Saturday post under threat as R M told to slash jobs

[NWpostie]

will it be cost effective ? thats the nub

[dropbag_clone]

Royal Mail cant decide whether you get paid for the work you do or the hours you work. This is the problem.[/quote]

The management have not come to terms with the end of 'job and finish' they are still operating on the mistaken belief that there is still a lot of slack in the delivery side of things.

Most postman are now working the hours they get paid, some are foolishly working beyond their paid hours (for what ever reason), but Royal Mail seem to think that the delivery side can be itemized by quantity, and delivery times calculated down to the nearest minute. Yet we have the foolishness of long days and short days, and so many changes to our start times its hard to remember what day of the week it is.

We have a workforce beginning to resent the heavy handed management style that devalues any standards we once had in its obsession with reducing costs. Our work is never good enough, targets are always set that bit further away as to become almost unattainable.

More 'rationalization' will only add to this caustic mix, in ten years time goodness only knows what kind of a service we will be offering, if the business lasts that long.

[bogstandard]

in the interests of saving money why not close everything (keeping all your managers of course) and have 1 postie working out of Birmingham say as it is quite central but possibly a bit further north then they can be on a p/t contract working out of a mobile unit (but sell the wheels, generating some much needed cash for the shareholders bubbly) delivering the mail as it turns up. So when the local mad old lady arrives with a letter for her dead brother who used to live in cornwall off they go there and then. on foot of course.
Forget it sell it all, make the ingrate work from thier car, like the dopey f*ck*r does now. E-mail everyone in the form of a 739 letting them know they've got mail, then sack the poor sod for wilfull delay and change the terms and conditions of the new employee to one with no pension, no rights and no say.
The local line manager can then recruit day old babies from the maternity wing thus ensuring to the best of their ability that the new employee will not usurp their position, this is not guaranteed though.
why keep all the managers, well do you really expect AC to speak to someone like an OPG on a regular basis, no there needs to be a chain of command, and when he plays pass the buck of responsibility he does need what is known in the films as plausable denyability.
i do believe this is the solution, sack every postie barr one for the moment, sell everything barr RM HQ, have one address where the competition drop off all thier DSA mail, dont buy any machinery as the poor sod wont get the full benefit and they would be using lecky which isn't free you know. its the future, you know it.

[BELIAL]

You haven't had a sneak preview of the new business plan have you?

[johno47]

bogstandard, brilliant plan, your can take over :lfo job, thats what :cfo calls creative thinking..

[F0zziebear]

bostandard I get the impression there's some tension between your shoulder blades. The great thing about this forum is that you can let off some steam (constructively of course) whereas you might have punched your local DOM in the face or done something that seemed helpful at the time but might do more harm later on.

I was luck/unlucky enough to work at the frontline in operations and work in HQ with senior management and got to see the world from both/all sides (not quite true, was never actually a frontline employee). I had and have smypathy will all those involved. I only came a across a few people I actuallly didn't like. Believe it or not most of those at the top of the business are trying to do what they think is in RM's best interests. Yes there are driven by their terms of success and getting their bonus just like most frontline employees who want their bonus each month.

For some reason we are where we are. By that I mean there have been:
a. Poor investments in foreign companies designed to offset declining margins/volumes in the UK
b. Large pension deficit caused in part by a pension holiday, people living longer, investments being downgraded
c. Volumes declining overall
d. EU liberalisation
e. Mail substitution to electronic alternatives.
f. Machinery modernisation
g. Movement from a railway network to road network

The list can go on and maybe I've the most important ones the wrong way round. Either way RM at present is required to provide at least a minimum to service to every delivery point on a daily basis, which requires a bear minimum of human and captial resources. What's happened and will continue to happen is that RM moves towards that minimum requirement. It causes more tension, less employee happiness, same/less in real terms take home pay for more work etc.

One senior operations manager once told a room of people that if they don't like then they should find another job. To an extent I agreed with the logic, but some organisations are more than just work, which where I think there is a disconnet in all this. Is RM still a grade-1 listed instiution that needs retaining even if it makes a commercial loss and therefore subsidised by the taxpayer? At the moment the government seem to be taking more business away from the Post Offices and actively encouraging public agencies and large business to consider DSA. Yet at the same time expects RM to provide a good service and reduce costs. This simply does not tie up. Forget the hooper report the situation is simple unless you try and make it complicated. Don't be fooled by the rhetoric believe what you can see with your eyes and if it doesn't make sense in the cold light of day then it probably doesn't make sense!

[k979aaa]

bostandard I get the impression there's some tension between your shoulder blades. The great thing about this forum is that you can let off some steam (constructively of course) whereas you might have punched your local DOM in the face or done something that seemed helpful at the time but might do more harm later on.

I was luck/unlucky enough to work at the frontline in operations and work in HQ with senior management and got to see the world from both/all sides (not quite true, was never actually a frontline employee). I had and have smypathy will all those involved. I only came a across a few people I actuallly didn't like. Believe it or not most of those at the top of the business are trying to do what they think is in RM's best interests. Yes there are driven by their terms of success and getting their bonus just like most frontline employees who want their bonus each month.

For some reason we are where we are. By that I mean there have been:
a. Poor investments in foreign companies designed to offset declining margins/volumes in the UK
b. Large pension deficit caused in part by a pension holiday, people living longer, investments being downgraded
c. Volumes declining overall
d. EU liberalisation
e. Mail substitution to electronic alternatives.
f. Machinery modernisation
g. Movement from a railway network to road network

The list can go on and maybe I've the most important ones the wrong way round. Either way RM at present is required to provide at least a minimum to service to every delivery point on a daily basis, which requires a bear minimum of human and captial resources. What's happened and will continue to happen is that RM moves towards that minimum requirement. It causes more tension, less employee happiness, same/less in real terms take home pay for more work etc.

One senior operations manager once told a room of people that if they don't like then they should find another job. To an extent I agreed with the logic, but some organisations are more than just work, which where I think there is a disconnet in all this. Is RM still a grade-1 listed instiution that needs retaining even if it makes a commercial loss and therefore subsidised by the taxpayer? At the moment the government seem to be taking more business away from the Post Offices and actively encouraging public agencies and large business to consider DSA. Yet at the same time expects RM to provide a good service and reduce costs. This simply does not tie up. Forget the hooper report the situation is simple unless you try and make it complicated. Don't be fooled by the rhetoric believe what you can see with your eyes and if it doesn't make sense in the cold light of day then it probably doesn't make sense!

Yes he has been stabbed in the back like the rest us and we are where we are up sh*t creek without a paddle!. But as you said at the end YOU CANNOT PROVIDE A GOOD SERVICE AND MAKE A PROFIT AT THE SAME TIME!.

[dvbuk55]

[Yes he has been stabbed in the back like the rest us and we are where we are up sh*t creek without a paddle!. But as you said at the end YOU CANNOT PROVIDE A GOOD SERVICE AND MAKE A PROFIT AT THE SAME TIME!.

Of course you can - many operators would be in the same place we are but for the fact that they can charge whatever it takes to cover their costs AND make a profit and modernise. If Royal Mail was free to charge what the service is worth, not provide a free ride to competitors and modernise in a sensible way then of course we could make a profit - we made a profit for donkeys years and paid the government hundreds of millions of pounds a year, a right regular cash cow.

What went wrong? Under investment in the run up to the non-privatisation and a failure by the government to invest heavily once the plan back fired.

[Stormproof]

Rumours were flying round my office this morning, 'WHEN not IF' Saturdays go, our hours will be 8am-4pm and also the 5 weeks on 1 week off is going starting with managers next April. Also if you are on the 5 on 1 off system if you go sick you will owe RM the days out of your week off. Intresting times ahead i think

[steve86]

saturdays off cant come soon enough for me get a social life back and the coment about working sundays get a life mate the amount of mail we get most sats could be spresd over week and royal mail would save a fortune and sick leave would probably be halved at least so bring it on

[BELIAL]

Don't think you'll get the "social" life you were expecting

[axeman]

tension you might have ''bogstandard'' but not a chip like some