EACO POSTAL AND COURIER
CONFERENCE- NAIROBI 2015
ENHANCING COLLABORATION
BETWEEN INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA.
BY
G.J.NDUATI
OUTLINE
• INTRODUCTION
• ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCE IN POSTAL AND
COURIER SECTOR
• ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCE IN THE ECONOMY
• NEED FOR COLLABORATION
• CONCLUSION
• RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
• ‘An organization is as good as the human resource
that works for it’ The quality of the human resource is
therefore of great importance.
Status and role of postal and courier sector
• A developed postal and courier sector creates a
sustainable environment for economic development in
any country.
• Advanced postal systems are capable of integrating
data and information flows, physical movement of
mails and parcels and financial transactions.
• Postal services are also capable of enhancing ECommerce and payment centre for goods and services.
Introduction-• The postal sector should play a vital role in the
development of the African countries
providing efficient physical communication to
the other sectors of the economy.
• It should also provide the necessary support
to propel the socio-economic development in
all African countries.
NEED FOR COLLABORATION WITH
ACADEMIA
• The development of the postal sector in Africa
requires a deliberate sustainable policy in the
capacity building of the human resource.
• There is therefore need to have a skilled and
efficient human resource base that will
efficiently deliver the increasingly diversified
postal services.
Need for collaboration-• It is important to take cognizant of the fact
that there are inadequate skills to handle
technological development and emerging
complex logistics in the postal and courier
sectors.
Need for collaboration--• The African countries should therefore
deliberately formulate policies that will create
a sustainable human resource with skills that
will match the global technological
development needs.
• It is only then that the human resource will
effectively contribute to the development of
the postal and courier sectors.
Need for collaboration-Given the above there is need for the postal and
courier sector to collaborate with the
Academia in order to :
• Build the capacity of the employees through
training
• Undertake research on the development of
the sector
Human resource and organizational
development
TALENT
PERFORMANCE
STRUCTURE
HR
DEVELOPMENT
Cont.
• The collaboration can help in developing curricular that can
change the way the postal and courier sector will do he
following reasons:
• The human resource is the primary link in the value chain
and hence value is created by focusing on employees.
• The human resources in the front offices are the first
contract to the customer.
• They have a role to ensure that the customers are satisfied.
• Satisfied customers always provide repeat business to the
organization.
• The human resource in postal and courier sector therefore
plays a big role in creating satisfied customers who are loyal
to the sector.
Cont.
• Human resource practices also have significant impact
on costs and revenues.
• The performance of the human resource has a direct
effect on costs of an organization.
• A well performing human resource creates satisfied
customers who in turn enhance the revenue of the
organization.
• An efficient human resource contributes to reduction
of waste and thus minimizes operational costs.
• The human resource of postal and courier
organizations should contribute to the efficiency and
effectiveness of the sector.
Example -The Postal Corporation of
Kenya ( PCK)
• PCK has given a lot of emphasis on
empowering its human resource through
training in order to achieve its strategies:
STRATEGIES
• To grow and maximize revenues by positioning PCK to
be the market leader in the provision of financial
distribution services in the country and in the region
and increase overall market share and goods revenue
in the provision of courier and mail service.
• Reduce overall expenditure considerably and
restructure the current balance sheet.
• Improve the efficiency and quality of processes so as to
improve on service delivery through automation.
• Enhance, sustain and optimize PCK human resource
capacity
• Improve customer satisfaction and enhance corporate
image.
Cont.
• The above strategies are wholly dependent on
the extent to which the human resource will be
developed to ensure successful implementation.
• The human resource is a key factor in the
operations and performance of an organization.
• The new strategy therefore requires that PCK
develops in human resource skills to drive the
strategy.
• PCK has therefore been working hard to;
1. Building stronger and more focused
management team.
2. To achieve this PCK conducted the following
courses and seminars through collaboration.
Courses conducted
2011 – 2014 the following employees were
trained:
• Postal Management Course – 41
• Postal officers New Entrants course (PONE) 320
• Postal Management trainees – 125
CONTRIBUTION OF HR TO WHOLE ECONOMY
• The human resource of postal and courier
sector contributes to the whole economy by
facilitating the flow of parcels,mail and other
documents to both firms and households.
• They also facilitate the process of payment
through different financial services.
CIRCULAR FLOW OF GOODS AND SERVICES
-
SERVICES
- MAIL
- PARCELS
- MONEY TRANSFER SERVICES
•
•
FIRMS
PARCELS
MAILS
PAYMENTS
PAYMENTS
HOUSE
HOLDS
Cont.
• The Postal and courier sectors infrastructure facilitates the
flow of goods and services from the households to the
firms.
• The households send letters and parcels to the firm and
vice versa.
• The firms make payment for the goods and services
delivered by the households and the households pay for
the goods and services delivered by the firms.
• The human resource is the major player in the above
process.
• The flow of goods and payments require skilled human
resource to facilitate the effective operation of the process.
• The whole economy can only benefit if the firms and
households are well coordinated.
Cont.
• Traditionally, the postal and courier sectors
have been labor intensive requiring much
labor input thus making the human resource a
very important factor.
• The situation has not changed significantly
even in the digital era.
• Postal and courier services are important in
the lives of many people in the world.
Cont.
• The private sector also plays a significant role in the postal
and courier sector.
• Bus companies and security firms have taken into mail and
parcel deliveries from one town to another.
• This is a different business model from the traditional one
of just transporting people.
• The human resource therefore contributes to the effective
operation of the delivery of letters and parcels.
• There are international courier firms that operate in many
countries.
• Some of the widely known international courier firms are
DHL, FEDEX and UPS .
• They play a significant role in Parcels and document
deliveries.
Collaboration
• The postal and courier sector should involve
the academia especially the universities so as
to build the capacity of the employees and
also develop programs that are specific to the
needs of the sector.
Conclusion
• The human resource contributes significantly to the
development of the postal and courier sector in the
following ways;
• Effective delivery of mails, parcels and other
documents to the households and firms.
• Facilitates the payments for services provided to the
households and the firms.
• Contributes to satisfied customers and in turn
increased revenues are realized.
• Contributes to cost reduction.
• Developing the capacity of the employees is therefore
vital in the collaboration with academia in developing
programs that are specific to the needs of the sector.
Recommendations.
• The importance of the human resource in the
postal and courier sector can not be over
emphasized, however it is important for the
postal and courier sector to create an enabling
environment for the human resource to
effectively contribute to the development of
the sector.
END
• ASANTE