Supervisor Workload Credits—Understanding the Process
By Jimmy Warden
New York Area Vice President
Over the past several months, the Postal Service has placed greater emphasis on supervisor workload credits (SWCs). The SWCs formula solely determines the supervisor Customer Service staffing for post offices, stations and branches. All postmasters and managers, including NAPS branch presidents, should be fully aware of how the SWCs process works. This includes understanding the rules, zone of tolerance (ZOT) and how to calculate the exact EAS supervisor staffing based on the current SWCs formula.
On a monthly basis, Postal Headquarters updates SWCs for all post offices, stations and branches in the country. The update usually is posted on the postal Blue page within the first three days of each month. This report, the “Automated SWCs,” pulls the data from USPS WebCOINS.
All postmasters and managers must ensure the data in WebCOINS is accurate; don’t assume it is. NAPS has discovered many discrepancies between the actual staffing in an office versus the data in WebCOINS. For example, a craft employee works at one post office, but their official USPS Form 50 has them assigned to another post office. The post office where the craft employee physically works will not receive credit on the SWCs worksheet for this employee.
Therefore, a request must be made to the respective district Human Resources manager to place the employee in the correct USPS finance number in which the employee works. This will ensure the correct office will receive the supervisor workload credit. It’s best to first contact the respective district complement coordinator to have any irregularities in craft complement corrected.
Again, every postmaster, manager and NAPS branch president should familiarize themselves with the SWCs instructions, as well as review their respective SWCs on a monthly basis. It takes only 45 to 60 seconds to open the “Automated SWCs” and review your post office, station or branch.
This report will show you the “on rolls” staffing, as well as staffing at a Finance Station or remotely managed post office (RMPO). Upon reviewing, if your office is annotated to lose a supervisor position or fall in the ZOT, the postmaster or manager should perform a manual SWCs worksheet.
When performing a manual worksheet, review the nine-page SWCs instructions and print a blank manual SWCs worksheet from the NAPS website at www.naps.org. From the website, click the “Members” tab to view the drop-down box, then click on “Forms & Documents.” Scroll down the webpage to find the SWCs section, instructions and manual worksheet. The purpose of performing a manual SWCs worksheet is to ensure all the craft staffing assigned to your office is counted.
The manual worksheet has a green section. Ensure that, if your office has a detached USPS finance station or RMPO, employees are being counted in this section. Directly under the green section is a blue section. In this section, ensure you count authorized vacancies. The job number correlating to the vacancy also must be included. An authorized vacancy is counted on the SWCs worksheet. Should a CCA, PSE or MHA be hired specifically to temporarily cover a vacancy, they are not counted on the SWCs worksheet because it would be double-counting. For further clarification, refer to the SWCs instructions relating to authorized vacancies and also the ZOT.
When completing a manual SWCs worksheet, local knowledge (postmaster/manager) is needed. A manual SWCs worksheet only can be completed properly with local knowledge of the operation pertaining to craft staffing. Many times, a NAPS Executive Board SWCs Committee member is asked to assist a post office with their SWCs worksheet. However, when you ask someone to help, they only can analyze the data based on the information given.
They may not be aware of authorized vacancies or finance stations/RMPOs that should be mapped to the lead office/station because they do not have that local knowledge. However, the person helping may ask questions that will enable the manual SWCs worksheet to be accurate.
Another aspect of SWCs addressed in the nine-page instructions is how an extra supervisor, Customer Service (SCS) position can be earned. The SWCs “Business Rule” is based on earned SCS position totals at the Lead Installation level. Therefore, for every 35 earned SCSs, the Lead Finance office is authorized one additional SCS. The calculation rule is to “round down.”
These additional SCS positions are used at the discretion of the installation head, but it is expected that leave replacement will be primary. An exception credit formula is applied to multi-station cities to provide additional SCS staffing based on the number of earned SCS positions in the installation.
NAPS has SWCs subject-matter experts whom you may contact if you need help or have any questions. NAPS’ Executive Board SWCs Committee members:
As a point of information, if you have access to the USPS Blue page, you can access through the Complement Management link the SWCs Auto Worksheet, as well as other EAS staffing tools that include postmaster level (PS 150), SDO/MDO staffing and station manager level (WSC).
The SWCs study performed by the NAPS Executive Board SWCs Committee and the Postal Service is pending consideration. Stay safe!
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