Postmaster General, Margaret Ashby (centre) alongside staff of the Express Mail unit.
Outstanding service delivery in a variety of areas has led to the General Post Office (GPO), Bridgetown, Barbados receiving a silver award from the EMS Cooperative.
Postmaster General, Margaret Ashby, revealed this as she delivered remarks at the EMS Presentation of the silver award to the GPO recently at their headquarters.
“The Postal Service was awarded the Silver level certification for the inbound delivery of Express Mail in 2015. Since 2005, the organisation has frequently meet the international requirements for achieving an award. St. Lucia was the only Caribbean nation to receive a gold award, while Barbados and Brazil were the only countries in this hemisphere to achieve silver – out of only five awards – and Canada was given a bronze award. So it is not easy to meet the benchmarks set by the EMS Co-operative.”
She stated that some of the areas that they were measured on included performance delivery and the quality of their tracking system. “EMS performance awards provide accredited recognition for members of the Co-operative that achieve high levels of performance. The awards are presented in the categories of gold, silver and bronze. To be eligible, the administrations must meet specific standards for performance. The performance of each member administration is measured quarterly in the areas of performance delivery, quality of tracking data, the use of electronic messaging to read bar-coded data, including the receiving and sending of express items. Also by the achievement of a certain ratio indicating items sent versus items received and the turnaround time between receiving an item from the customer and shipping it off; or conversely receiving an inbound item and delivering it to the local customer [as well as] answering the telephone in a specific timeframe,” among other things.
Ashby said that these benchmarks provide the administrations with an opportunity to appraise its own performance and when and where necessary, make the required enhancements.
She added that this award is an indication that they are on the right path. “The efficiency of individual postal administrations facilitating the exchange of express items across international borders is the foundation for the success of the global Express Mail Service. Yes, it is a service offered by postal administrations all over the globe. The EMS Co-operative is the arm of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) with oversight of the service.”
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