Royal Mail to axe 700 jobs: Delivery firm reveals plans to get rid of hundreds of management roles as part of cost-cutting measures after year of decade-high complaints

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... sures.html

Royal Mail will make the job cuts as part of a restructuring to save £40m a year
Bosses said they will enter negotiations with trade unions over proposed losses
They said it was to 'streamline' service and 'improve focus on local performance'
It comes as the company faces a fine of more than £1million over delivery chaos

Royal Mail today revealed plans to axe around 700 management jobs at the business to try to cut costs.

The company will make the redundancies as part of a huge restructuring to try to save £40million a year.

Bosses said that they will enter negotiations with trade unions over the proposed losses.


They claimed the move was to 'streamline' the postal operation and 'improve focus on local performance'.

It comes after a disastrous few weeks for Royal Mail amid staff absences due to the pandemic and a year of decade-high complaints.

The company said employees off work peaked at 15,000 in early January due to the spread of Omicron.

Meanwhile, the firm faces a fine of more than £1million over delivery chaos that has seen hundreds of thousands of families suffer weeks of delays.


CEO Simon Thompson said: 'With the rise of Omicron, absence has been around twice pre-Covid levels, with around 15,000 staff off sick or isolating in early January. Thankfully, this is now improving.

'We are resolutely focused on addressing these issues which have affected our service in some parts of the country.

'Year to date we have spent more than £340 million on overtime, additional temporary staffing and sick pay, as well as providing targeted support for the offices most impacted.'

On the planned job cuts, he said: 'We have today entered into formal consultation on a management reorganisation to further streamline our operations and, at the same time, improve focus on local performance.

'We are committed to conducting the process sensitively, working closely with our people and their representatives.

'We have a track record of delivering change through natural turnover, redeployment and voluntary redundancy wherever possible.'

Royal Mail was one of the big winners from the coronavirus crisis, with a huge surge in online shopping and deliveries.

But it revealed the high peaks of last year eased off over the Christmas period as more shops were open.

It led to falls of 4.9 per cent in parcel revenues and 7 per cent in volumes in the final three months of 2021.

Yet this was still well up compared with pre-pandemic levels, at 43.9 per cent in revenues and 33 per cent in volumes.

The company faces a fine of more than £1million over delivery chaos that has seen hundreds of thousands of families suffer weeks of delays.

It confirmed last week sorting and deliveries are being disrupted at 24 offices serving 38 postcode districts.

These include many areas across London as well as the Home Counties, the south coast, Manchester, Yorkshire and Scotland.

Assuming an average of around 10,000 addresses per postcode district, up to 400,000 homes and businesses are affected.

Some have been suffering delays since before Christmas with customers complaining about medical results, appointment letters and even house move documents going missing.

Royal Mail blames staff absences caused by the Omicron virus strain. There are also suggestions that Covid samples and results are being prioritised.

Royal Mail is required to deliver 93 per cent of first-class post within one working day of collection, and 98.5 per cent of second-class post within three working days.

These rules do not apply in December and were dropped for part of the pandemic. Royal Mail was fined £1.5million for missing targets in 2018 and it appears on course for further penalties.

Regulator Ofcom said: 'We know how important a reliable postal service is to customers, and we can take action if Royal Mail fails to meet our annual targets. We have made it clear to the company that it must improve.'

A petition to Royal Mail from residents of the SE22 postal district of London said: 'For years East Dulwich, Dulwich Village and parts of Peckham Rye have suffered with a failing postal service.

'This has led to many suffering with lost prescriptions, lost documentation, lost banking details, fraud and stress. We just want to get our mail on time.'

Royal Mail said it was providing 'targeted support' to local offices and apologised to customers.

[Superdude]

Oh no.