Alastair Cochrane - An extra 3,000 posties a year?

[TopperGas]

Who came up with this madness? Why would anybody being paid to work 37 hours a week now work 48 hours for the same money? If I work 48 hours now I get paid 9 hours overtime, or nearly 40 hours OT each month, in future I'll just get paid the same wage with no overtime.

That's £100's I'll lose annually unless I agree to work my Saturday's off.

But you will still get a full wage on your week off guess it suits some people.

It's only a day off rather than a week off? I can't understand how any company can suddenly force it's employees to work an extra hour a day in a fairly physical role.

Wally weeks are different at present, as you just work an average of 7.5 hours a day but work your rest day.

[Sean06]

Who came up with this madness? Why would anybody being paid to work 37 hours a week now work 48 hours for the same money? If I work 48 hours now I get paid 9 hours overtime, or nearly 40 hours OT each month, in future I'll just get paid the same wage with no overtime.

That's £100's I'll lose annually unless I agree to work my Saturday's off.

But you will still get a full wage on your week off guess it suits some people.

It's only a day off rather than a week off? I can't understand how any company can suddenly force it's employees to work an extra hour a day in a fairly physical role.

Wally weeks are different at present, as you just work an average of 7.5 hours a day but work your rest day.

Going by other posts its a week off??

[postslippete]

If RM genuinely needed the equivalent of 3,000 FTEs posties every year to improve its quality of service, doesn't that imply that it has been knowingly under-resourced for years?

What doesn't add up are offices having overtime bans so that work isn't being delivered and the CEO of RM suggesting that there is enough work to justify the equivalent of 3,000 extra full-time staff

Does RM want to reduce overtime and replace it with contracted hours because it's cheaper? Do they genuinely believe that it will improve the operation?

Because I'm unconvinced.

Productivity on the shop-floor has limits. Delivery work isn't like a manufacturing plant where you can simply turn the dial up and the machines run faster. Almost everything we do, both indoors/outdoors in a delivery office is all manual and whether it's completed on overtime or by extra staff, someone still has to physically do the work, and that always comes at a cost.

It feels to me like it is more of a productivity problem than a resourcing one.

[Iva bigredbag]

I think most of my office are praying for VR tbh.

[Mr Rush]

It feels to me like it is more of a productivity problem than a resourcing one.

'Why not both?' as the saying goes. Which is where the ODM/DM26/Inevitable Plan C arises to simultaneously vanquish the former and the latter - rolling over duties to increase callrates and reducing 4:3 the human resources needed to provide the specified service. It's the Magic Bullet (reference very much intended) for the company that doesn't want to hire people and doesn't want to deliver the letters for as long as it can get away with it.

[Gary55]

VR Just won't happen they'll just wait until we can't physically or mentally cope and either leave or get sacked

[A2B]

VR Just won't happen they'll just wait until we can't physically or mentally cope and either leave or get sacked

Sadly you are correct

[postslippete]

'Why not both?' as the saying goes. Which is where the ODM/DM26/Inevitable Plan C arises to simultaneously vanquish the former and the latter - rolling over duties to increase callrates and reducing 4:3 the human resources needed to provide the specified service. It's the Magic Bullet (reference very much intended) for the company that doesn't want to hire people and doesn't want to deliver the letters for as long as it can get away with it.

Fair point.

But the biggest unanswered question is this:

RM say that an extra £100 million a year could enable the equivalent of 3,000 extra FT posties. And yet most offices have overtime bans, undelivered mail and vacant duties. So if the work genuinely exists, why are they stopping the people who are already willing to do it??

Is overtime too expensive and replacing it with cheaper contracted hours the answer? I'm wondering whether RM underestimate the value of experienced posties. New recruits may cost less per hour but they are still learning duties, take longer to prepare and deliver and often need plenty of support so they might be cheaper on paper but could actually cost more per delivery. As someone who doesn't do much overtime myself, I'm not really that bothered either way.

Now and again they will put 2 posties on a round or stick 3 posties in a large van to try and get the round cleared. So what they may initially save on the swings can easily be lost on the roundabouts. I think DM26 will be judged on outcomes rather than intentions. Either RM saves its costs and accepts a poorer quality of service or it spends what is necessary to maintain or improve quality. I'm just not convinced that its possible to significantly cut costs and expect quality to improve at the same time.

[Mr Rush]

New recruits may cost less per hour but they are still learning duties, take longer to prepare and deliver and often need plenty of support so they might be cheaper on paper but could actually cost more per delivery.

Oh I agree. The problem is that RM, despite bleating on about existing for 500 years, does not really behave as if it perceives itself as historically contiguous. It may as well be a different company entirely and 2020 was its Year Zero. How it operated as recently as seven years ago is utterly irrelevant to its plans except in so far as it is a lesson to do the opposite (well paid staff with decades of loyal service be gone). It sees itself in competition with Evri who annually earn their atrocious public perception by having any rando turn up and fling packets wherever for as cheap as possible. No-one is expecting a tie-wearing royal cypher-bearing set-your-watch-by-them perfect service, just un point above Evri in the rankings.

That's the race to the bottom and short-termism. Never mind five hundred years, Dan couldn't commit to a five year plan. Ten would be a realistic proposition to build something genuine and lasting - in three you're either doing it shoddily or really demolishing.