Postmen required, must be fitter than Royal Marine instructo

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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A BBC Panorama programme of December 12, 2009 focused on the continuing problems of Royal Mail, which led to strikes last October which left the beleagured service even more vulnerable than before. Management and workers are frustrated and helpless in the face of disruptive technology – the internet – which continues to make huge and permanent inroads into their core business, delivering letters. Liberalisation has also allowed competitors to take market share in lucrative areas such as business post, while Royal Mail’s ‘universal service offering’ commits it to deliver, at a uniform cost, to every UK postal address and limits its capacity to raise prices. Despite all this, Royal Mail actually made a small profit last year, a fact which went largely unnoticed amongst the continuing wrangling, travails and government-inspired threat of a further sell-off of 10 per cent to TNT, the privatised operator formerly known as the Dutch Post Office.

Relations between Post Office workers and management are adversarial to a degree not really seen since the bad old days of the 1970s. The unions argue they have not been consulted on how best to face up to what all parties agree is a potentially fatal threat to the business. Management quite bluntly agree, saying that strategy is their business and imply that the unions are part of the problem, not the solution. However, the Panorama show yielded shocking evidence of jaw-dropping management stupidity and cupidity, allied to what appeared to be endemic failures in service provision on the part of both management and workers. As employee numbers have fallen – there are 60,000 less postal workers than 12 years ago, and though letters have fallen, loads have allegedly increased by a factor of 30%. In a reversion to Taylorism, Royal Mail appear to have targeted employees to literally shoulder the extra burden by completing their allocated rounds at an average walking speed of at least 3 miles per hour. In extreme examples, a 45 year old postman had been warned and disciplined for failing to complete his round at a speed which defeated a 27 year old ex Royal Marine and professional fitness instructor.

More than 50 per cent of customers surveyed were dissatisfied with the service they received from Royal Mail, before the October strikes. The programme showed evidence that mail had been tampered with at sorting offices and workers claimed that temporary staff were hindering rather than helping them to reduce backlogs. Management refuted all these claims, not so much with evidence to the contrary as with jaw-jutting Chutzpah.

Royal Mail has been disastrously managed for some time. Mistakes such as selling off ParcelForce at a time when the internet was responsible for an explosion in demand for home-delivered parcels which could have offset the fall in demand for letters cannot be laid at the door of the unions and workers. The Panorama programme also pointed towards an Orwellian tendency towards the truth. In the face of what appeared to be sound evidence – documented proof from a Royal Mail Operations handbook that the 3 MPH target existed, a Royal Mail management spokesman continued to deny its existence, then said it was an aspiration, not a mandatory requirement.

Royal Mail should either be privatised and thus allowed to raise – or lower – its prices in line with what the market will bear and its competitors are prepared to charge – or reasonably resourced to do its work. It is clearly a twilight business in crisis, and in this regard it is not alone: DeutschePost DHL lost EUR 1.6 billion in 2008. The mighty TNT may find the going tougher now that the Dutch post market has finally been liberalised. But on the basis of its present standard operating procedure, the current Royal Mail management would struggle even further in the open market.

[Yahoorsur]

More than a few errors in this article,
Pegusus was inputed at 4mph NOT 3mph(try walking at 4mph,damm difficult without breaking into a jog)
As I understand it the govt, was trying to sell up to 30%-49% not 10%
And I would vehmently disagree that the way to save Royal Mail is to privatise it,you would think that after the crash last year that we would stop worshiping at the altar of voodoo economics.
When was Parcelforce sold off?
Parcelforce Worldwide is part of the Royal Mail Group Ltd (turnover £ 8.4 billion) and is one of the top five express carrier businesses in the UK, operating in what is a highly competitive express market environment.

[Dogs of War]

Totally agree this has to be wrong surely.

[stokes11eg]

''Jaw dropping managment stupidity''' I love it!

[dvbuk55]

''Jaw dropping managment stupidity''' I love it!

Well yes - but what about the jaw dropping stupidity?

[stokes11eg]

Too knackered to give a full reply---Can't say much for Marine training though, when old Hags like myself can just about manage To trot round,carrying full pouches,at breakneck speed!

[DGP1]

When was PF sold off?
When did the Government want to sell another 10% off?

To badly written, too many basic mistakes for it to be taken seriously.

[plainpat]

PG wasn't 'sold off', but it was opened to Franchise by individual drivers I believe?

[fmrPOSTIE]

Depending how you look at it PF props up Royal Mail by making a decent profit. As does GLS.

[POSTMAN]

Depending how you look at it PF props up Royal Mail by making a decent profit. As does GLS.

No they don't,and how many years did we 'prop' them up,in fact we have 'propped' up the whole group for years.

[Pinky 1]

........and we're still propping up the whole fecking group