GPO training staff

THE General Post Office is holding a conference to train their hands-on staff in the Express Mail Service systems and procedures.

This is coming from Acting Deputy Postmaster General, International Postal Affairs and Business Development at the General Post Office (GPO), Iris Lashley, who spoke with The Barbados Advocate on the sidelines of an EAD and EMSEVT V3 Compliance for Express Mail Service (EMS) Workshop held yesterday at the GPO.

“This conference is our Express Mail Service Workshop. It is being held here in Barbados from the 24th of April to the 27th and it is being held in conjunction with the La Poste (Group) in France, the International Bureau (IB) and the United States Postal Service (USPS); and it is dealing with the different aspects of the compliance for the EMS for the Caribbean region. We are covering topics that would be primarily (associated) with the implementation of the applications, which allow us to actually do the interacting and exchange of the Express Mail Service items with countries throughout the world.

“Normally we have been having sessions so far at least twice a year, the minimum. This is a new cycle that we entered in 2016 and in this cycle we are actually looking at repositioning and retooling all of our Caribbean staff and workers, because we recognise that this area is a very competitive area and if we are not up to the standards that are required, then we would be losing business. So from the mandate that we were given at our last conference in 2016, we recognised that we have to do business differently and so we have been doing these sessions and training persons to come up to par with the standards required and to make sure that we are still a viable entity.”

The facilitators are drawn from Switzerland, France and the USA while the participants are drawn from across the Caribbean. Some of the areas that will be discussed are the business plan for the EMS Co-operative and adopting the appropriate standards. (PJT)