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New Delivery model

Postal workers discussion forum. Discuss the day to day life in a Blue Shirt.
hewittinspain
EX ROYAL MAIL
Posts: 264
Joined: 20 May 2013, 21:24
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by hewittinspain »

A2B wrote:
04 Aug 2025, 21:16
Perseus wrote:
04 Aug 2025, 21:01
One wonders if the first office that started it, with 20 singleton driving duties will be allowed to keep doing it. They basically redesigned how they worked so that everyone on every day did a bit of core and combined. Now they'll be expected to change again. Or are they likely to have different offices working in different ways and just hope that they save some money along the way.
I think it's going to be different offices work to a different structure, snippets on here that 4 duties covered by 3 people would work for small offices but bigger offices would go to 8 people covering 9 duties :crazy: guess we'll have to wait to see what they come up with.
They say you can stay on your own duty. My guess is it's probably not much different to how things are now. They know now not to complicate matters. One walk/1C and Tracked on the other then swap. This is achievable with less staff
TopperGas
Posts: 3285
Joined: 13 Feb 2021, 22:46
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by TopperGas »

hewittinspain wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 07:57
A2B wrote:
04 Aug 2025, 21:16
Perseus wrote:
04 Aug 2025, 21:01
One wonders if the first office that started it, with 20 singleton driving duties will be allowed to keep doing it. They basically redesigned how they worked so that everyone on every day did a bit of core and combined. Now they'll be expected to change again. Or are they likely to have different offices working in different ways and just hope that they save some money along the way.
I think it's going to be different offices work to a different structure, snippets on here that 4 duties covered by 3 people would work for small offices but bigger offices would go to 8 people covering 9 duties :crazy: guess we'll have to wait to see what they come up with.
They say you can stay on your own duty. My guess is it's probably not much different to how things are now. They know now not to complicate matters. One walk/1C and Tracked on the other then swap. This is achievable with less staff
If a postie is only doing is own duty each day then how does that save the company any money, the only way to save money is have a postie do more than one duty each day, meaning less posties are needed? The 8 posties covering 9 duties seems a far easier job than 3 doing 4 duties, one is 25% more work the other just over 10% more work.
hewittinspain
EX ROYAL MAIL
Posts: 264
Joined: 20 May 2013, 21:24
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by hewittinspain »

TopperGas wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 08:10
hewittinspain wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 07:57
A2B wrote:
04 Aug 2025, 21:16
Perseus wrote:
04 Aug 2025, 21:01
One wonders if the first office that started it, with 20 singleton driving duties will be allowed to keep doing it. They basically redesigned how they worked so that everyone on every day did a bit of core and combined. Now they'll be expected to change again. Or are they likely to have different offices working in different ways and just hope that they save some money along the way.
I think it's going to be different offices work to a different structure, snippets on here that 4 duties covered by 3 people would work for small offices but bigger offices would go to 8 people covering 9 duties :crazy: guess we'll have to wait to see what they come up with.
They say you can stay on your own duty. My guess is it's probably not much different to how things are now. They know now not to complicate matters. One walk/1C and Tracked on the other then swap. This is achievable with less staff
If a postie is only doing is own duty each day then how does that save the company any money, the only way to save money is have a postie do more than one duty each day, meaning less posties are needed? The 8 posties covering 9 duties seems a far easier job than 3 doing 4 duties, one is 25% more work the other just over 10% more work.
Is this the model they are looking at or is this your theory?

We are a medium office, we are 15% staff down and tracked and 1C are going every single day due to covers and reserves being juggled around taking just 1C and tracked on their own and then duty holders are picking it back up next day doing one duty and maybe a row or two off the other side. This has worked in our office for around 5 months so far that a lot of time people are left on their own that just take tracked and 1C off both duties which is then picked up as much as possible by the duty holders the next day.
Union said you can stay on your own duty with no absorbing.

I have no idea what they are coming up with but it will be a much simpler way then what they drummed up with the 3 over 4.
All I'm saying is our system is hitting targets with many staff down since February. Over complicating things only ends up in disaster. I do realise in a few weeks mail will pick up but let's face it whatever idea they come up with it's not going to save them the planned £300m, they have to be realistic on the fact there is only so many hours in a day and like I said the way we are currently working is hitting the targets they want with less staff. Being left alone is not uncommon anymore and they are not even asking staff to work their days off which was unheard of a few years ago when it was one person coving two duties. 5 years ago if you were one or two staff down managers would panic and they would get staff coming from other offices, those days are gone because of mail decline and now relaxation of 2C


How would a postie doing more than one duty reduce fatigue? That's clearly adding more work and sounds like absorbing another duty between 8 posties. That doesn't make sense to me.
Personally RM are not interested in clearing frames anymore as long there two most important things are delivered.
Thommo44
Posts: 262
Joined: 10 Nov 2018, 13:00
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by Thommo44 »

TopperGas wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 08:10
hewittinspain wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 07:57
A2B wrote:
04 Aug 2025, 21:16
Perseus wrote:
04 Aug 2025, 21:01
One wonders if the first office that started it, with 20 singleton driving duties will be allowed to keep doing it. They basically redesigned how they worked so that everyone on every day did a bit of core and combined. Now they'll be expected to change again. Or are they likely to have different offices working in different ways and just hope that they save some money along the way.
I think it's going to be different offices work to a different structure, snippets on here that 4 duties covered by 3 people would work for small offices but bigger offices would go to 8 people covering 9 duties :crazy: guess we'll have to wait to see what they come up with.
They say you can stay on your own duty. My guess is it's probably not much different to how things are now. They know now not to complicate matters. One walk/1C and Tracked on the other then swap. This is achievable with less staff
If a postie is only doing is own duty each day then how does that save the company any money, the only way to save money is have a postie do more than one duty each day, meaning less posties are needed? The 8 posties covering 9 duties seems a far easier job than 3 doing 4 duties, one is 25% more work the other just over 10% more work.
Regardless of 3 doing 4, 8 doing 9 it’s the amount of hours not the amount of people that will make the savings. I understand the National Insurance and Pension contributions are a large portion, but both are relative.
They made £600 million only 3 years ago (£726m in 2021) then lost £600 the year after, this is where they need to be looking. If you want to charge more, improve quality of service
Perseus
Posts: 959
Joined: 21 Feb 2024, 16:45
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by Perseus »

‘Stay on your own duty’ is a strange one though.
Maybe ‘your duty’ will end up being a core part of one frame every day, but a different combined part of another frame.
ted_e_bear
Posts: 3933
Joined: 03 Sep 2012, 19:37
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by ted_e_bear »

Perseus wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 11:32
‘Stay on your own duty’ is a strange one though.
Maybe ‘your duty’ will end up being a core part of one frame every day, but a different combined part of another frame.
That's what I thought surely everyone can't stay on the same duty everyday unless the plan is to simply just drop mail (except 1c obvs) on Saturdays which they should have tried in the first place.
A2B
Posts: 1852
Joined: 25 Feb 2009, 19:34
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by A2B »

Perseus wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 11:32
‘Stay on your own duty’ is a strange one though.
Maybe ‘your duty’ will end up being a core part of one frame every day, but a different combined part of another frame.
Yes I think that's the way it will go but don't see how this resolves the issue with non drivers, is everyone going to be van sharing?
toonshola
Posts: 892
Joined: 29 Jul 2011, 16:31
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by toonshola »

I can’t see where the savings are coming from if everyone gets to stay on their own duty as has been mentioned. I guess there may be small savings from just first class going out on the Saturday but Royal Mail have already previously said just dropping the Saturday isn’t enough, that’s why they pushed Ofcom for this 2nd class every other weekday crap which has been approved by ofcom.
Unless they are going to have us van sharing on the first class only days and make us take another frame between us, then the day after you take everything on your original two frames then keep rotating like that. I can’t wrap my head around how they make any of this work and save the money they want.
About time the union clued us up on some details as I understand some reps where updated on the new plans yesterday and none so far have deemed us paying members worthy of knowing what they are.
A2B
Posts: 1852
Joined: 25 Feb 2009, 19:34
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by A2B »

In my head we will be covering part of another walk as well as doing part of your own so savings would be there, probably not enough for RM
norris9
Posts: 2621
Joined: 27 Feb 2019, 17:32
Gender: Female

Re: New Delivery model

Post by norris9 »

So the CWU think Royal Mail can't make the savings the company requires?. The government has had their say and want the 6 day service to remain?

Seems like we are between a rock and a hard place....

and is basically why Royal Mail have depleted the service for 4 years now.... are we just going to continue delivering a shoddy service due to purposefully being understaffed - is that the answer.
kazardaimenu
Posts: 1391
Joined: 13 Apr 2022, 19:11
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by kazardaimenu »

Probably be do your duty and then cover your partner’s side’s tracked specials collections etc then rotate. When it gets too bad maybe you get a reserve on to help. That’s what’s been going on at our place all summer.
SkiSunday
Posts: 790
Joined: 05 Jan 2025, 18:19
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by SkiSunday »

kazardaimenu wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 17:08
Probably be do your duty and then cover your partner’s side’s tracked specials collections etc then rotate. When it gets too bad maybe you get a reserve on to help. That’s what’s been going on at our place all summer.
We have been doing that between 2 of us for 5 years now. 1 full walk and the Tracked, Reggies, collections on the other. Unless it's busy then it can be as little as a row.
kazardaimenu
Posts: 1391
Joined: 13 Apr 2022, 19:11
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by kazardaimenu »

SkiSunday wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 17:20
kazardaimenu wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 17:08
Probably be do your duty and then cover your partner’s side’s tracked specials collections etc then rotate. When it gets too bad maybe you get a reserve on to help. That’s what’s been going on at our place all summer.
We have been doing that between 2 of us for 5 years now. 1 full walk and the Tracked, Reggies, collections on the other. Unless it's busy then it can be as little as a row.
This is the new model they just can’t announce it as official policy.
ted_e_bear
Posts: 3933
Joined: 03 Sep 2012, 19:37
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by ted_e_bear »

kazardaimenu wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 17:08
Probably be do your duty and then cover your partner’s side’s tracked specials collections etc then rotate. When it gets too bad maybe you get a reserve on to help. That’s what’s been going on at our place all summer.
I wondered about that too but it doesn't fit with staying on your duty as that's a load of the staff that can't stay on their own duty as you'll no longer have a partner, also there'd be quite a few excess staff in a lot of offices, in effect it's a big duty that only gets half the mail delivered on alternate days, hope they inform us soon about what the proposal is.

Edit...oh hang on did you mean two people do it together, surely that's not a cost saver it's a reaction to a workload that's far too big, or is it a cost saver in that when there's too much work it simply doesn't get completed, that's hardly a robust plan even by RM's low standards.
SkiSunday
Posts: 790
Joined: 05 Jan 2025, 18:19
Gender: Male

Re: New Delivery model

Post by SkiSunday »

kazardaimenu wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 17:23
SkiSunday wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 17:20
kazardaimenu wrote:
05 Aug 2025, 17:08
Probably be do your duty and then cover your partner’s side’s tracked specials collections etc then rotate. When it gets too bad maybe you get a reserve on to help. That’s what’s been going on at our place all summer.
We have been doing that between 2 of us for 5 years now. 1 full walk and the Tracked, Reggies, collections on the other. Unless it's busy then it can be as little as a row.
This is the new model they just can’t announce it as official policy.
It's not exactly new though is it?