Mail volumes

[Tman]

A decade on and the same old daft assumptions and statements being made.
"Mail volumes" have no direct correlation with how heavy your bag/trolley is, but are measured by the amount of mail posted and processed by RM, and as there's now virtually no social mail, greetings cards are reducing year-on-year, banks, building societies, cable and utility companies use email almost universally, the reduction is genuine and clear.
Whether the mail is weighed, counted, scanned or guessed at is irrelevant, it's drastically reduced over the last few years.
Even the much-heralded CSS programme has been over-taken by the reduction, to the extent that machines a few years old are being moved or mothballed.
It'll be parcels or nothing in five years (and with the proliferation of companies more than willing to deliver parcels using their own distribution systems)
nothing looks to be more likely.

[datasaint]

It'll be parcels or nothing in five years (and with the proliferation of companies more than willing to deliver parcels using their own distribution systems)
nothing looks to be more likely.

I bet the USO won't exist as we know it now in 5 years either. Especially if Conservatives stay in power.

[bustedflush]

LOL....There is a chap in our office who did just that - chucked a packet through the bungalow window of a woman who worked nights. Landed smack bang on the table in the lounge so it looked like it was placed there. She complained that the postie 'had been in her house while she was asleep'. Even the DOM laughed and we called him 'the stalker' for a couple of weeks after...

[Sbutts8182]

back in the day mail was weighed out of the mail centre and also weighed into the delivery office when it arrived this allowed the mail volumes to be recorded and checked accurately, average fill figures were used but because it was well controlled at every point it wasn't far off

then the weighing in/out stopped

we still have average fill figures but these change every six months or so and are nowhere near the real capacity of the letters, flats or packets received

It was after the weighing stopped that the 'mail is down' stuff began

some mail is down yes, stamped mail but as pointed out earlier staff volumes are also down massively and other types of mail are up

it would be very interesting to see the figures should weighing in/out ever come back

Even when that was happening they tried the "mail volumes are down" speech. I remember arguing with an area manager about this, he didn't like it when I pointed out the figures were down from the year before because they had changed the equation in WLA from 300 letters per perstop to 250 letters. Even when we were suppose to have stopped weighing our own stuff our gaffer carried on doing as he said the mail centre figures were "the greatest work of fiction ever written" and wern't to be trusted.

[rambo1]

Mail volumes are only a very rough estimate of actual mail anyway however I believe it's the content of those figures we need to address when they say mails down. Everyone knows that it would be much quicker to deliver 5 letters to every house on your round and have no packets or recorded and tracked, than have one letter for every 5 houses and shed loads of packets and signed for. It's the door knocks and trying neighbours (right) that takes the time now, they can't just say mails down and expect you to deliver it all quicker than we did for same volume 10 yrs ago.

[SpacePhoenix]

Between the scanning of all parcels and them new machines that have been proposed, if they get agreed and installed, DOs will have a very accurate number of each stream of item that they're getting. If them new machines do get approved, they'll probably be at least 3 years away. Anyone yet heard 100% for sure the actual size of the packet sorting machines that they're putting in the larger MCs?

[GRS]

A decade on and the same old daft assumptions and statements being made.
"Mail volumes" have no direct correlation with how heavy your bag/trolley is, but are measured by the amount of mail posted and processed by RM, and as there's now virtually no social mail, greetings cards are reducing year-on-year, banks, building societies, cable and utility companies use email almost universally, the reduction is genuine and clear.
Whether the mail is weighed, counted, scanned or guessed at is irrelevant, it's drastically reduced over the last few years.
Even the much-heralded CSS programme has been over-taken by the reduction, to the extent that machines a few years old are being moved or mothballed.
It'll be parcels or nothing in five years (and with the proliferation of companies more than willing to deliver parcels using their own distribution systems)
nothing looks to be more likely.

Been hearing all that nonsense for god knows how many years. Remember being told when I first started that mail was declining and been hearing it ever since to the point of being told about 4 or 5 years ago that within a couple of years the mail will drop off a cliff and literally you will walk in one day and there will be no work to do..... Guess what- it's all bollocks.What I can't get my head around is why RM continually talk the business down as if they wish it to fold. Must be the only business around that continually talks in a negative manner - no wonder the staff are negative.

[Edward Hunter]

The mail may be down but there are fewer posties than ever delivering it. There must be 50,000 less staff than 10 years ago. Attendance calls keep on going up up up and walk sizes are massive. Postie have never worked so hard

[Tman]

Been hearing all that nonsense for god knows how many years. Remember being told when I first started that mail was declining and been hearing it ever since to the point of being told about 4 or 5 years ago that within a couple of years the mail will drop off a cliff and literally you will walk in one day and there will be no work to do..... Guess what- it's all bollocks

So who is still (allegedly) posting all this mail? Who do you believe it is?
The really sad thing is that the decline over the last 4-5 has been marked, and yet it appears some have still got heads firmly in the sand...

[GRS]

Been hearing all that nonsense for god knows how many years. Remember being told when I first started that mail was declining and been hearing it ever since to the point of being told about 4 or 5 years ago that within a couple of years the mail will drop off a cliff and literally you will walk in one day and there will be no work to do..... Guess what- it's all bollocks

So who is still (allegedly) posting all this mail? Who do you believe it is?
The really sad thing is that the decline over the last 4-5 has been marked, and yet it appears some have still got heads firmly in the sand...

Don't you get any mail in your office. What about all the catalogues that pour in day after day. Go to clear my flats when I get in and every hole is rammed full of them and that's before the bulk of the inward sorting gets done. Matalan,steamer trading, screw fix,tool station,council rent statements to name just a handful of regular bulk postings we get along with all the usual mail. My head is not in the sand but your's is obviously up the fake yank''s backside. You make it sound as if we are wanting to believe that that this mail exists, trust me it does,maybe where you work it is in decline but I can only speak as I find and without doubt I am definitely carrying more. When we started the P&L duties 4 years ago I would carry a bag round each loop now I struggle to get the same loops in 2 bags on a trolley and it's not just down to packets.

[Lounge Lizard]

LOL....There is a chap in our office who did just that - chucked a packet through the bungalow window of a woman who worked nights. Landed smack bang on the table in the lounge so it looked like it was placed there. She complained that the postie 'had been in her house while she was asleep'. Even the DOM laughed and we called him 'the stalker' for a couple of weeks after...

That's the advantage of open windows over doorsteps, the mail's more secure.
But open windows are seasonal, doorsteps are all year round.

[antcpfc]

Been hearing all that nonsense for god knows how many years. Remember being told when I first started that mail was declining and been hearing it ever since to the point of being told about 4 or 5 years ago that within a couple of years the mail will drop off a cliff and literally you will walk in one day and there will be no work to do..... Guess what- it's all bollocks

So who is still (allegedly) posting all this mail? Who do you believe it is?
The really sad thing is that the decline over the last 4-5 has been marked, and yet it appears some have still got heads firmly in the sand...

Do you actually work in deliveries ?

[meercat]

Yes mail volume is down but the number of drops we are doing has gone up around 50%. When I started 10years ago the average walk in our office had approx 400 drops. Now the average is 600.

That represents a HUGE 'efficiency saving' for the company hence the 40k fewer posties or whatever the figure is.

[bustedflush]

Volumes falling as in items posted, yes, but revenues are probably increasing or at least maintaining as the items are increasingly thicker and heavier. Weight seems to be going up and up, the magazines and junk may be less in number than the old counting of letters as items but cost more for the sender. My BS detector goes red-zone when I keep hearing this 'falling volumes' crap yet seem to work harder and heavier each year.

[Tman]

and without doubt I am definitely carrying more.

See my post above; I've already made the point that how much you (or anyone else) carries isn't some sort of "proof" that mail volumes aren't falling, as changing staffing levels etc have ensured you still have a load to carry.
Surely common sense tells you that the amount of Screwfix etc things are what's keeping people in jobs, because without them (and similar) the workforce would probably be half what it currently is due to "real" post dropping through the floor years ago.
Anyway, why would RM PLC wish to lie about it? The board is now legally beholden to the shareholders, and giving false statistics over/under-inflating performance of a FTSE listed company is a no-no. Remember Tesco's recent values debacle?