Celebrating Success

Katy Hartland, Lead ULR at Gloucestershire Amal Branch, spoke to Stroud Delivery Office Lead COM (Customer Operations Manager), Keith Mace about his personal experiences of Union Learning from his days as a part-time postman in Dursley.

Keith started working for Royal Mail in 2013 as a part-time postie. Soon after he joined, the Lead ULR visited Dursley Delivery Office promoting courses and Keith decided to try one of the NVQ’s. Having successfully completed his first Level 2 NVQ in Business Administration, he then went on to do an NVQ in Team Leadership.

Keith became a cover manager before quickly being made up to the substantive role. He is now the Lead COM in Stroud Delivery Office in charge of over 100 staff and has regularly covered the OPL (Operations Performance Leader) role for Gloucestershire and North Bristol.

Asking why he had decided to take up learning through the CWU, Keith told me that he was never really educationally minded at school, and it was the different approach and different ways of working and learning that had appealed to him.

Does he think it help his career? “Yes, I really enjoyed it. I think when it comes to management there’s different ways of learning how to manage strategic stuff, and any sort of learning around how to progress as an individual is always positive. Along with the other things I did, it shows I was trying to progress, personally, and in work; it definitely helped. If one of my OPG’s comes up to me and is doing this and doing that [learning], it definitely makes you think, right, this person wants to progress, what can we do to support them?”

I asked if he would recommend learning through the union? “Yes, we’re trying to encourage it. Trying to get that personal growth in the Office which is what we’re trying to encourage. I highly recommend it! We need to encourage it more and get more people doing it. It’s definitely a worthwhile thing; Do it!”.

Keith actively encourages his staff to get involved with Union Learning and promotes the courses and learning activities in work time listening and learning sessions.

He is currently considering whether to do a level 5 qualification through Royal Mail and we wish him the best of luck!