LINE MANAGERS QUESTIONING

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

The ambiguous ltb say no O/T should be clamed for election stuff. I take that to mean no O/T should be worked as it will not be paid. You take it to mean if you go over, tough, you dont get paid for it. I will stick to my interpretation and not work for nothing while you can advise posties that going over and not booking it has been agreed. I bet you havent gone over and not booked it so why advise others to ?

As you say the key word is `instead`. You get paid Xp to absorb the work `instead` of working O/T. You are taking that to mean you should do the work on unpaid O/T for Xp `instead of booking it.

you do get paid you are getting paid pence per item thats causing you to go over, you are not working for nothing

on tuesday i went over and never claimed, mail was quite light and i decided to deliver 4 election materials to entire round, only went over my scheduled time by an hour and walked away with £40 extra

no where does it say your getting paid pence per item to absorb it into you existing workload, your getting pence per item as its additional workload

[motherhubbard]

How can you possibly absorb the prep of several hundred items/day and increase your call rate without going over your time?
Brains - the moniker isn't apt.

[fishtank]

If you manage the items sensibly using the 3 or 7 days available there should be very little impact on call rate and delivery time, as for the prep it has always been expected that members will use some of their own time where necessary in return for the payment, in years gone by members would take election material home and prepare it, that's kind of frowned upon now but I can't remember anyone really having an issue with spending an hour or two in return for £50-60, it seems like a no-brainer to me.

[dodgyinlaws]

If you manage the items sensibly using the 3 or 7 days available there should be very little impact on call rate and delivery time, as for the prep it has always been expected that members will use some of their own time where necessary in return for the payment, in years gone by members would take election material home and prepare it, that's kind of frowned upon now but I can't remember anyone really having an issue with spending an hour or two in return for £50-60, it seems like a no-brainer to me.

Why should it be expected that we should be prepping election material in our own time, what a load of tosh

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

If you manage the items sensibly using the 3 or 7 days available there should be very little impact on call rate and delivery time, as for the prep it has always been expected that members will use some of their own time where necessary in return for the payment, in years gone by members would take election material home and prepare it, that's kind of frowned upon now but I can't remember anyone really having an issue with spending an hour or two in return for £50-60, it seems like a no-brainer to me.

Why should it be expected that we should be prepping election material in our own time, what a load of tosh

Why? Because we are getting extra payment for these items

[fishtank]

Why should it be expected that we should be prepping election material in our own time, what a load of tosh

Do you want the election payment for nothing?
Maybe if that's your attitude the business should just withdraw the extra payment for election material and encourage parties to use the D2D service, that way you can come on here and moan about having 10 D2D last week.

[Anonymouse]

I find all this election stuff confusing haha.
Ok, we get paid per item but if i go over i'm still delivering the election stuff and the usual mail/packets. I'm not getting paid per letter or packet so why shouldn't i book overtime?
Either that or pick all the election crap out when i go over my finish time and walk round delivering that on its own and return the letters and packets to the office

I take it we can cut off as long as we say when we're in the office? I have the dentist on tuesday

[terry2972]

Yes you can cut off

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I find all this election stuff confusing haha.
Ok, we get paid per item but if i go over i'm still delivering the election stuff and the usual mail/packets. I'm not getting paid per letter or packet so why shouldn't i book overtime?
Either that or pick all the election crap out when i go over my finish time and walk round delivering that on its own and return the letters and packets to the office

I take it we can cut off as long as we say when we're in the office? I have the dentist on tuesday

You can claim if the traffic levels, not including election material, are above the model week.


Ergo - you can't claim if its only the election material that takes you over, and the rest was below the model week.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Why should it be expected that we should be prepping election material in our own time, what a load of tosh

Do you want the election payment for nothing?
Maybe if that's your attitude the business should just withdraw the extra payment for election material and encourage parties to use the D2D service, that way you can come on here and moan about having 10 D2D last week.

This is also though another instance that show how out of date the Overunning Deliveries procedure is. What about duties that are recognised as too large, or even if they aren't. Is it fair for the manager to then say we are below model week and you can't claim. But the duty still goes over in that circumstance even on normal weeks.

There is no process, I can see that is specfic to Duties that are too large to complete on normal days. Perhaps with P&L thats now needed.

[fishtank]

I don't disagree with you about the overrunning delivery procedure, it is out of date, overcomplicated and wrongly in my opinion places the burden on the OPG to justify the basic employment right of working your contracted hours. The process for dealing with duties that are historically too big is the weekly resource meeting however I don't think enough is done by reps to protect members faced with this scenario.

That aside the basic premise that the payment for election material more than covers any extra time we might need to invest ourselves still stands and the alternative of the material being absorbed into normal workload would be a mistake from our point of view.

[motherhubbard]

That aside the basic premise that the payment for election material more than covers any extra time we might need to invest ourselves still stands and the alternative of the material being absorbed into normal workload would be a mistake from our point of view.

Especially if we end up with an unstable minority government and the country has to go back to the polls again in the very near future.

[Brainache]

How can you possibly absorb the prep of several hundred items/day and increase your call rate without going over your time?
Brains - the moniker isn't apt.

By not flexing and spreading the work over a few days. I havent gone over at all doing the election stuff. If the runners have made your rounds too big then I understand your predicament, but me - I go home on time .

Thinking back over the last 30 years or so of absorbing election stuff/yellow pages/phone books, it was always done within time and the pence per item was a bonus.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

How can you possibly absorb the prep of several hundred items/day and increase your call rate without going over your time?
Brains - the moniker isn't apt.

By not flexing and spreading the work over a few days. I havent gone over at all doing the election stuff. If the runners have made your rounds too big then I understand your predicament, but me - I go home on time .

Thinking back over the last 30 years or so of absorbing election stuff/yellow pages/phone books, it was always done within time and the pence per item was a bonus.

Don't forget it is people like you who cut corners to finish on time that also create the predicament not just the runners. The pence per item is not a bonus it is the payment to do these items, the bonus if you can do them within your contracted hours

On a light day doing it to the book I get back to the office 10/15 minutes `early` - enough time to tidy up and go. On a heavier day I do it `almost` to the book and get back 10/15 minutes`early`.

I did try working just from the back , but it seems twice as much effort and takes longer - fine if your being timed/pressured to flex.

In fact looking at your own previous posts you were actually posting the exact same advice as me last year and now trying to claim the opposite and saying it's been the opposite for years, you should make up your mind

You can still claim excess if normal mail puts you over. We have had a notice through saying we will get a `minimum of 3p`. Bet it is 3p.

[Brainache]

I was expecting someone to comment on working `almost to the book` when I posted it. Anyone doing deliveries will know what I mean - it doesnt include spoiling the job though.

``You can still claim excess if normal mail puts you over`` - but managment are trying to say this agreement bans O/T when election stuff is in the bundle.

Where does it say that excess O/T has been replaced by pence per item when election stuff is around ? If that were the case then election stuff should go out on separate deliveries to normal mail, as its impossible to judge exactly what is taking the work over. And it blurs the line between volantary excess and being hassled into working over.

``Brains wrote:
I did try working just from the back , but it seems twice as much effort and takes longer - fine if your being timed/pressured to flex.``
Yeh, so what ? If I was being timed/pressured to flex thats what I would do. But I`m not so I put some mail in the front - a sensible bit of flexibility that only benefits me (and doesnt spoil the job).

The bottom line is that this election stuff agreement is ambiguously worded and doesnt take into account the huge deliveries + flexing that a lot of posties are already doing. Just how managment like it.