Finding out about how other offices are run!!!

[Shedend]

AL should not be allocated on a seniority basis. It should be allocated in groups. If your office has 60 duties then you could have 4 groups of 15. These would be numbered 1 to 4. Each year the groups would rotate through. Number 1 group pick first in first year then the next year group 2 would have first pick and group 1 would be last. Seniority / juniority should not be used in AL allocation. When a new entrant comes into the business they would slot into the vacant space in which ever group has a spare slot. Royal Mail should honour any annual leave a new entrant has booked when they start.

[97gaz]

J

[Shedend]

Juniority/seniority and all the other methods seem unfair to me. I do the leave at my place and I consider our system to the the most flexible and the most fair. In an office of 80 people everyone is in one of nine groups. (With falling heads of staff I'm going to try to reduce that to eight from next year) These groups work on a rota system throughout the summer. The rotation has a pattern so you know when your summer weeks are until eternity. It's very easy to swap and in fact I've already done about 10-12 summer swap requests for the 19-20 leave.

For the rest of the year I put out sheets asking when people would like the rest of their leave. I'll put it in a spreadsheet and see which weeks are oversubscribed and ask those who aren't usually bothered about leave times if they'll move a week or so here and there. I try to prioritise those with kids but not exclusively at the expense of others. It works well and people usually get what they want. My absolute latest target is the end of October.

I'm guessing the reason RM don't adopt this system is because it's a crap load of work. That's why I start it in late July.

Regarding the posters who say they have never seen a system of allocating leave like Royal Mail and why can't they have a week off when they want it, I ask them to consider this scenario. Take a small office of say eight people. Probably seven duties and 1 reserve. 8 People at near six weeks holiday is approx 48 weeks leave. That means that any time there is more than one person on leave the office doesn't have enough staff to deliver the mail. Royal Mail are not unique in this. Many business are constrained by how many people they can have off at certain times of year.

Strangely, I keep seeing people on here saying their office has spare leave slots etc. I'm tasked by the managment with filling every week with every weeks leave. That is, if there is 500 weeks annual leave in total in the office then I need to give them a plan with 500 weeks annual leave in it. Every person should be allocated their full leave before the end of October. The max amount of people allowed off each week is dictated by the reserve pool. The example I gave of an office of eight is because the reserve pool should be about one reserve for every seven staff

That is the full blown version of what I was explaining. All offices should have stopped AL on seniority after the way forward agreement. The agreement gives examples of how to do the leave pick other than seniority.If my memory serves me correctly.If it is still issued on seniority it should be challenged.