RM Less Than Third Of Staff Back Management And Feel Valued

[jack]

You can only really get a feel for these results if you can consider them against the results for similar organisations.

I would doubt that the Telegraph would be running a story entitled Royal Mail staff discontent with bosses based on these stats if these stats were anywhere near the industry norm.

The figures are abysmal despite a small fortune being poured into employee engagement through RMTV,MyRoyalMail.com,a veritable avalanche of Courier inserts and of course World Class Mail.
Why?...because and this isn't a personal dig but the bottom line is management in general just aren't up to the job.
Hooper doubted management's ability to bring the staff through the modernisation programme in one piece and he was right.

There are too many who shouldn't have made it above what would have been a supervisor in any other industry and I would imagine deep down you know that.Too many who have sat in a quiet delivery office that ran itself for 15 years who have no idea how to cope with what they are being asked to do now and dragged out of their comfort zone they are lashing out at the staff through their own ignorance.

The business lacks the courage to deal with this situation,It has always been a weakness in the company that it cannot deal with failing managers,It moves them sideways and simply spreads the infection,It has been so sadly as long as I remember and as long as it continues there will be no genuine employee engagement.

I think it's fairly common knowledge that the weakness of first line operational managers has been the achilles heel of the business for years. I don't have any direct experience of DOMs as man-managers but In my experience at least 50% of DOMs are pretty useless in terms of reasons why I engage with them. Equally at virtually every DO I visit there are some posties who need sorting out in a big way. Manager or not I would never accept being spoken to in the way that I see some posties talk to their manager who seem to simply ignore it for the sake of relative peace. I'd like to think they are showing off in front of me but somehow I doubt it. As you say I'd accept that there are incompetent DOMS but to be honest I am amazed that anyone would want the job. There isn't enough money in RM to make me want to do it with what some seem to have to put up with. I wonder how easy it is to recruit good DOMs.

As far as the survey results go there were some industry norms published along with this year's results. I can't get them at the moment but from memory some apparently bad results were around or slightly better than the standard.

I know all managers cannot be tarred with the same brush, however, why does nothing happen to the managers who have flouted the law, who have been proven guilty in an Employment Tribunal of discriminating against employees whether it be racism or disability where the evidence is shown in the judgement in black and white.

Do these managers not need sorting out in a big way?

In the code of business handbook page 31 under the heading 'Managers duty of care' one of the bullet points state-

Behave responsibly, ensuring that your actions are lawful and do not expose you or the company to legal liability, either by
ill advised action or by negligence.

These managers are not sorted out in any way to my knowledge, in fact most of these managers are promoted who then carry around their ill thought actions like a badge of honour, what kind of message does this send to the perpetrator? its hardly suprising that B&H is epidemic in delivery offices throughout the uk.

[OnAFlyer]

A spokesperson highlighted that nearly two-thirds of staff say they feel proud to work for Royal Mail and 72% want to work for the organisation.

That's actually not a great stat to quote given the current economic climate.
Despite there being nothing out there and certainly not a lot that pays this well more than a quarter of your staff don't even want to work for the company anymore.
I would have kept that one to myself rather than bigging it up.

There wasn't much else from the survey they could quote, it was one of the few stats that was above a 50% positive.

[Brain Fury]

You can only really get a feel for these results if you can consider them against the results for similar organisations.

I would doubt that the Telegraph would be running a story entitled Royal Mail staff discontent with bosses based on these stats if these stats were anywhere near the industry norm.

The figures are abysmal despite a small fortune being poured into employee engagement through RMTV,MyRoyalMail.com,a veritable avalanche of Courier inserts and of course World Class Mail.
Why?...because and this isn't a personal dig but the bottom line is management in general just aren't up to the job.
Hooper doubted management's ability to bring the staff through the modernisation programme in one piece and he was right.

There are too many who shouldn't have made it above what would have been a supervisor in any other industry and I would imagine deep down you know that.Too many who have sat in a quiet delivery office that ran itself for 15 years who have no idea how to cope with what they are being asked to do now and dragged out of their comfort zone they are lashing out at the staff through their own ignorance.

The business lacks the courage to deal with this situation,It has always been a weakness in the company that it cannot deal with failing managers,It moves them sideways and simply spreads the infection,It has been so sadly as long as I remember and as long as it continues there will be no genuine employee engagement.

I think it's fairly common knowledge that the weakness of first line operational managers has been the achilles heel of the business for years. I don't have any direct experience of DOMs as man-managers but In my experience at least 50% of DOMs are pretty useless in terms of reasons why I engage with them. Equally at virtually every DO I visit there are some posties who need sorting out in a big way. Manager or not I would never accept being spoken to in the way that I see some posties talk to their manager who seem to simply ignore it for the sake of relative peace. I'd like to think they are showing off in front of me but somehow I doubt it. As you say I'd accept that there are incompetent DOMS but to be honest I am amazed that anyone would want the job. There isn't enough money in RM to make me want to do it with what some seem to have to put up with. I wonder how easy it is to recruit good DOMs.

As far as the survey results go there were some industry norms published along with this year's results. I can't get them at the moment but from memory some apparently bad results were around or slightly better than the standard.

I know all managers cannot be tarred with the same brush, however, why does nothing happen to the managers who have flouted the law, who have been proven guilty in an Employment Tribunal of discriminating against employees whether it be racism or disability where the evidence is shown in the judgement in black and white.

Do these managers not need sorting out in a big way?

In the code of business handbook page 31 under the heading 'Managers duty of care' one of the bullet points state-

Behave responsibly, ensuring that your actions are lawful and do not expose you or the company to legal liability, either by
ill advised action or by negligence.

These managers are not sorted out in any way to my knowledge, in fact most of these managers are promoted who then carry around their ill thought actions like a badge of honour, what kind of message does this send to the perpetrator? its hardly suprising that B&H is epidemic in delivery offices throughout the uk.

Yep, they all need sorting out

[Brain Fury]

You can only really get a feel for these results if you can consider them against the results for similar organisations.

I would doubt that the Telegraph would be running a story entitled Royal Mail staff discontent with bosses based on these stats if these stats were anywhere near the industry norm.

The figures are abysmal despite a small fortune being poured into employee engagement through RMTV,MyRoyalMail.com,a veritable avalanche of Courier inserts and of course World Class Mail.
Why?...because and this isn't a personal dig but the bottom line is management in general just aren't up to the job.
Hooper doubted management's ability to bring the staff through the modernisation programme in one piece and he was right.

There are too many who shouldn't have made it above what would have been a supervisor in any other industry and I would imagine deep down you know that.Too many who have sat in a quiet delivery office that ran itself for 15 years who have no idea how to cope with what they are being asked to do now and dragged out of their comfort zone they are lashing out at the staff through their own ignorance.

The business lacks the courage to deal with this situation,It has always been a weakness in the company that it cannot deal with failing managers,It moves them sideways and simply spreads the infection,It has been so sadly as long as I remember and as long as it continues there will be no genuine employee engagement.

I think it's fairly common knowledge that the weakness of first line operational managers has been the achilles heel of the business for years. I don't have any direct experience of DOMs as man-managers but In my experience at least 50% of DOMs are pretty useless in terms of reasons why I engage with them. Equally at virtually every DO I visit there are some posties who need sorting out in a big way. Manager or not I would never accept being spoken to in the way that I see some posties talk to their manager who seem to simply ignore it for the sake of relative peace. I'd like to think they are showing off in front of me but somehow I doubt it. As you say I'd accept that there are incompetent DOMS but to be honest I am amazed that anyone would want the job. There isn't enough money in RM to make me want to do it with what some seem to have to put up with. I wonder how easy it is to recruit good DOMs.

As far as the survey results go there were some industry norms published along with this year's results. I can't get them at the moment but from memory some apparently bad results were around or slightly better than the standard.

I know all managers cannot be tarred with the same brush, however, why does nothing happen to the managers who have flouted the law, who have been proven guilty in an Employment Tribunal of discriminating against employees whether it be racism or disability where the evidence is shown in the judgement in black and white.

Do these managers not need sorting out in a big way?

In the code of business handbook page 31 under the heading 'Managers duty of care' one of the bullet points state-

Behave responsibly, ensuring that your actions are lawful and do not expose you or the company to legal liability, either by
ill advised action or by negligence.

These managers are not sorted out in any way to my knowledge, in fact most of these managers are promoted who then carry around their ill thought actions like a badge of honour, what kind of message does this send to the perpetrator? its hardly suprising that B&H is epidemic in delivery offices throughout the uk.

Yep, they do need sorting out. I think Fishtank has it right when he suggests that one of the problems is incompetent managers who are being asked to do things they are not capable of and to be fair, RM hasn't prepared them for. There are also simply nasty b*******s at all levels and I have worked for one. However, I also think there is a problem with managers not confronting unacceptable behaviour because they are scared of provoking a staff reaction. I remember having a discussion with a DOM about a policy of ensuring staff wear the correct uniform such as happens at UPS etc. His reaction was that there was absolutely no way that he would pull anybody up over a uniform issue because it wasn't worth the risk of a walkout.

[jack]

Quote

Brain fury

Yep, they do need sorting out. I think Fishtank has it right when he suggests that one of the problems is incompetent managers who are being asked to do things they are not capable of and to be fair, RM hasn't prepared them for. There are also simply nasty b*******s at all levels and I have worked for one. However, I also think there is a problem with managers not confronting unacceptable behaviour because they are scared of provoking a staff reaction. I remember having a discussion with a DOM about a policy of ensuring staff wear the correct uniform such as happens at UPS etc. His reaction was that there was absolutely no way that he would pull anybody up over a uniform issue because it wasn't worth the risk of a walkout.

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So your basically saying RM has not trained some of their managers to an adequate standard in following their own procedures and the equality act. I cannot see how an organisation as huge as RM with an abundance of Human Resource & access to DDA procedures can fail so massively in that department.

I think your right it is unacceptable behaviour when staff ignore requests to wear the correct uniform... along with the DOM who will casually stroll in the yard minus his hi-vis.

[robbertwhitton]

You can only really get a feel for these results if you can consider them against the results for similar organisations.

I would doubt that the Telegraph would be running a story entitled Royal Mail staff discontent with bosses based on these stats if these stats were anywhere near the industry norm.

The figures are abysmal despite a small fortune being poured into employee engagement through RMTV,MyRoyalMail.com,a veritable avalanche of Courier inserts and of course World Class Mail.
Why?...because and this isn't a personal dig but the bottom line is management in general just aren't up to the job.
Hooper doubted management's ability to bring the staff through the modernisation programme in one piece and he was right.

There are too many who shouldn't have made it above what would have been a supervisor in any other industry and I would imagine deep down you know that.Too many who have sat in a quiet delivery office that ran itself for 15 years who have no idea how to cope with what they are being asked to do now and dragged out of their comfort zone they are lashing out at the staff through their own ignorance.

The business lacks the courage to deal with this situation,It has always been a weakness in the company that it cannot deal with failing managers,It moves them sideways and simply spreads the infection,It has been so sadly as long as I remember and as long as it continues there will be no genuine employee engagement.

nail head and hit me thinks!all in all very sad times,with management worlds away from what goes on at the sharp end,and the day to day running of an efficient office that can well run itself without charts and graphs and targets etc etc,am sure a lot of managers go into hiding with embarrassment,of how much meaningfull and practiticable input they do on a daily basis?

[Brain Fury]

Quote

Brain fury

Yep, they do need sorting out. I think Fishtank has it right when he suggests that one of the problems is incompetent managers who are being asked to do things they are not capable of and to be fair, RM hasn't prepared them for. There are also simply nasty b*******s at all levels and I have worked for one. However, I also think there is a problem with managers not confronting unacceptable behaviour because they are scared of provoking a staff reaction. I remember having a discussion with a DOM about a policy of ensuring staff wear the correct uniform such as happens at UPS etc. His reaction was that there was absolutely no way that he would pull anybody up over a uniform issue because it wasn't worth the risk of a walkout.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So your basically saying RM has not trained some of their managers to an adequate standard in following their own procedures and the equality act. I cannot see how an organisation as huge as RM with an abundance of Human Resource & access to DDA procedures can fail so massively in that department.

I think your right it is unacceptable behaviour when staff ignore requests to wear the correct uniform... along with the DOM who will casually stroll in the yard minus his hi-vis.

It's not just a question of understanding the procedures, it's more a an issue of how to apply them and manage staff well although I admit I don't know what if any management training is available to DOMs. You might well not believe it but the support services such as HR have been decimated over the last few years. When I started as a manager there was always an HR expert you could go to for advice but now the approach seems to be that everything you need is on line and it's up to you to sort it out without any personal guidance. I used the the uniform story as an example of a manager being too frightened to enforce a reasonable requirement because of the potential reaction from staff. Poor management skills is definitely an issue but so is the unwillingness of some posties to be managed.

[fishtank]

Poor management skills is definitely an issue but so is the unwillingness of some posties to be managed.

I think if you have to rely on people's willingness to be managed you've kind of missed the whole point of management.Not being able to manage difficult members of staff either into conforming to acceptable standards of behaviour or out the door is either poor local management or poor support from area management or both but it's still management's failure.

[Brain Fury]

Poor management skills is definitely an issue but so is the unwillingness of some posties to be managed.

I think if you have to rely on people's willingness to be managed you've kind of missed the whole point of management.Not being able to manage difficult members of staff either into conforming to acceptable standards of behaviour or out the door is either poor local management or poor support from area management or both but it's still management's failure.

Sorry I don't agree with that. Of course managers have to have the skills, processes and support available to cope with a range of people but the culture needs to be one in which people expect to be managed and recognise the role of management without complaining about bullying and harassment or threatening strikes. It's nit bullying to be told to do something you don't want to do. Just for the record I am not saying that B&H is not a fact - I've seen it myself. The example about wearing the uniform is a small but clear cut case. That manager just wasn't prepared to even speak to someone about his refusal to wear the correct uniform because as he told me - he will just tell me to f**k off, then I'll have to escalate the issue, the CWU rep will get involved and then I'll either have to back down or they'll be out the gate. It's just not worth it. Another example recently was when I was talking to a DOM on the dock and 3 delivery posties were still having a smoke long after everybody else had gone out. I could see the DOM squirming a bit and eventually he said something along the lines of "come on lads you've had long enough get out there". The abuse that came back from one of the three was shocking. Afterwards I asked the DOM why they put up with it and they said "oh he's always like that. I just ignore it because if I make a fuss he'll get them all wound up and I'll have problems". That attitude of "you can't tell me what to do" amongst some staff is just as much a problem as poor management. Perhaps it's a product of poor management in the first place that it's been allowed to grow but it is now ingrained in the culture of the business now I don't know how it's going to be changed.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

But in a strange way, because Operations managers in Royal Mail are not taught to Lead and there is no formal training school or course (1 day and 1 week seminars are not real training), then they flounder and resort to either tacit acceptance of the unacceptable and appear weak, or they puff up and find the "weakest" target and exert pressure beyond the point of B&H.

The agreements between Royal Mail and the Union are there to help Managers as well, but they rarely understand the agreements, or their implications - why because they receive no real formal training.

Managers should be able to manage, and a good manager will get the workforce working for him rather than against him. But they will only get good managers when they are trained properly.

Sometimes people need to nurtured and encouraged, sometimes they need shouting at, sometimes they need more training, sometimes they need a change of scenery, sometimes they just need someone to listen and understand, and sometimes they need active counselling (as we used to call it) which can look like bullying and harassment. A good manager will know when a light or heavy touch is required, but they need to be given the skills to do it. All Royal Mail do is take their fleece from them and shove them out on the sorting floor, thats a recipe for disaster, and thats we got.

If Royal Mail let managers manage, gave them the skills to do so, and stopped micro management from above, Royal Mail would be the World Beater it thinks it is.

[cloherty1976]

Tbt what would happen if the manager was that good he got the job done without any overtime or you had a useless manager but he gave plenty of overtime, who do you think the staff would want?

[jack]

Poor management skills is definitely an issue but so is the unwillingness of some posties to be managed.

I think if you have to rely on people's willingness to be managed you've kind of missed the whole point of management.Not being able to manage difficult members of staff either into conforming to acceptable standards of behaviour or out the door is either poor local management or poor support from area management or both but it's still management's failure.

Sorry I don't agree with that. Of course managers have to have the skills, processes and support available to cope with a range of people but the culture needs to be one in which people expect to be managed and recognise the role of management without complaining about bullying and harassment or threatening strikes. It's nit bullying to be told to do something you don't want to do. Just for the record I am not saying that B&H is not a fact - I've seen it myself. The example about wearing the uniform is a small but clear cut case. That manager just wasn't prepared to even speak to someone about his refusal to wear the correct uniform because as he told me - he will just tell me to f**k off, then I'll have to escalate the issue, the CWU rep will get involved and then I'll either have to back down or they'll be out the gate. It's just not worth it. Another example recently was when I was talking to a DOM on the dock and 3 delivery posties were still having a smoke long after everybody else had gone out. I could see the DOM squirming a bit and eventually he said something along the lines of "come on lads you've had long enough get out there". The abuse that came back from one of the three was shocking. Afterwards I asked the DOM why they put up with it and they said "oh he's always like that. I just ignore it because if I make a fuss he'll get them all wound up and I'll have problems". That attitude of "you can't tell me what to do" amongst some staff is just as much a problem as poor management. Perhaps it's a product of poor management in the first place that it's been allowed to grow but it is now ingrained in the culture of the business now I don't know how it's going to be changed.

Maybe that attitude is a reflection of how some individuals perceive their treated or have been treated in the past by management. If you treat people like s**t your basically going to get s**t back.

I consider myself to be a fairly good employee with no sickness stage warnings or conduct code warnings. However, through standing up for myself.. example.. not wanting to work past my contracted hours, or not wanting to lapse/absorb past my contracted hours-it has made me an easy target for RM managers to B&H.

I have seen temp contracts threatened with non renewal of contract for refusing to lapse/absorb past their time.

I have seen people have to fight for bank holiday days back they are owed.

I know of 2 people who have left the business as they didn't want the grief of keep telling the DOM they needed to finish on time to pick their kids up from school.

I think if you could gauge the overall balance of non cooperative staff towards management, and B&H towards staff off management I think the latter would hold sway.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Tbt what would happen if the manager was that good he got the job done without any overtime or you had a useless manager but he gave plenty of overtime, who do you think the staff would want?

Sorry but to use the overtime claims as an indicator of whether a manager is good or bad is part of the problem. The best manager in the world who motivates his staff could have no overtime claims, or the highest in the country - overtime is a Budget/Resource problem and has very little to do with being a good man manager.

As to the statement of what would the staff want - again thats the problem in a nutshell. Royal Mail see things too much in Black and White, on or off, open or closed. Whereas in life its different shades of grey. You take the concerns of the staff on board and address them where possible, but you don't base your decision solely on what they want, but you include, what the customer needs, what the business needs and what you, as a manager need. A good manager takes everything into consideration and makes a balanced and informed decision.

Me personally, I wouldn't want either manager you described, I would want someone somewhere in the middle.

[cloherty1976]

Tbt we are on the same wave length agree with you totally

[k979aaa]

Tbt what would happen if the manager was that good he got the job done without any overtime or you had a useless manager but he gave plenty of overtime, who do you think the staff would want?

Sorry but to use the overtime claims as an indicator of whether a manager is good or bad is part of the problem. The best manager in the world who motivates his staff could have no overtime claims, or the highest in the country - overtime is a Budget/Resource problem and has very little to do with being a good man manager.

As to the statement of what would the staff want - again thats the problem in a nutshell. Royal Mail see things too much in Black and White, on or off, open or closed. Whereas in life its different shades of grey. You take the concerns of the staff on board and address them where possible, but you don't base your decision solely on what they want, but you include, what the customer needs, what the business needs and what you, as a manager need. A good manager takes everything into consideration and makes a balanced and informed decision.

Me personally, I wouldn't want either manager you described, I would want someone somewhere in the middle.

I would want a manager to make a decisions based on fact reason and need to a given situation on the day and time. Not to edicts from above and pressure to make the situation that is most convenient for management bonuses and lack of hard labour for those they do get it and to fill the pockets of the royal mail at our expense which in they try to rob us all for a bigger market value!.