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Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Postal workers discussion forum. Discuss the day to day life in a Blue Shirt.

Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Yes
317
97%
No
11
3%
 
Total votes: 328

norris9
Posts: 2681
Joined: 27 Feb 2019, 17:32
Gender: Female

Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by norris9 »

Excluding any strikes, has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

For a long while now have you had to deliver 2 days mail regularly. ie. After you come back from your day off do you have to also deliver yesterday's mail?

The public should know what poor service Simon Thompson is providing them. He purposefully understaffs us...
Dannybuca
Posts: 49
Joined: 02 Jul 2018, 06:18
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by Dannybuca »

For the majority of the time, yes. Not to say that sickness levels haven't been high too but I believe our vacancies have been close to or in low double figures for as long as I can remember.
noggin1969
Posts: 1321
Joined: 13 Oct 2009, 17:28
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by noggin1969 »

Our
Last edited by noggin1969 on 05 Feb 2024, 15:43, edited 1 time in total.
denhamhoop
MAIL CENTRES/PROCESSING
Posts: 303
Joined: 07 Oct 2010, 19:53
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by denhamhoop »

I would imagine we are understaffed by the fact every single night of the week Greenford MC has somewhere between 10 and 30 Casual Staff working either 6 or 7 hours a night with about another 10 PT staff working 6 to 7 hours on 4 nights a week
SimonLS
Posts: 28
Joined: 21 Nov 2022, 14:13
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by SimonLS »

I’ve been in my MC for a while as agency and until the Xmas temps started there’s always been three to ten of us most days. Now we don’t get anything but that’s another story.
Ad_bee
Posts: 129
Joined: 09 Dec 2019, 14:03
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by Ad_bee »

My D.O implemented every RM policy early and with immediate effect and it was Autumn 2018 when we first witnessed the policy of leaving duties undone. Wether or not it was recorded as such, was policy or not we'll never know but that's when deliberate understaffing began in our D.O.

At the time they were still working the 'policy' of B&H re conduct threats, failing to pay overtime worked and not recording failed duties etc etc so it was quite stressful but Covid eventually saved the day when they couldn't gaslight and bullshit their way out of reality any more.

Lest we forget that Covid was also a blessing for RM's asset-strip exercise since they referred to the understaffing situation as "The new normal".

It depends upon what the actual RM policy is however, since if the policy is a two day, 'rolling' delivery-span for clearing each duty then with their creative-accounting and falsified statistics they could claim a good deal of overstaffing. Our office had a pointless table-top revision which apparently achieved nothing but a further claim that hundreds more hours coud be dispensed with whilst the mail piled higher and higher (the local rat population began to move-in in 2020...nice warm home with plenty of nesting materials) then the pseudo-statistition at the top and his merry bunch of failed-postie>failed-manager 'planners' could, and probably will, claim overstaffing, thus giving Simons bum a good tickle as he 'Right-sizes' the operation.
enskied
Posts: 1877
Joined: 16 Aug 2013, 17:14
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by enskied »

We have been understaffed for years, failures well before COVID. Our walks are between 900 to 1200 points per duty and new builds added almost bi monthly.

50% of the mail left in daily and bags still returned.
SpacePhoenix
MAIL CENTRES/PROCESSING
Posts: 12140
Joined: 12 Nov 2008, 17:03
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by SpacePhoenix »

Some nights RM staff can be outnumbered by causals/agency
norris9
Posts: 2681
Joined: 27 Feb 2019, 17:32
Gender: Female

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by norris9 »

As we can see from this poll the public aren't getting deliveries when they should be and this has been happening for a while. Royal Mail are understaffing us and have been since way back in the last financial year when they made £760mil+ profits.

People aren't getting important documents when they should.

People aren't getting standard parcels when they should.

People running businesses aren't getting the service they paid for.

ebay businesses can be ruined by this kind of thing as ebay will punish sellers if items aren't delivered on time.

and so on.....


It's a disgrace!
Jimbo
Posts: 8
Joined: 21 Mar 2007, 14:35
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by Jimbo »

Our DO had about 30 staff two years ago but now it's down to 19. Walks are failing every day, tracked are being left undelivered and the manager has been told he has to cut even more hours out of the office.
SpacePhoenix
MAIL CENTRES/PROCESSING
Posts: 12140
Joined: 12 Nov 2008, 17:03
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by SpacePhoenix »

Jimbo wrote:
26 Nov 2022, 07:39
Our DO had about 30 staff two years ago but now it's down to 19. Walks are failing every day, tracked are being left undelivered and the manager has been told he has to cut even more hours out of the office.
What's the approx % increase of DPs across all walks combined from when there was 30 walks till now?
k979aaa
Posts: 12578
Joined: 03 Sep 2007, 19:14
Gender: Male
Location: THE NORTH

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by k979aaa »

If we are that well staffed why today do we have whole walks not going out this is not covid related but pure greed on the part of the CEO!
sarky
Posts: 9
Joined: 16 Oct 2020, 17:39
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by sarky »

10% of duties vacant has been like it for years and years
PorkPie
Posts: 42
Joined: 07 Feb 2011, 23:14
Gender: Male

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by PorkPie »

We've been understaffed for the majority of this year .. leavers generally not being replaced .. long term sickness for mental health and injuries sustained in the workplace .. new starters lasting barely a week in most cases surprised by the physicality of the work .. when you do get a new starter / agency or casual you might get one half decent one out of every three or four that walk through the door .. and that's probably me being generous .. this has resulted in the six day USO being removed by default which I'm sure the company are well aware of but clearly the regulator and the Government are not .. walks now knowingly staffed every other day in some cases .. experienced posties leaving mail and/or non-tracked behind as the rounds have just got too big as we are expected to absorb new-build estates with no concessions .. it's a good job I love my work.
fb1969
EX ROYAL MAIL
Posts: 1693
Joined: 29 Aug 2012, 08:38
Gender: Male
Location: hiding on the backstreets

Re: Has your mail centre/delivery office been understaffed for a long time?

Post by fb1969 »

The office I left in August now has 17 vacancies for 70 delivery duties, no one has been recruited for over a year.

It will probably clear thanks to the 40+ people working their day off every week, the pressure period rosters have no floats as so many are working their day off and the few who don't work it will get double mail the following day. While I understand people need the money, all the time that amount of people work their day off the company will win every battle.
Royal Mail
failing the workforce, failing the public and deliberately failing mail on a daily basis for too many years.