UPS Community Internship Program (CIP) Backgrounder
Feeding the homeless, repairing homes and tutoring inmates are not the activities
you would typically find in a training course for senior level managers - except
at UPS.
Founded in 1968, the Community Internship Program (CIP) is an intense management
training course designed to immerse senior level executives in the community,
exposing them to a variety of social and economic challenges facing today's
workforce. While in the program, managers leave their jobs and families to spend
a month living and working in one of four CIP sites run by local non-profit
agencies. Internship sites are located in New York City, N.Y., Chattanooga, Tenn., McAllen, Texas and San Francisco, Calif.
The program helps managers enhance their problem-solving skills and develop
a greater sensitivity towards their employees. Managers become heavily involved
in the work of the non-profit agencies and experience social problems - poverty,
homelessness, illiteracy, drug dependency and alcoholism - firsthand. Typical
activities include serving meals to the homeless, helping rid an inner city
community of drug paraphernalia, building houses for immigrants and helping
teachers manage classrooms of children.
Managers become exposed to situations they would rarely encounter in corporate
America or learn about in the classroom - issues their employees might experience
in their day-to-day lives. Managers continue to receive their salary while on
assignment.
CIP aids UPS in developing and strengthening its managers, while helping to
improve the communities where its employees live and work. After completing
four weeks of "hands-on" community service and learning projects, UPS managers
leave with a sense of accomplishment, community involvement and with a greater
sensitivity to those less fortunate. John Puff, an intern from the 1998 program,
put the experience in his own words: The internship "made me a better person
and a better manager. I've never been exposed to anything like it in my life."
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