Big increase in recruitment

[postslippete]

I'm not disputing the job is tough, tougher than its ever been, but that's entirely due to your precious 6 day USO making it so.

To my mind the most sensible option is separating the letters and the parcels side of the deliveries and each round receives their letter delivery every other day, that way the letters postie is covering the ground with a more worthwhile volume of letters for each address and doesn't have to deal with the time consuming pkts, likewise the parcels posties can concentrate on just delivering parcels with the hassle of letters as well.

The job is tough because many staff like yourself have left (why, might I ask?) and the ones who remain are having to pick up the slack.

We deliver less letters overall than 20 years ago but our duties are also twice as big. What you have suggested sounds like a sensible option for a business that still wants to cut costs and make yet even more profit. I'm sure it will because our unit actually does what you have suggested. In fact, they often tell us not to deliver any letters if we are not able to deliver all the Tracked

[CarryingMGMT]

I'm not disputing the job is tough, tougher than its ever been, but that's entirely due to your precious 6 day USO making it so.

To my mind the most sensible option is separating the letters and the parcels side of the deliveries and each round receives their letter delivery every other day, that way the letters postie is covering the ground with a more worthwhile volume of letters for each address and doesn't have to deal with the time consuming pkts, likewise the parcels posties can concentrate on just delivering parcels with the hassle of letters as well.

The job is tough because many staff like yourself have left (why, might I ask?) and the ones who remain are having to pick up the slack.

We deliver less letters overall than 20 years ago but our duties are also twice as big. What you have suggested sounds like a sensible option for a business that still wants to cut costs and make yet even more profit. I'm sure it will because our unit actually does what you have suggested. In fact, they often tell us not to deliver any letters if we are not able to deliver all the Tracked

Have you just woken up? My old unit has been on that trajectory for at least a decade now, and surprisingly it's lost the majority of the genuine posties through VR/transfers and people just walking at this point.

[postslippete]

It seems slightly ironic to me that all these ex-posties have all these solutions and yet they are not actually doing the job anymore!

Yeah, let's just dump everything on the poor postie and have them deliver 2 days worth of post 3 days a week. Why don't we get rid of senior management and all the COMs bonuses instead, we may save even more money.

[Mike G]

It seems slightly ironic to me that all these ex-posties have all these solutions and yet they are not actually doing the job anymore!

Yeah, let's just dump everything on the poor postie and have them deliver 2 days worth of post 3 days a week. Why don't we get rid of senior management and all the COMs bonuses instead, we may save even more money.

How long have you been in the job?

[postslippete]

It seems slightly ironic to me that all these ex-posties have all these solutions and yet they are not actually doing the job anymore!

Yeah, let's just dump everything on the poor postie and have them deliver 2 days worth of post 3 days a week. Why don't we get rid of senior management and all the COMs bonuses instead, we may save even more money.

How long have you been in the job?

Old enough to remember the good old days when we did the job on pushbikes and went home when we finished and long enough to see many dedicated, loyal staff that have worked there for over 30 (or even 40 years) leave the business. But I did actually ask you the question first: Why did you leave Royal Mail?

I'm curious.

[Mike G]

It seems slightly ironic to me that all these ex-posties have all these solutions and yet they are not actually doing the job anymore!

Yeah, let's just dump everything on the poor postie and have them deliver 2 days worth of post 3 days a week. Why don't we get rid of senior management and all the COMs bonuses instead, we may save even more money.

How long have you been in the job?

Old enough to remember the good old days when we did the job on pushbikes and went home when we finished and long enough to see many dedicated, loyal staff that have worked there for over 30 (or even 40 years) leave the business. But I did actually ask you the question first: Why did you leave Royal Mail?

I'm curious.

I retired in answer to your question.

The reason I asked you and despite your slightly evasive answer is I'm guessing you do remember the good old days of 25+ years ago when we had far more letters and virtually no pkts or parcels.

I personally think when it was virtually all letters the job was much more pleasant and achievable and stress free, just going from one house to the next putting stuff through letterboxes, not having to remember where all the parcels piled up in the back of the van are for, not having to knock on every 3rd or 4th door to hand a parcel over and get a signature or a photo and not endlessly writing cards out and trying neighbours when there's no answer.

Prepping, loading and delivering parcels and pkts is a huge proportion of the workload and work time now, this is why I think if you were to remove them
and have them delivered separately and even with the bigger rounds we now have, 2 days worth of mail would be manageble and achievable, you wouldn’t actually be covering any further distance over the ground, you'd just have 2 letters for an address rather then one, as long as it is strictly mail ie nothing bigger than letterbox size.

[HTPostman]

It seems slightly ironic to me that all these ex-posties have all these solutions and yet they are not actually doing the job anymore!

Yeah, let's just dump everything on the poor postie and have them deliver 2 days worth of post 3 days a week. Why don't we get rid of senior management and all the COMs bonuses instead, we may save even more money.

How long have you been in the job?

Old enough to remember the good old days when we did the job on pushbikes and went home when we finished and long enough to see many dedicated, loyal staff that have worked there for over 30 (or even 40 years) leave the business. But I did actually ask you the question first: Why did you leave Royal Mail?

I'm curious.

I retired in answer to your question.

The reason I asked you and despite your slightly evasive answer is I'm guessing you do remember the good old days of 25+ years ago when we had far more letters and virtually no pkts or parcels.

I personally think when it was virtually all letters the job was much more pleasant and achievable and stress free, just going from one house to the next putting stuff through letterboxes, not having to remember where all the parcels piled up in the back of the van are for, not having to knock on every 3rd or 4th door to hand a parcel over and get a signature or a photo and not endlessly writing cards out and trying neighbours when there's no answer.

Prepping, loading and delivering parcels and pkts is a huge proportion of the workload and work time now, this is why I think if you were to remove them
and have them delivered separately and even with the bigger rounds we now have, 2 days worth of mail would be manageble and achievable, you wouldn’t actually be covering any further distance over the ground, you'd just have 2 letters for an address rather then one, as long as it is strictly mail ie nothing bigger than letterbox size.

Correct, and then those delivering parcels can follow a set ‘do not deviate from the route’ journey giving very accurate estimates.

I know it’s all fantasy, it’s just a shame it’s not considered. I’d be happy doing either. It’s combining both (plus D2Ds, collections, emptying boxes) that’s the stressful part.

[postslippete]

I retired in answer to your question.

The reason I asked you and despite your slightly evasive answer is I'm guessing you do remember the good old days of 25+ years ago when we had far more letters and virtually no pkts or parcels.

I personally think when it was virtually all letters the job was much more pleasant and achievable and stress free, just going from one house to the next putting stuff through letterboxes, not having to remember where all the parcels piled up in the back of the van are for, not having to knock on every 3rd or 4th door to hand a parcel over and get a signature or a photo and not endlessly writing cards out and trying neighbours when there's no answer.

Prepping, loading and delivering parcels and pkts is a huge proportion of the workload and work time now, this is why I think if you were to remove them
and have them delivered separately and even with the bigger rounds we now have, 2 days worth of mail would be manageble and achievable, you wouldn’t actually be covering any further distance over the ground, you'd just have 2 letters for an address rather then one, as long as it is strictly mail ie nothing bigger than letterbox size.

Yes. Whilst your comments make some sense especially regarding having extra dedicated parcel drivers to do the larger parcels, shoebox size and above (like we used to). Unfortunately, Royal Mail can't manage to deliver the mail over 6 days so I would hate to see what a pigs ear they would make of it by trying to do it in 3!!

My feeling is that the company are simply asking for a reduced USO to cut costs and we have already established that the Royal Mail aren't exactly losing money hand over fist. Plus with the later finish times, few posties are going to want to work past their times. So if the company desperately wants us to deliver mail 3 days a week then they should have a plan to make sure that all this mail actually does get delivered instead of having it sat there piling up in offices because they won't actually employ any extra staff. At the very least I would expect some of these managers who used to be posties to be back on the streets delivering the post to get things clear (like they used to).

[LouBarlow]

I retired in answer to your question.

The reason I asked you and despite your slightly evasive answer is I'm guessing you do remember the good old days of 25+ years ago when we had far more letters and virtually no pkts or parcels.

I personally think when it was virtually all letters the job was much more pleasant and achievable and stress free, just going from one house to the next putting stuff through letterboxes, not having to remember where all the parcels piled up in the back of the van are for, not having to knock on every 3rd or 4th door to hand a parcel over and get a signature or a photo and not endlessly writing cards out and trying neighbours when there's no answer.

Prepping, loading and delivering parcels and pkts is a huge proportion of the workload and work time now, this is why I think if you were to remove them
and have them delivered separately and even with the bigger rounds we now have, 2 days worth of mail would be manageble and achievable, you wouldn’t actually be covering any further distance over the ground, you'd just have 2 letters for an address rather then one, as long as it is strictly mail ie nothing bigger than letterbox size.

My feeling is that the company are simply asking for a reduced USO to cut costs and we have already established that the Royal Mail aren't exactly losing money hand over fist.

What are you basing this on? Royal Mail made record losses last year. Unless you are privy to something that contests this?

[postslippete]

What are you basing this on? Royal Mail made record losses last year. Unless you are privy to something that contests this?

Not last year they didn't Lou. And I've explained the "billion pound" loss of 2022-23, just scroll up...

There is actually a lot of grounds for optimism right now. Royal Mail has just achieved its best Xmas operational performance for 4 years. Group revenues were up by 9.8% on the previous year (2022) as the company won back many of its customers. They were expecting a second half operating profit, on an adjusted basis, to broadly offset the £169 million operating loss in the first half, so the guidance remains about breakeven, excluding VR costs.


https://www.londonstockexchange.com/new ... e/16293727

[steve1873]

We are the same.

I reckon it's a deliberate act because they know they are facing an exodus when the new times come in. Even more so than during the industrial dispute.

[SpacePhoenix]

We are the same.

I reckon it's a deliberate act because they know they are facing an exodus when the new times come in. Even more so than during the industrial dispute.

Could be to try and get rid of as many "legacy contracts" as they can to the point where it'll be cheap enough for them to force everyone onto the newer contracts, even when employment tribunal costs have been factored in

[LouBarlow]

What are you basing this on? Royal Mail made record losses last year. Unless you are privy to something that contests this?

Not last year they didn't Lou. And I've explained the "billion pound" loss of 2022-23, just scroll up...

There is actually a lot of grounds for optimism right now. Royal Mail has just achieved its best Xmas operational performance for 4 years. Group revenues were up by 9.8% on the previous year (2022) as the company won back many of its customers. They were expecting a second half operating profit, on an adjusted basis, to broadly offset the £169 million operating loss in the first half, so the guidance remains about breakeven, excluding VR costs.

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/new ... e/16293727

Group revenues mean nothing when Royal Mail is leaking money. There is a reason the share price has stagnated.

[postslippete]

Group revenues mean nothing when Royal Mail is leaking money. There is a reason the share price has stagnated.

It's a very deliberate ploy Lou.


If Royal Mail were seriously hard up, do you really think that anyone would have got an incentive bonus? Regardless of whether everyone got it or not, it is proof that the company has a bit of spare cash that it wants to burn. Obviously, they didn't give the full bonus away so they will have spent it on other things instead.

Personally, I believe RM are desperate not to show a profit until they can reduce or get rid of the USO. You don't need to be Einstein to understand why.

[nuisance]

Group revenues mean nothing when Royal Mail is leaking money. There is a reason the share price has stagnated.

Leaking money to shareholders and rotating parasitic executives. It's not because there's no work, we're not working, investment spending is too extravagant or the service is too cheap.
These arseheads need to look at themselves for where the money problems are coming from.