x mas bonus

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 02 Dec 2016, 10:42

dougfunny892 wrote:No truth in the rumour that we are only getting a £100 this year?

some truth.

The official Christmas Bonus is £100. The extra £100 is from the BT2010 agreement/Colleague shares.

Just like we always get Christmas at this time of year we will also get the same questions about the Bonus.

1. How much is it - £200 in total for a FT.
2. Is it pro rata - yes although in 2 different ways - the Colleagueshares bit is based on OT up to 39 hours the Xmas bit on contracted hours during the weeks before Christmas.
3. When is it paid - the last Pay Day before Christmas (23 Dec 2016)
4. If you are off sick you lose some. Only if you are on reduced pay. If you are on full pay you get the full entitlement.
5. You lose some if you are on strike - Correct 10% per day for unofficial action and 3% for official action. Days are counted from midnight to midnight.
6. Does everyone get the bonus - No. Casuals don't but anyone on a fixed term or long term contract does, although as far as I know you have to employed for the full qualifying period of the 4 weeks before Christmas.

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 02 Dec 2016, 19:27

There remains two £100 Christmas bonuses this year. The qualifying process is different for each.

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 02 Dec 2016, 19:33

dingo wrote:There remains two £100 Christmas bonuses this year. The qualifying process is different for each.

Any movement yet on a long term inventive bonus, sorry to open an old wound mate.

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 02 Dec 2016, 19:38

BTW I saw the typo but left it because it was funny...

Newbie001 · Post by **Newbie001** » 02 Dec 2016, 20:38

fishtank wrote:
dingo wrote:There remains two £100 Christmas bonuses this year. The qualifying process is different for each.
Any movement yet on a long term inventive bonus, sorry to open an old wound mate.

The only "inventive" extra bonus you'll ever get from RM is a tub of celebrations shared between whole office and working late Christmas eve while all managers have buggered off home early.
Wouldn't be surprised if they make current annual bonus 'performance related' first chance they get as well.

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 05 Dec 2016, 19:12

As part of the forward talks it is being raised that the only employees in Royal Mail who are not in a bonus scheme is OPGs.

I have to say as someone who has campaigned for an incentive scheme I think there some within the union who would not support a bonus scheme but that is a side issue as at the moment Royal Mail senior management are totally against one.

That may change as talks progress and let be clear Royal Mail 's strategy is disintegrating, they cannot do one wave , they cannot automate all the Mail to maximise so can do bench merging , the removal of all indoor workload is ages away all be it jobs will be lost via the CELLs machine which is in Exeter but will be in another 11 others places.

They now seem to want to just move to later deliveries to capture the next day growth in parcels. They want to use new technology to cut costs such as Trimble , PDAs ( current first scan and last scan providing their working ) and the new data capture initiative which Royal Mail want to trail in offices in the new year.

They are even talking of paying only hours worked not hours claimed. Clearly this is linked to their desire to annualised or seasonal hours.

Of course they stated in the half yearly accounts they wanted to take out 190 million in operational cost hence the crack down on variable spend etc.

On top of this will be announcement early after Christmas to close the DB scheme from March 2018 which will create the biggest saving in costs for Royal Mail in decades which will stitch up all of us.

It is going to be a very interesting 2017.

Hope your well Fish

wannabeek · Post by **wannabeek** » 05 Dec 2016, 21:50

"They are even talking of paying only hours worked not hours claimed."

And the union are fighting against this? Good grief, I thought ghosting was supposed to be dead and buried years ago according to the union. Should I have been claiming ghost docket all these years and got union approval for doing so??

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 05 Dec 2016, 22:05

They mean only paying the hours which you work of your contracted hours as well as overtime. So if you finish early say in the height of summer by 20 mins and they have they believe example from Trimble and PDA information that you are docked 20 mins pay and therefore can have that 20 mins by working longer in the October pressure period.

wannabeek · Post by **wannabeek** » 06 Dec 2016, 06:31

Ah I see thanks for explaining that.

Newbie001 · Post by **Newbie001** » 06 Dec 2016, 07:07

Most companies call it banking hours. Worked for a company that did this. Only it was capped to so many hours, usually contract hours. So most of time it was written down/ hidden by manager. Ended up having whole month off once just using banked hours. Any overtime was the next thing to go. Slippery slopes.

Surreypostie · Post by **Surreypostie** » 06 Dec 2016, 15:16

WTF is Trimble?

Surreypostie · Post by **Surreypostie** » 06 Dec 2016, 15:18

wannabeek wrote:"They are even talking of paying only hours worked not hours claimed."

And the union are fighting against this? Good grief, I thought ghosting was supposed to be dead and buried years ago according to the union. Should I have been claiming ghost docket all these years and got union approval for doing so??

Ghost docket? We live in a capitalist system, how I see it RM need work done, you name your price, they can say yes or no, you have done the work they pay the price or find someone else, nothing ghost about it.

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 06 Dec 2016, 15:32

Thanks for the update Dingo, I'm not surprised their strategy is falling apart, that's what happens when you try to apply manufacturing processes to a service industry without any real input from the staff. As for seasonal hours, how do you motivate staff to finish early if they're just going to have to work those hours back at a later date? I think most of us know how to put 20 minutes onto a delivery and still work to a reasonable standard. Later starts might be a tougher fight though, we are facing real competition from these companies offering next day and same day delivery, it looks like 3-5 working days is too long to wait for people these days.

I'm keeping well but as the saying goes I'm getting too old for this s**t, have a good Christmas.

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 06 Dec 2016, 15:44

Surreypostie wrote:WTF is Trimble?

spy in the cab for CDVs

toomuchcoke · Post by **toomuchcoke** » 06 Dec 2016, 19:30

dingo wrote:I have to say as someone who has campaigned for an incentive scheme I think there some within the union who would not support a bonus scheme but that is a side issue as at the moment Royal Mail senior management are totally against one.

Any ideas as to why senior management are against such an idea? The only one that springs immediately to my mind is that giving a worthwhile bonus amount to everybody is actually kind of expensive given how many of us there are!

dingo wrote:They now seem to want to just move to later deliveries to capture the next day growth in parcels. They want to use new technology to cut costs such as Trimble , PDAs ( current first scan and last scan providing their working ) and the new data capture initiative which Royal Mail want to trail in offices in the new year.

In theory I don't have any kind of problem with the likes of Trimble ... In practice I do because (a) the vans aren't the same, (b) it doesn't tell you you're about to have a fault but rather that you had a fault at some point in the last few seconds and (c) sometimes it decides you've had a fault but doesn't beep to tell you! (One of the vans I drive, I can enter a certain roundabout with a green light, and exit with an orange light having not had a beep!)

They also always seem to go for half-arsed "solutions" that aren't. The handbrake warning is a classic example of course - it could warn you if you'd opened the driver's door without the handbrake engaged, but not it just randomly warns you to put the handbrake on even if you've just started the vehicle (with the handbrake on!) to drive away. Equally that whole "360 check" stuff - pretty much every other professional delivery outfit (i.e. the UPS/DPD/DHL's of this world, rather than Hermes!) has reversing cameras fitted to their vans, we get told to walk around them before getting in!

dingo wrote:On top of this will be announcement early after Christmas to close the DB scheme from March 2018 which will create the biggest saving in costs for Royal Mail in decades which will stitch up all of us.

It may well stitch up the current members of the DB scheme, but depending upon how they handle the issue it could actually (but I'll concede quite possibly won't) be a nice win for the people who are not a member of it!