplace.
Reseda, CA, Postmaster Shannon Sanfilippo said the program taught her to be more aware of her emotions and how they shape her approach to leadership.
“It’s helped me in motivating and encouraging both my employees and supervisors,” she said.
For more information, visit the course site.
I agree with Cynical Old Timer 100% and sad to say this is the United States Postal Service that will never, ever be fixed.
See old timers week one……..you really think they could sell lemonade? Not a chance in hell! Just a bunch of bullshit public relations crap for management to seem proactive……again, see old timers week one…………how long until we can retire????
great Can we now at least take away the cell phones from employees! When i coached softball we would collect all cell phones during the game and put them in one bag ! how many employee hours spent on facebook and candy crush lol
Let me get this straight: USPS wants managers to be trained on how to run the post office by the people currently in place who are not qualified to run a lemonade stand…yeah, that should work. No wonder the postal service is in ruins.
That training would not help USPS. USPS needs to shake up the whole management personnel starting from CEO. USPS management’s doesn’t have any accountability for their incompetent, bad behaviors. USPS has a lot of stupid lousy management with zero accountability that bad culture has been deeply rooted in the USPS because USPS has been defending them with its own lawyers. Why does USPS received too many citations by OSHA for safety violations? Why there are too many EEO, grievances and unfair labor charges against USPS? Why too many employees are injured on the job?
Having college educated individuals is not the solution, in itself. We have three “college-educated” individuals posing as industrial engineers in our office. They’ve been there a year and are always in the way. I’m not even sure they know what their jobs entail. So, the idea of making these people supervisors would be just as stupid as the current criteria, ass-kissing, for making someone a supervisor.
On the other hand, some of the best supervisors I’ve had in my 29 years at the PO, had no college degree. They simply knew how to lead and get the job done. Oddly enough, when these supervisors were craft employees, they were good workers. Today’s supervisor wasn’t worth a damn as a craft employee, unless you let them tell it. They are merely looking for a way to do less and be able to sit down while they don’t do their jobs!
About time some body trained them !
not one of the aforementioned clowns in the picture above would last one day in a Fortune 500 Corporation. 99% of postal mismangement has no university education. you are deluding yourself if you think other wise………..but you have company in being corrupt govt losers-Border Patrol,(Illegal Alien Escort Service) V A Hospitals, Amtrack, IRS, FEMA,…..you get the picture. maybe one notch above welfare recipients. maybe! bring in the clowns, they are already here!
I have a 4 year college degree plus 30 additional hours in public administration, but through out my 18 year postal career, I have tried countless times to apply into management. All of which were nothing more than disappointment in receiving a sorry Charlie letter and learning it’s the newbie with the high school education that kisses butt got the job. Now, I am a union steward and use my 4 year college degree in filing grievances on the UNEDUCATED management failed to abide by.
I believe a regulation should be in place that supervisor be required to have a 2 year college degree and 20 or above postmasters have a 4 year degree and district managers have either a 4 year degree and 20 plus postal experience or a masters degree. Common sense is lacking in management! Educated managers are in need!
The vast majority of the folks who post here seem so angry and bitter. Hopefully they have or will take their bitterness and their valuable “skills” with them when they immediately leave the USPS.
You guys are pathetic….God for Bid managers tell you do your route in 8 hrs…Pathetic…The craft workers are the ones running the service. Open your eyes. 5 days here we come…Pathetic
Also, talking about college degrees for managers, how about any college or even high school for the craft. Wake up
They never should’ve posted that photo. Their phones will be ringing off the hook, with all those salivating headhunters looking to score such fine talent.
Eight weeks to be trained in how to be micro managed by someone who is probably not qualified to be in the position that they are in. This should work out well.
eight weeks instead of four years for a college degree or two more years for a Master’s in Business degree………….every day is halloween dress up day for these jokers. dumb as dirt! answers why the dump is losing billions of dollars.
Actually,despite the incompetent management,the Postal Service is making money again and me and my wife,Senator Feinstein are proof of it with the millions we are making selling Post Office buildings!
You give these clowns 8 weeks of training and they’ll still treat you like s…. You give a carrier 3 days of training and on the 4th day expect him to be done in 7 hours and carry 1 hour in under time. What a joke.
Just what we need more managers! Where’s the cost savings in that?
They want to get rid of the Indians and bring on more chiefs. Congress
needs to stop looking at craft employee’s and focus on the salaries of
these so called managers. The pay is the overachiever for these positions
with most of them using employee knowledge to reap the rewards. The
postal service needs to keep reinventing ways to produce leadership for
less. The lead clerk was a start but it must be taken further to reduce the
costs of management that relies on the craft anyway. To many in supervision
with inferior skills and knowledge to pay these ridiculous salaries. Just look
them up on postal reporter, it’s a joke. Millions of dollars could be saved by
implementing with the unions a craft employee position of a adequate level
increase to perform these jobs at a beneficial cost savings. With all the closings
going on and the obvious shrinking in size it’s apparent management is by
location reshuffling the deck but there’s still 52 cards! To many working on
higher level far from earning the salaries that come with them. Not all I must
say but I’d be willing to bet a substantial amount.
MANAGEMENT TRAINING AGENDA
Week One: Recognition of those who can promote or ruin you. Learn who to know and who to blow.
Week Two: Contract interpretation. No matter how clearly or unambiguous the language, this course shows how to totally abuse the JCAM and Local Agreement, and how to pay off the DRT team.
Week Three: Employee abuse. Learn how to spot the employees who do not want trouble and bully them into quitting and feed your ego.
Week Four: District policy. You learn that you have zero authority, your input is worthless, and even after you’re told how to do and what to do in your work right down to pouring your coffee in your mug, if something goes wrong you still get blamed.
Week Five: Respecting your craft employees. They’re dirt. Pond scum, dumber than a bag of hammers and barely able to find their way to work. Treat them as such.
Week Six: Creative fucking up. Make a name for yourself by declaring the most idiotic policies and ignoring common sense whenever it rears its ugly head. Be sure to have a flunkie to take the blame.
Week Seven: Ego building. Convince yourself you’re a giant among managers, right up there with Wall Street, even though you can’t even turn your computer on in the morning.
Week Eight: Unethics. FIre whistleblowers who are trying to warn you of carbon monoxide leaks. Steal from the petty cash account and take any parcels you think you can resell on your off time.
Congratulations. You have met your qualifications as a USPS manager. Now lick our left boot, kiss our ass and get back to your desk.
See Cynical Old Timer comment: Week one is the most important lesson!!! It’s amazing how much of this is still going on, of course maybe that’s how you got to this training course in the first place!