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.
Absolutely this as 1, it’s bullying and harassment and 2, they cannot say you were stopped for x reason for the total of x amount of a total time during your outdoor day as there’s a whole host of reasons you might be stood on one place for a short amount of time.
Yeah that’s outrageous behaviour. They can’t with one hand demand you get photos, signatures, names and dates of birth and with the other tell you you were stopped for too long if some old dear can’t find her keys you you just move on and endorse it?
Rumours of four x plus 9 hour days - guess say 730-430 or later, so why would anyone want to do more ot ? Also if it's a basic pay long day, there are no benefits to us posties whatsoever. I doubt anyone will get offered VR if their d/o is short staffed either
Rumours of four x plus 9 hour days - guess say 730-430 or later, so why would anyone want to do more ot ? Also if it's a basic pay long day, there are no benefits to us posties whatsoever. I doubt anyone will get offered VR if their d/o is short staffed either
The rumours of 9+ hour days are true. If an office votes to move to a 4 day week, it means 9+ hour days.
’You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.’
Rumours of four x plus 9 hour days - guess say 730-430 or later, so why would anyone want to do more ot ? Also if it's a basic pay long day, there are no benefits to us posties whatsoever. I doubt anyone will get offered VR if their d/o is short staffed either
The rumours of 9+ hour days are true. If an office votes to move to a 4 day week, it means 9+ hour days.
The only offices I can see voting for 9hr days are the ones already doing that shift pattern and the rare offices with a younger workforce, very few people with years of service behind them are going to vote for a much longer working day
However it's the biggest change of the USO in modern times
The USO is not changing. That's what this nonsense is about: avoiding having to legislate Saturdays away, despite it being so much cleaner operationally. It will remain a six day service, just with a very big asterisk appended.
Rumours of four x plus 9 hour days - guess say 730-430 or later, so why would anyone want to do more ot ? Also if it's a basic pay long day, there are no benefits to us posties whatsoever. I doubt anyone will get offered VR if their d/o is short staffed either
The rumours of 9+ hour days are true. If an office votes to move to a 4 day week, it means 9+ hour days.
The only offices I can see voting for 9hr days are the ones already doing that shift pattern and the rare offices with a younger workforce, very few people with years of service behind them are going to vote for a much longer working day
If you imagine that two hours of that will be prep, crying into your pouch etc, that will still mean 7 hours out on delivery. SEVEN LONG HOURS. Ridiculous.
’You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.’
Rumours of four x plus 9 hour days - guess say 730-430 or later, so why would anyone want to do more ot ? Also if it's a basic pay long day, there are no benefits to us posties whatsoever. I doubt anyone will get offered VR if their d/o is short staffed either
The rumours of 9+ hour days are true. If an office votes to move to a 4 day week, it means 9+ hour days.
The only offices I can see voting for 9hr days are the ones already doing that shift pattern and the rare offices with a younger workforce, very few people with years of service behind them are going to vote for a much longer working day
If you imagine that two hours of that will be prep, crying into your pouch etc, that will still mean 7 hours out on delivery. SEVEN LONG HOURS. Ridiculous.
I said to my rep today that if it’s a 4 day week and 9 hour 40 day then it’ll have to be ill health retirement for me because I simply cannot manage my chronic illness with such little time left in my day.
If you imagine that two hours of that will be prep, crying into your pouch etc, that will still mean 7 hours out on delivery. SEVEN LONG HOURS. Ridiculous.
Aye, I remember when RM introduced the single daily delivery and delivery spans were 3 and a half hours on 5 day weeks. Its all well and good suggesting that we could perhaps break up the day so that we are not out on foot for double this amount of time but have they not considered that driving round jumping in and out of the van delivering parcels also leads to fatigue as well?
I also used to be a parcel driver back in the day and it is just as tiring working long hours delivering parcels when you are constantly concentrating on the road and the traffic. Add this with RM using PDA data to drive efficiencies and you have a recipe for more mistakes and accidents on deliveries. If there is no scope for increasing the indoor work then there really should be a push for a shorter working week before they even consider the possibility of 4 day weeks.
On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world.
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.
Absolutely this as 1, it’s bullying and harassment and 2, they cannot say you were stopped for x reason for the total of x amount of a total time during your outdoor day as there’s a whole host of reasons you might be stood on one place for a short amount of time.
I wouldn’t be having this.
The data shouldn't be displayed on the board for all to see. It can lead to bullying in the workplace and staff digging each other out.
If offices are failing walks they have been going down the PDAs looking at idling and potential periods of inactivity on the PDAs and sending that on to management asking them why they haven't cleared and lapsing potential.
Then they are told to investigate. It's all done centrally miles away from any given office.
In the agreement the section on PDAs and performance has opened it up for more of these tactics by the company as the language in the wording is up for interpretation.
What they are not allowed to do is live track and ring you up on delivery questioning you on why you are inactive.
if some old dear can’t find her keys you you just move on and endorse it?