LTB 352/20 Joint Statement - Royal Mail Group and the CWU :Pt 2

[Grumpyoldmailman]

I still always return to these thoughts and questions:

If a postie is regularly finishing lets say 1 hour early, but that duty has been thoroughly planned and said to be just right . . .

A) do we take into account that this postie might be very fast/productive at his/her job

B) do we take into account that this postie has chosen not to use his/her trolley, which we would most agree adds a fair bit of time to a delivery (maybe even taking them to their finish time and even beyond on certain days)

C) or do we simply add more onto this delivery, knowing that we might be making this postie do more work than others based on the above factors.

Surely the fairest/easiest solution is to plan the rounds with as much care as possible, and then accept that us posties are human and our paces etc will vary.

I just think that the way things are going with lapsing lapsing lapsing and people being sent back out or not allowed to leave the DO etc . . . its just such a messy way of doing things and creates so much stress and anger and conflict and in reality how much money does/will it save. Surely there will come a point when we will all just start to ease our pace a bit, or stop feeling as though we have to rush around to get the extra lapsing done.

“Youve got to accept youre going to be working your full hours going forward” is something we regularly get told. Ok then, but that could backfire in a big way if we more and more start leaving stuff/cutting off. I feel like we are all working at a faster pace already than any “minimum standard” they might bring in. Most of us have been sort of programmed to work at a certain pace based on years of job and finish as well as sometimes a fear of not getting it all done in time which results in going faster than you should rather than face the stress of “im gonna struggle today”.

They tried all the above up at ours about 3 years ago, all that happened was people slowed down and cut off plus everyone refused overtime so there was mountains of stuff stacked up. It only lasted 4 days before they changed it back, it took us a good 2 weeks to catch up with the backlog as well it was that bad. The managers are fully aware it’s going to happen again if they try it again but they just have to follow the script from the higher ups.

[Acca Dacca]

I still always return to these thoughts and questions:

If a postie is regularly finishing lets say 1 hour early, but that duty has been thoroughly planned and said to be just right . . .

A) do we take into account that this postie might be very fast/productive at his/her job

B) do we take into account that this postie has chosen not to use his/her trolley, which we would most agree adds a fair bit of time to a delivery (maybe even taking them to their finish time and even beyond on certain days)

C) or do we simply add more onto this delivery, knowing that we might be making this postie do more work than others based on the above factors.

Surely the fairest/easiest solution is to plan the rounds with as much care as possible, and then accept that us posties are human and our paces etc will vary.

I just think that the way things are going with lapsing lapsing lapsing and people being sent back out or not allowed to leave the DO etc . . . its just such a messy way of doing things and creates so much stress and anger and conflict and in reality how much money does/will it save. Surely there will come a point when we will all just start to ease our pace a bit, or stop feeling as though we have to rush around to get the extra lapsing done.

“Youve got to accept youre going to be working your full hours going forward” is something we regularly get told. Ok then, but that could backfire in a big way if we more and more start leaving stuff/cutting off. I feel like we are all working at a faster pace already than any “minimum standard” they might bring in. Most of us have been sort of programmed to work at a certain pace based on years of job and finish as well as sometimes a fear of not getting it all done in time which results in going faster than you should rather than face the stress of “im gonna struggle today”.

If someone is regularly finishing an hour early and they have started on time and taken their breaks, then the round is clearly too short. If the float also comes back an hour early then that confirms it's too short.

Goes for any round if the float + regular posties are finishing early on a regular basis, whether it be by 20mins or 1 hour.

Obviously this should be assessed over a long period. Surely every manager knows what rounds are easy and what rounds are too long, but why nothing is done about it I don't know....

Is it too much of a pain to move the street and numbering labels from one frame to another + have some moaning postie ranting at being given more post? is there some bureaucratic thing in place where post cannot be added to a posties round unless they agree to it?

I don't get it. If all rounds were fairly put together then it would fix so many issues and make the business more efficient and increase profits.

For some reason they are happy for Posties to go over their time on the long rounds and claim excess, while the easier rounds get to go home 20 to 40 minutes early.

It's utter madness.


You can get a good idea of which rounds are too long and which rounds are too short simply by speaking to Posties that get moved around. They will tell you what is too short and what is too long. If you get a lot of the same opinions then you know where to look deeper to see if there are inconsistencies.

I don't think the PDA data is worth using, managers should just speak to Posties.

Yeah good one - lets have us all rat on each other

Teacher, teacher you forgot to give us homework

[SpacePhoenix]

I don't think the PDA data is worth using, managers should just speak to Posties.

Trouble is the postie could potentially be biased, they might no mention that they come in early, run around the walk, etc, PDA data will be more accurate

[norris9]

Yeah good one - lets have us all rat on each other

Teacher, teacher you forgot to give us homework

rat on each other? no idea what you're talking about.

It would just be a common sense discussion to get the rounds more even. Nothing to do with saying "Manager....Bob has an easy round he goes home for 1 hour to have his lunch".

More like...."I find this round the easiest in my float. And this one here is too long".

You would only ask posties about the rounds they have done. Reserves will have a good idea of what's too long and too short. It wouldn't be about asking Jeff, who has never done Herman's round, to give feedback.

Manager's will surely have a very good idea of what is too long and too short anyway, they just never do anything to fix things. It would just make sense to ask Posties too. Posties know the rounds better than managers anyway.

From being a reserve I have a pretty good idea of how rounds could be evened out.

You even out all rounds in the country and god knows how much more efficient this company would become and how much money it would save.

[Sugar]

You would only ask posties about the rounds they have done. Reserves will have a good idea of what's too long and too short. It wouldn't be about asking Jeff, who has never done Herman's round, to give feedback.

Manager's will surely have a very good idea of what is too long and too short anyway, they just never do anything to fix things. It would just make sense to ask Posties too. Posties know the rounds better than managers anyway.

It's all well and good on paper but in reality it never works and never will work till the fundamental basics are adhered to.

No starting before time.

Taking meal relief.

Van checks.

Not overloading bags.

Using a trolley every-time it is possible to do so.

No "jogging" on delivery, stepping over walls, walking across gardens, doorstepping, green binning, signing for things yourself, posting internationals without scanning them, writing notice left cards out before you leave the office. To name a few of the usual corner cutting practises that go on everyday outdoors.

Coming back into the office after delivery.

The list goes on and on and until all that is done and done correctly it's pointless asking anyone which walks are big or small because you'll never get a true picture of the size of any delivery even with pda data.

Cover men and reserves can be the worst for "missorts" which are normally the house(s) tucked out of the way on the furthest point of a road or street and not wanting to do the dead walking to deliver them. More time cut to finish early.

Seen all the scams and until people are stopped from leaving the office till their actual finish time nothing will ever change. Then when they are seen dragging their feet to waste time its up to managers to deal with it. But as we all know managers within rm are pretty p!ss poor at doing the basics right and the running of the company or office is a shambles at the best of times.

Very little changed in my 20 years and I doubt very little will change in the next 20 except deliveries will get bigger and bigger based off p!ss poor data collection, working practises and inept managers. Very little the union can do until the workers actually work as they are supposed to not how the want to to suit their own agendas.

[Woody Guthrie]

I've been involved in all types of revisions some of them using exactly those methods to even out the duties and the only thing you can guarantee is that no two people even reserves will ever agree on how long a duty takes.

An expensive and ultimately futile waste of time and energy trying to 'balance' duties.

[SpacePhoenix]

I'd give it 5 years tops before RM look at some sort of system for the dynamic daily generation of walks based on what's coming into a DO for that day

[POSTMAN]

I remember it well....the memories.

Rest day covers and reserves, "That duty is about 3hrs on a really bad day".
Duty holder, "4hrs plus normally, it can't take no more trust me don't f#####g touch it".
Duty holder after revision completed, You've f#####d that duty up you ###### ### ###### ######## #######".
Resign.
Duty holder " Yeah I'll sign for it....."

Happy days.

[Woody Guthrie]

I'd give it 5 years tops before RM look at some sort of system for the dynamic daily generation of walks based on what's coming into a DO for that day

Not with the current crop of managers.
Dynamic.....

[Munchboii]

I'd give it 5 years tops before RM look at some sort of system for the dynamic daily generation of walks based on what's coming into a DO for that day

Unless letter scanning is going to be a thing then absolutely not. We have sequencing now and even that missorts letters. You can do all the letter sequencing you want but to Royal Mails agony we will always still need letter frames to get the missorts and flats in. Plus all the small large letter packets. In Royal Mails ideal world we would get the sequenced mail straight off the machine and walk out the door to deliver saving hours of prep time. But we know that won't work. Until they can get a machine that sequences flats, letters and large letter packets into a bundle with no missorts then we will always still be on the frames.

Once this GDPR marketing mail reduction settles I can't see letters going down for a while, hospital appointments and court documents will always still needed by post, for example.

[SpacePhoenix]

I'd give it 5 years tops before RM look at some sort of system for the dynamic daily generation of walks based on what's coming into a DO for that day

Unless letter scanning is going to be a thing then absolutely not. We have sequencing now and even that missorts letters. You can do all the letter sequencing you want but to Royal Mails agony we will always still need letter frames to get the missorts and flats in. Plus all the small large letter packets. In Royal Mails ideal world we would get the sequenced mail straight off the machine and walk out the door to deliver saving hours of prep time. But we know that won't work. Until they can get a machine that sequences flats, letters and large letter packets into a bundle with no missorts then we will always still be on the frames.

Once this GDPR marketing mail reduction settles I can't see letters going down for a while, hospital appointments and court documents will always still needed by post, for example.

Missorts will happen whether it's a human or a machine sorting the mail.

There are already machines that can sort and sequence letters and large letters together, I've not idea what the maximum thickness is that they can handle.
Manual letter scanning is kinda possible with something like https://www.solystic.com/manual-sorting-assistance" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Don't know if sequencing of packets will ever be doable but they could probably eventually be sorted to loop level. Upstream mech sorting could get a list of what's coming through then another bit of software could generate the loops

[Munchboii]

I'd give it 5 years tops before RM look at some sort of system for the dynamic daily generation of walks based on what's coming into a DO for that day

Unless letter scanning is going to be a thing then absolutely not. We have sequencing now and even that missorts letters. You can do all the letter sequencing you want but to Royal Mails agony we will always still need letter frames to get the missorts and flats in. Plus all the small large letter packets. In Royal Mails ideal world we would get the sequenced mail straight off the machine and walk out the door to deliver saving hours of prep time. But we know that won't work. Until they can get a machine that sequences flats, letters and large letter packets into a bundle with no missorts then we will always still be on the frames.

Once this GDPR marketing mail reduction settles I can't see letters going down for a while, hospital appointments and court documents will always still needed by post, for example.

Missorts will happen whether it's a human or a machine sorting the mail.

There are already machines that can sort and sequence letters and large letters together, I've not idea what the maximum thickness is that they can handle.
Manual letter scanning is kinda possible with something like https://www.solystic.com/manual-sorting-assistance" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Don't know if sequencing of packets will ever be doable but they could probably eventually be sorted to loop level. Upstream mech sorting could get a list of what's coming through then another bit of software could generate the loops

Its not going to happen within 5 years mate

[Sugar]

I've been involved in all types of revisions some of them using exactly those methods to even out the duties and the only thing you can guarantee is that no two people even reserves will ever agree on how long a duty takes.

An expensive and ultimately futile waste of time and energy trying to 'balance' duties.

Combination of factors but unfortunately in this company you get those that always carve up duties to look good or are downright nasty and constantly whisper in managers ears that such and such's duty is way too short because "they don't do it the right way".

Only place I've ever worked where if you do the job correctly and to a high standard and your knowledge of the job is very high you still get the same pay of some numpty who couldn't give a damn about how many screw ups they do each day and knows sod all in the grand scheme of things.

All it's done is create a selfish none cooperative none team working backstabbing environment. And they wonder why nothing ever improves or changes.