Video of Sheffield depot shows just how busy Royal Mail is ahead of Christmas

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.thestar.co.uk/lifestyle/chr ... as-3065836

A video taken inside Royal Mail’s Sheffield depot shows just how busy it is ahead of Christmas after customers were warned of possible delays.

Delivery driver Josh Fox took the footage on social media on Thursday evening – and said the huge depot was so full he was unable to unload his drop-off.

Josh said: “If anything is a bit late from Royal Mail just have a little consideration, this is currently their Sheffield depot. It's that full I can't even unload.

"Royal Mail are doing their absolute best. All staff including managers are on their feet working flat out. This is all a combination of Covid, Christmas and Black Friday so please just be patient and understanding.”

Royal Mail has said strict Covid-19 restrictions and self-isolating staff have left it struggling to handle "exceptionally high volumes" of post this year. The firm has hired 33,000 seasonal workers to cope with demand, but delays continue to mount.

[olilew]

Once again Christmas has caught them out! Us 'troops on the ground' have been telling them for the last 6 months you need to staff up and get more vans for Christmas because if we carry on as we are it will be a disaster. But no, they know best and look at us now!

[SpacePhoenix]

Once again Christmas has caught them out! Us 'troops on the ground' have been telling them for the last 6 months you need to staff up and get more vans for Christmas because if we carry on as we are it will be a disaster. But no, they know best and look at us now!

There's probably a national shortage of hire vans. I've heard that there's a national shortage of artics (don't know if it's tractor units only, trailers only or whole artics). For RM to have more staff in at DOs, it means that either some have to meet the vans out in the field (and need to have the correct car insurance) or some need to work in the afternoon/early evening. The only other alternative is for everyone to go back to van sharing

[Celgar]

We only have two teams of van sharing in terms of the pre-Covid way of doing things. I was expecting ours to decide to go back to van sharing but it didn't happen. Two of the posties didn't want to go back to it because of maybe catching Covid so they have a van each. On the other team one postie uses the van, and tends to do more work, while the other one uses their car probably without the relevant insurance. The van is used as storage for the mail I think.

[rambo1]

Once again Christmas has caught them out! Us 'troops on the ground' have been telling them for the last 6 months you need to staff up and get more vans for Christmas because if we carry on as we are it will be a disaster. But no, they know best and look at us now!

There's probably a national shortage of hire vans. I've heard that there's a national shortage of artics (don't know if it's tractor units only, trailers only or whole artics). For RM to have more staff in at DOs, it means that either some have to meet the vans out in the field (and need to have the correct car insurance) or some need to work in the afternoon/early evening. The only other alternative is for everyone to go back to van sharing

So why didn't they have a recruitment drive for owner van drivers to come in and deliver packets? Was talking to a DPD driver the other day, asked if he was busy, he replied nah, they've hired more van drivers and he's getting less money than normal! Forward thinking company vs head in the sand do it on a shoestring RMG. How many of these big companies contracts are we going to lose after letting them down?

[k979aaa]

Just in time managers everything just in the nick of time hopefully they will get their p45 just in time for Christmas so they will be out the door by the new year!

[Lapzio]

Who would of guessed it would be really bust at christmas during a pandemic , 4 months of exhaustive planning lol , its a 4 second plan err let me think for 4 months or 4 seconds more staff , more vans and more pda's, there you go and im just a thick postman , the phase a drunken gathering in a brewery springs to mind

[SpacePhoenix]

Who would of guessed it would be really bust at christmas during a pandemic , 4 months of exhaustive planning lol , its a 4 second plan err let me think for 4 months or 4 seconds more staff , more vans and more pda's, there you go and im just a thick postman , the phase a drunken gathering in a brewery springs to mind

On some shifts we have absolutely every PDA in use, so even with spare batteries there's the potential for us to run out of PDAs that work

[shipmaster122]

Ah this explains why our Tracked and SDs are being scanned into Sheffield MC about 2-4 days behind!

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