PCC Management Insights

“Staying in the Know”

PCC Professional Certificate Program
(August 2009)

Postal Customer Councils (PCCs) across the country are taking advantage of the PCC Professional Certificate Program.  We encourage all PCCs to participate!  

As part of their educational programs, PCCs offer workshops to their members and other business customers.  After attending a required number of workshops, participants earn a professional certificate (i.e., Mail Center Professional Certificate, Address Quality Certificate, etc.).  The certificates are issued by the PCCs.

This program is designed to accomplish two key objectives:

	Educate mailers on the use of Postal Service products, services and procedures to help them grow their business.

	Achieve the recognition that comes with continuing education.

PCCs that offer the program will find that it provides a “value add” for the customer and may result in increased interest and attendance at events.

If your PCC has not taken advantage of the program, here is a quick overview of how to get started:  

Workshop Selection:
There are three primary sources for selecting topics for your workshops:

	Workshops-in-a-box listed on the National PCC Web site at www.usps.com/pcc. 
	National Postal Forum workshops listed at www.npf.org.
	Workshops identified by the host PCC.

You should organize your workshops by tracks.  Some workshop tracks available for Professional Certificates include:

	Address Quality
	Intelligent Mail 
	Packing and Shipping
	Mail Center Management
	Nonprofit
	Mail Center Safety and Security
	Colleges and Universities
	Mail Technology
	Mail Production
	Mail Marketing

Workshop Offering:
If your PCC is planning to host an event, you can begin to determine how many workshops you will want to offer by answering the following questions: 

	How many days will the event last?  
	How many customers do you anticipate will attend?  
	What time do you plan to start the event?  
	What time do you plan to end the event?  
	How many rooms will you have available?  
	Will there be exhibits at the event?  
	Will there be food available throughout the event?  

In the example below, the schedule allows for five periods and the event facility provides for two classrooms.  This would permit you to offer two different workshops during each period.  

	9:30am – 10:30am		Period 1
	10:45am – 11:45am		Period 2
	11:45am – 1:00pm		Lunch
	1:00pm – 2:00pm		Period 3
	2:15pm – 3:15pm		Period 4
	3:30pm – 4:30pm		Period 5  

When promoting your certificate program, you will want to make sure that customers can earn a certificate at your one day event.  If this is not achievable, workshops can be offered over a period of time.

Below are the requirements for earning a certificate (one completed workshop equals one credit).  (You will note that, due to the level of knowledge required for the subject, some topics require more credits in order to earn a certificate.):

Sample Certificates				Credits Required
Mail Center Professional 				6 credits
Mail Center Safety & Security				4 credits
Mailpiece Design					4 credits
Periodicals Professional				5 credits

For certificates requiring four or five credits, the workshop topics must relate to the certificate name (i.e., Mailpiece Design, Mail Center Safety and Security, etc.)  Regarding the Mail Center Professional Certificate, the workshops may relate to any mailing industry topic (or some other topic approved by your Executive Board).  For each different workshop completed, the attendees earn one credit.  The National PCC Program Office determined the number of credits to be earned for each certificate type.

To learn more about the certificate program and how to offer it, please visit the national PCC Web site at www.usps.com/pcc and then click on the Professional Certificate Program link, including the standard operating procedure (SOP).

Remember, offering the certificate program satisfies one of the Premier PCC Gold and Silver Level requirements.  For more information about these levels, please visit the National PCC Web site at www.usps.com/pcc and click on the PCC Recognition Programs link.  

P.S.  To ensure continuous improvement in the workshops-in-a-box, we are requesting workshop participants and speakers take a couple of minutes to complete one of the questionnaires listed below:  

	Participant Survey 
http://www.usps.com/nationalpcc/html/ParticipantQuest.htm 

	Presenter Survey 
http://www.usps.com/nationalpcc/html/PresenterQuest.htm 

Don’t delay…start planning for your PCC Professional Certificate Program today!