Which part of the new delivery model is supposed to reduce fatigue?

[Mickeybrowneyes]

Yeah, I'm not sure how easy it is to lapse hours in processing, not as easy as in deliveries I would guess.
I know the union have spoke of getting a grip on these offices that are rotating walks and letters because of deliberate resourcing arrangements as opposed to operational needs.
In reality it is hard to control.
Management used to care about how many parts failures you had.
Now it seems they don't care as long they are rotated.
Very demoralising for staff.
At least when the USO changes and we have the benefits of deal surrounding it the morale may lift.
We will be doing double letters everyday but as least we will know that is how it's structured and planned.
If the overtime rate does increase than that will maybe soften the blow on the really heavy days when you need to extend to complete.

[Londonsburning]

Yeah, I'm not sure how easy it is to lapse hours in processing, not as easy as in deliveries I would guess.
I know the union have spoke of getting a grip on these offices that are rotating walks and letters because of deliberate resourcing arrangements as opposed to operational needs.
In reality it is hard to control.
Management used to care about how many parts failures you had.
Now it seems they don't care as long they are rotated.
Very demoralising for staff.
At least when the USO changes and we have the benefits of deal surrounding it the morale may lift.
We will be doing double letters everyday but as least we will know that is how it's structured and planned.
If the overtime rate does increase than that will maybe soften the blow on the really heavy days when you need to extend to complete.

Yeah, that is the crux of the problem. If you offered me a job now that was unachievable and demoralising, I would not be taking it.

This is only an issue with the delivery aspect of working for Royal Mail.

[postslippete]

We will be doing double letters everyday but as least we will know that is how it's structured and planned.
If the overtime rate does increase than that will maybe soften the blow on the really heavy days when you need to extend to complete.

Not everyone wants to be forced to do overtime when you have 3 days worth of mail and are already finishing later in the day. If we get any more push back towards earlier finishes then that might certainly help.

[GRS]

Yeah, I'm not sure how easy it is to lapse hours in processing, not as easy as in deliveries I would guess.
I know the union have spoke of getting a grip on these offices that are rotating walks and letters because of deliberate resourcing arrangements as opposed to operational needs.
In reality it is hard to control.
Management used to care about how many parts failures you had.
Now it seems they don't care as long they are rotated.
Very demoralising for staff.
At least when the USO changes and we have the benefits of deal surrounding it the morale may lift.
We will be doing double letters everyday but as least we will know that is how it's structured and planned.
If the overtime rate does increase than that will maybe soften the blow on the really heavy days when you need to extend to complete.

Trouble is it won’t be structured & planned. If we’re doing 3 across 4 what happens the minute 1 or even worse 2 of the 3 go down. You won’t know if you’re coming or going rotating across 4 duties on your own!!! There won’t be any planning for this in a revision as everything is run on such tight margins that there is simply no resource to deal with any such case - much as it is now hence why DOs are in such a mess.
I’ve heard a few people saying “ oh it’ll be much better once we get this new way of working in”. Where have you all been the last few years - nothing RM introduces is for the better either for the customer or the staff. It will be a massive Cluster F**k, a real s**t show that is going to finish the business & certainly it’s staff off!!

[Londonsburning]

Yeah, I'm not sure how easy it is to lapse hours in processing, not as easy as in deliveries I would guess.
I know the union have spoke of getting a grip on these offices that are rotating walks and letters because of deliberate resourcing arrangements as opposed to operational needs.
In reality it is hard to control.
Management used to care about how many parts failures you had.
Now it seems they don't care as long they are rotated.
Very demoralising for staff.
At least when the USO changes and we have the benefits of deal surrounding it the morale may lift.
We will be doing double letters everyday but as least we will know that is how it's structured and planned.
If the overtime rate does increase than that will maybe soften the blow on the really heavy days when you need to extend to complete.

Trouble is it won’t be structured & planned. If we’re doing 3 across 4 what happens the minute 1 or even worse 2 of the 3 go down. You won’t know if you’re coming or going rotating across 4 duties on your own!!! There won’t be any planning for this in a revision as everything is run on such tight margins that there is simply no resource to deal with any such case - much as it is now hence why DOs are in such a mess.

But it looks good on paper and that's all these clueless pen pushers care about.

[Mickeybrowneyes]

Yeah, I'm not sure how easy it is to lapse hours in processing, not as easy as in deliveries I would guess.
I know the union have spoke of getting a grip on these offices that are rotating walks and letters because of deliberate resourcing arrangements as opposed to operational needs.
In reality it is hard to control.
Management used to care about how many parts failures you had.
Now it seems they don't care as long they are rotated.
Very demoralising for staff.
At least when the USO changes and we have the benefits of deal surrounding it the morale may lift.
We will be doing double letters everyday but as least we will know that is how it's structured and planned.
If the overtime rate does increase than that will maybe soften the blow on the really heavy days when you need to extend to complete.

Trouble is it won’t be structured & planned. If we’re doing 3 across 4 what happens the minute 1 or even worse 2 of the 3 go down. You won’t know if you’re coming or going rotating across 4 duties on your own!!! There won’t be any planning for this in a revision as everything is run on such tight margins that there is simply no resource to deal with any such case - much as it is now hence why DOs are in such a mess.
I’ve heard a few people saying “ oh it’ll be much better once we get this new way of working in”. Where have you all been the last few years - nothing RM introduces is for the better either for the customer or the staff. It will be a massive Cluster F**k, a real s**t show that is going to finish the business & certainly it’s staff off!!

You make a fair point.
I'm not sure how they are going to deal with high sick periods and cut offs.
If the mail isn't going out on a CDV because of this then it's not due out again for another couple of days.
Its could spiral quickly.
However it's the biggest change of the USO in modern times so they will be cracks and teething problems, maybe for a couple of years but hopefully the changes will give us the better pay and work life balance.
Change is inevitable and the union are working hard to preserve jobs and improve our ts and cs.
It is allot less drastic change to the USO than most of Europe.
Need to keep that in mind.

[postslippete]

Trouble is it won’t be structured & planned. If we’re doing 3 across 4 what happens the minute 1 or even worse 2 of the 3 go down. You won’t know if you’re coming or going rotating across 4 duties on your own!!! There won’t be any planning for this in a revision as everything is run on such tight margins that there is simply no resource to deal with any such case - much as it is now hence why DOs are in such a mess.
I’ve heard a few people saying “ oh it’ll be much better once we get this new way of working in”. Where have you all been the last few years - nothing RM introduces is for the better either for the customer or the staff. It will be a massive Cluster F**k, a real s**t show that is going to finish the business & certainly it’s staff off!!

These are exactly my thoughts! Mickey makes the point about better pay and work life balance which is why I mentioned about those who don't want to extend to complete. If anyone is working a longer day on a 4 day week, why on earth would they want to extend to complete and finish even later in the day? This is the problem with the proposed 4 day weeks as you would be expected to do a longer delivery span.

Sure, the company should be offering a better overtime rate and they will probably need to if they have to resort to using the agency more on deliveries as otherwise they will end up costing more to the business.

[norris9]

The company need to go to a job and finish setup.

Duties should be setup so they are completable within a certain hour each day, ie. 2pm-3pm for 95% of the year. You go home when you finish. You can cut off on the rare occasions the work is so heavy that it would take you past 3pm. Your duty should average close to a 2.30pm finish throughout the year and that's essentially when you are paid up to. It's sod's law if you join the company at the beginning of the busy season and quit at the end of it.

I understand the main problem with this is.... what happens when your duty isn't covered on your day off and you have extra work. Maybe you should get an extra £20 at the very least. Royal Mail management have failed to cover the duty for which they should have been paying someone around £70... so the postie with the double mail should get a £20 bonus. Royal Mail management should make sure this happens sparingly by keeping their office fully staffed.

Why this is a good setup...

1. Less managers needed.
2. Work gets done 95% of the time meeting the USO requirements.
3. Morale up as you know the score and don't need to have arguments with managers.

[Acca Dacca]

The company need to go to a job and finish setup.

Duties should be setup so they are completable within a certain hour each day, ie. 2pm-3pm for 95% of the year. You go home when you finish. You can cut off on the rare occasions the work is so heavy that it would take you past 3pm. Your duty should average close to a 2.30pm finish throughout the year and that's essentially when you are paid up to. It's sod's law if you join the company at the beginning of the busy season and quit at the end of it.

I understand the main problem with this is.... what happens when your duty isn't covered on your day off and you have extra work. Maybe you should get an extra £20 at the very least. Royal Mail management have failed to cover the duty for which they should have been paying someone around £70... so the postie with the double mail should get a £20 bonus. Royal Mail management should make sure this happens sparingly by keeping their office fully staffed.

Why this is a good setup...

1. Less managers needed.
2. Work gets done 95% of the time meeting the USO requirements.
3. Morale up as you know the score and don't need to have arguments with managers.

Then people come in early, run round their duty and then come the next revision the PDA actuals show that X number of hours need taken out the office, duties are removed, jobs lost and more calls lumped on everybody

I dont see any problem with working your hours, scanning in when your due to start and scanning out when you are due to finish. It actually works in your favour if you make it so.

[Mickeybrowneyes]

Trouble is it won’t be structured & planned. If we’re doing 3 across 4 what happens the minute 1 or even worse 2 of the 3 go down. You won’t know if you’re coming or going rotating across 4 duties on your own!!! There won’t be any planning for this in a revision as everything is run on such tight margins that there is simply no resource to deal with any such case - much as it is now hence why DOs are in such a mess.
I’ve heard a few people saying “ oh it’ll be much better once we get this new way of working in”. Where have you all been the last few years - nothing RM introduces is for the better either for the customer or the staff. It will be a massive Cluster F**k, a real s**t show that is going to finish the business & certainly it’s staff off!!

These are exactly my thoughts! Mickey makes the point about better pay and work life balance which is why I mentioned about those who don't want to extend to complete. If anyone is working a longer day on a 4 day week, why on earth would they want to extend to complete and finish even later in the day? This is the problem with the proposed 4 day weeks as you would be expected to do a longer delivery span.

Sure, the company should be offering a better overtime rate and they will probably need to if they have to resort to using the agency more on deliveries as otherwise they will end up costing more to the business.

You don't have to commit to deliver but for some people earning time on a quarter on overtime rates would give them incentive to earn an extra few bob.
They should make the duties achievable to start with, that is the problem.
They manipulate the PDA data to suit their narrative around lapsing and revisions.
They want everyone finishing on their time but also bang on about maintaining quality.
It is impossible to strike that balance.
Unless you lock the doors until the start time and force people to take a break you will always get discrepancies in the data.
They never account for the data created by people carving up the job.
Just the early finishes.
Then they hammer the duties and quality nosedives.
It has ruined the job on deliveries.
It's royal mail's modelling that has created this and the way the collate the data.
Infighting in offices happens between staff about ways of working but royal mail need to take responsibility for it really.

[mjd24]

The company need to go to a job and finish setup.

Duties should be setup so they are completable within a certain hour each day, ie. 2pm-3pm for 95% of the year. You go home when you finish. You can cut off on the rare occasions the work is so heavy that it would take you past 3pm. Your duty should average close to a 2.30pm finish throughout the year and that's essentially when you are paid up to. It's sod's law if you join the company at the beginning of the busy season and quit at the end of it.

I understand the main problem with this is.... what happens when your duty isn't covered on your day off and you have extra work. Maybe you should get an extra £20 at the very least. Royal Mail management have failed to cover the duty for which they should have been paying someone around £70... so the postie with the double mail should get a £20 bonus. Royal Mail management should make sure this happens sparingly by keeping their office fully staffed.

Why this is a good setup...

1. Less managers needed.
2. Work gets done 95% of the time meeting the USO requirements.
3. Morale up as you know the score and don't need to have arguments with managers.

Very imaginative Norris.

[GRS]

Trouble is it won’t be structured & planned. If we’re doing 3 across 4 what happens the minute 1 or even worse 2 of the 3 go down. You won’t know if you’re coming or going rotating across 4 duties on your own!!! There won’t be any planning for this in a revision as everything is run on such tight margins that there is simply no resource to deal with any such case - much as it is now hence why DOs are in such a mess.
I’ve heard a few people saying “ oh it’ll be much better once we get this new way of working in”. Where have you all been the last few years - nothing RM introduces is for the better either for the customer or the staff. It will be a massive Cluster F**k, a real s**t show that is going to finish the business & certainly it’s staff off!!

These are exactly my thoughts! Mickey makes the point about better pay and work life balance which is why I mentioned about those who don't want to extend to complete. If anyone is working a longer day on a 4 day week, why on earth would they want to extend to complete and finish even later in the day? This is the problem with the proposed 4 day weeks as you would be expected to do a longer delivery span.

Sure, the company should be offering a better overtime rate and they will probably need to if they have to resort to using the agency more on deliveries as otherwise they will end up costing more to the business.

You don't have to commit to deliver but for some people earning time on a quarter on overtime rates would give them incentive to earn an extra few bob.
They should make the duties achievable to start with, that is the problem.
They manipulate the PDA data to suit their narrative around lapsing and revisions.
They want everyone finishing on their time but also bang on about maintaining quality.
It is impossible to strike that balance.
Unless you lock the doors until the start time and force people to take a break you will always get discrepancies in the data.
They never account for the data created by people carving up the job.
Just the early finishes.
Then they hammer the duties and quality nosedives.
It has ruined the job on deliveries.
It's royal mail's modelling that has created this and the way the collate the data.
Infighting in offices happens between staff about ways of working but royal mail need to take responsibility for it really.

As you say RM manipulate the data to suit their own narrative. One example of this is the coloured charts that have been appearing weekly on our wall detailing stopping times on delivery. For anyone who hasn’t seen this it list all the duties in the office then basically shows daily how many minutes over your meal time allowance you were stopped for on any given day. The big problem with this is it shows for example Wednesday 12:00 minutes so you are asked why you were parked up for an extra 12 minutes and so on. What this data doesn’t do is break down each stoppage to show how you got to 12 minutes, it just presents it as a block amount so then you get the manager saying “ you’ve got time to do some lapsing”!! For example today I had an age verification item so by the time the occupier got to the door, the dog jumped all over the 3 parcels on the floor, I explained that I needed a year of birth & why, filled in the details, took a pic, listened to their explanation of what the item was & why it needed age verification, got the parcels from under the dog & finally left I reckon I’d been there at least 3 or 4 minutes. Start adding in any other brief stoppages on the way round (P739 etc etc) then your minutes start clocking up.
So a block amount of minutes being presented is actually false data that is being used against you. One of the biggest issues I have with the job nowadays is that I feel like I’m being criminalised by this sort of data yet I’m doing absolutely nothing wrong but just going about my job to the best of my ability.

[Mickeybrowneyes]

Trouble is it won’t be structured & planned. If we’re doing 3 across 4 what happens the minute 1 or even worse 2 of the 3 go down. You won’t know if you’re coming or going rotating across 4 duties on your own!!! There won’t be any planning for this in a revision as everything is run on such tight margins that there is simply no resource to deal with any such case - much as it is now hence why DOs are in such a mess.
I’ve heard a few people saying “ oh it’ll be much better once we get this new way of working in”. Where have you all been the last few years - nothing RM introduces is for the better either for the customer or the staff. It will be a massive Cluster F**k, a real s**t show that is going to finish the business & certainly it’s staff off!!

These are exactly my thoughts! Mickey makes the point about better pay and work life balance which is why I mentioned about those who don't want to extend to complete. If anyone is working a longer day on a 4 day week, why on earth would they want to extend to complete and finish even later in the day? This is the problem with the proposed 4 day weeks as you would be expected to do a longer delivery span.

Sure, the company should be offering a better overtime rate and they will probably need to if they have to resort to using the agency more on deliveries as otherwise they will end up costing more to the business.

You don't have to commit to deliver but for some people earning time on a quarter on overtime rates would give them incentive to earn an extra few bob.
They should make the duties achievable to start with, that is the problem.
They manipulate the PDA data to suit their narrative around lapsing and revisions.
They want everyone finishing on their time but also bang on about maintaining quality.
It is impossible to strike that balance.
Unless you lock the doors until the start time and force people to take a break you will always get discrepancies in the data.
They never account for the data created by people carving up the job.
Just the early finishes.
Then they hammer the duties and quality nosedives.
It has ruined the job on deliveries.
It's royal mail's modelling that has created this and the way the collate the data.
Infighting in offices happens between staff about ways of working but royal mail need to take responsibility for it really.

As you say RM manipulate the data to suit their own narrative. One example of this is the coloured charts that have been appearing weekly on our wall detailing stopping times on delivery. For anyone who hasn’t seen this it list all the duties in the office then basically shows daily how many minutes over your meal time allowance you were stopped for on any given day. The big problem with this is it shows for example Wednesday 12:00 minutes so you are asked why you were parked up for an extra 12 minutes and so on. What this data doesn’t do is break down each stoppage to show how you got to 12 minutes, it just presents it as a block amount so then you get the manager saying “ you’ve got time to do some lapsing”!! For example today I had an age verification item so by the time the occupier got to the door, the dog jumped all over the 3 parcels on the floor, I explained that I needed a year of birth & why, filled in the details, took a pic, listened to their explanation of what the item was & why it needed age verification, got the parcels from under the dog & finally left I reckon I’d been there at least 3 or 4 minutes. Start adding in any other brief stoppages on the way round (P739 etc etc) then your minutes start clocking up.
So a block amount of minutes being presented is actually false data that is being used against you. One of the biggest issues I have with the job nowadays is that I feel like I’m being criminalised by this sort of data yet I’m doing absolutely nothing wrong but just going about my job to the best of my ability.

Yeah, it's a terrible environment to work under and it's what the union needs to address more than anything.
Every last minute is scrutinised and at times the data isn't correct.
In the hands of an over eager manager it's dangerous.
I've seen trimble reports that are inaccurate because they record roads that run parallel at differing speeds.
We should use this to our advantage though.
If you can prove one bit of data is inaccurate then no bit of data can be taken as gospel.
It's micromanaging on steroids.
It's not from local managers. It's from people who have never done the job.
Demoralising though, especially when allot of us have work our socks off for this company for years.

[postslippete]

Are RM supposed to be using this data to micro-manage people? Didn't the CWU have a national agreement covering the use of PDA actuals especially as regarding tracking individuals or used as some form of performance management?

What I don't understand is how they can be used to provide a fair, manageable and achievable workload when RM has a workforce where some guys are in their late 60s and others in their late teens. RM are slowly creeping this technology into the workplace.

[Barnacle]

Trouble is it won’t be structured & planned. If we’re doing 3 across 4 what happens the minute 1 or even worse 2 of the 3 go down. You won’t know if you’re coming or going rotating across 4 duties on your own!!! There won’t be any planning for this in a revision as everything is run on such tight margins that there is simply no resource to deal with any such case - much as it is now hence why DOs are in such a mess.
I’ve heard a few people saying “ oh it’ll be much better once we get this new way of working in”. Where have you all been the last few years - nothing RM introduces is for the better either for the customer or the staff. It will be a massive Cluster F**k, a real s**t show that is going to finish the business & certainly it’s staff off!!

These are exactly my thoughts! Mickey makes the point about better pay and work life balance which is why I mentioned about those who don't want to extend to complete. If anyone is working a longer day on a 4 day week, why on earth would they want to extend to complete and finish even later in the day? This is the problem with the proposed 4 day weeks as you would be expected to do a longer delivery span.

Sure, the company should be offering a better overtime rate and they will probably need to if they have to resort to using the agency more on deliveries as otherwise they will end up costing more to the business.

You don't have to commit to deliver but for some people earning time on a quarter on overtime rates would give them incentive to earn an extra few bob.
They should make the duties achievable to start with, that is the problem.
They manipulate the PDA data to suit their narrative around lapsing and revisions.
They want everyone finishing on their time but also bang on about maintaining quality.
It is impossible to strike that balance.
Unless you lock the doors until the start time and force people to take a break you will always get discrepancies in the data.
They never account for the data created by people carving up the job.
Just the early finishes.
Then they hammer the duties and quality nosedives.
It has ruined the job on deliveries.
It's royal mail's modelling that has created this and the way the collate the data.
Infighting in offices happens between staff about ways of working but royal mail need to take responsibility for it really.

As you say RM manipulate the data to suit their own narrative. One example of this is the coloured charts that have been appearing weekly on our wall detailing stopping times on delivery. For anyone who hasn’t seen this it list all the duties in the office then basically shows daily how many minutes over your meal time allowance you were stopped for on any given day. The big problem with this is it shows for example Wednesday 12:00 minutes so you are asked why you were parked up for an extra 12 minutes and so on. What this data doesn’t do is break down each stoppage to show how you got to 12 minutes, it just presents it as a block amount so then you get the manager saying “ you’ve got time to do some lapsing”!! For example today I had an age verification item so by the time the occupier got to the door, the dog jumped all over the 3 parcels on the floor, I explained that I needed a year of birth & why, filled in the details, took a pic, listened to their explanation of what the item was & why it needed age verification, got the parcels from under the dog & finally left I reckon I’d been there at least 3 or 4 minutes. Start adding in any other brief stoppages on the way round (P739 etc etc) then your minutes start clocking up.
So a block amount of minutes being presented is actually false data that is being used against you. One of the biggest issues I have with the job nowadays is that I feel like I’m being criminalised by this sort of data yet I’m doing absolutely nothing wrong but just going about my job to the best of my ability.

They aren’t actually allowed to use and publicly display the info like this. This little display ought to be taken down. The area union rep should be shaken awake and made to make them remove it.