Royal Mail appears to be lurching from crisis to crisis, as tensions mount over the new “Optimised Delivery Model”, triggering uncertainty among direct mail and online shopping clients that the latest dispute could scupper Black Friday and even Christmas campaigns.
According to a report in The Sunday Times, Royal Mail owner Daniel Kretinsky is “flying in top lieutenants” to hold emergency talks with union bosses to try to settle growing unrest.
The move follows reports that staff retention is at an all-time low, with up to 400 postal workers leaving the company each week due to the new delivery model despite the Communications Workers Union initially backing the programme.
The “Optimised Delivery Model” had been trialled at 240 delivery offices, and is now being rolled out across the company’s 1,200 delivery offices, with implementation expected to be complete by this December.
Many in the direct mail industry backed the changes, however, they maintain that it is crucial the new model leads to more reliable deliveries.
First-class mail and parcels continue to be delivered from Monday to Saturday. Second-class and non-priority mail deliveries have been scaled back, moving to an every-other-day schedule from Monday to Friday with no Saturday deliveries.
Now, the CWU has withdrawn its support for the roll out of the scheme, citing the staff exodus; in response, Royal Mail claims it is hiring 480 recruits a week.
However, the bust-up intensified late last week when CWU general secretary Dave Ward alleged that the postal operator was “on the brink of collapse” due to a “self-inflicted recruitment and retention crisis”.
Royal Mail hit back, insisting that recent statements by the union “do not reflect the state of the business, the progress Royal Mail is making improving service quality or its preparations for Christmas”.
It added: “We urge the CWU leadership to stop using public commentary talking down the business as a way of trying to achieve their own tactical objectives.”
Even so, the union insists claims that the quality of service has improved “from an exceptionally low starting point is highly misleading”.
The move comes just weeks after Royal Mail was forced to shelve plans to hike direct mail costs by up to a third, following an intervention from Ofcom.
The original price hikes, scheduled for this month, caused uproar among Royal Mail’s bulk mail customers, such as UK Mail, Whistl and Citipost, who specialise in sorting and processing mail before handing it to Royal Mail for the final mile delivery.
Royal Mail has now withdrawn those original proposals completely and announced a new set of revised, lower increases instead.