Temporary workers make sure postal service is first class

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/bu ... ticle.html

More than two billion items of post are sent over the Christmas and New Year period. Hayley Harp met workers at one of Royal Mail's centres to find out more about how they make sure the post gets to its correct destination.

IT IS not open to the public and not many people know it's there, but nestled not far away from Festival Park is one of Royal Mail's busiest processing centres.

The company created 550 temporary jobs there in the run-up to Christmas to help cards and parcels get to their recipients.

Each piece of mail, once collected from a post box or business, is dropped off at a mail centre.

It is then fed through a machine which takes a picture of the address on the envelope and tries to read where it is being sent to.

If the address cannot be read, the picture that was taken gets sent to a worker at one of Royal Mail's manual data entry centres (MDEC) such as the one in Media Way, Etruria.

Tina Gallon, MDEC's northern manager, said: "Machines can struggle to read the addresses on letters and cards for a number of reasons.

"Problems occur when people's handwriting is poor, for example when an 'S' looks like a '5'." "

There are three MDEC sites across the country – Stoke-on-Trent, Plymouth and Stockport – and another one opens in, Northumberland for the Christmas period.

On an average weekday, MDECs process more than three million items – but that figure rises significantly over Christmas.

'Keyers' at the centres indicate the destination of items that couldn't be read by the processing machines, usually by typing in the first half of the postcode.

Information that has been keyed into the system then gets sent back to the mail centre.

The item will go on to join other mail to be sent through a final sorting process.

MDEC workers have five seconds to type in the details and can process more than 1,000 letters per hour.

Ms Gallon said: "Occasionally, we get people who don't put any address on at all.

"They may have got family post mixed up with other post and put something like 'Grandma' on the envelope. That gets sent for manual sorting to see if there are any place indications on it.

"If not, it goes to our centre in Belfast, which can open mail to see if there is anything to identify the sender or receiver."

The Etruria centre operated 24 hours a day in the run-up to Christmas, with staff working three different shifts.

When one person goes on a break, their place is immediately taken by another.

Their employment starts in November, with training to get their speed and accuracy up to scratch.

Shift manager Stuart Watson said: "No-one works on live mail until they have achieved accuracy targets.

"We do not accept people with less than 80 per cent accuracy."

Leila Dilling joined the centre for Christmas. The 22-year-old, who lives in Shelton, said: "Training seems so simple and easy but when you start working on the addresses properly, it is quite different. There is a lot that we have to learn and we have to be on the ball."

There are also another 120 staff members at the centre who are permanent employees.

Colette Fitzgerald, aged 26, from Sneyd Green, has worked as a part-time keyer for 16 months. She said: "Getting used to the job was hard at first but I liked it enough to stay."

[baldrick]

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/bu ... ticle.html

MDEC workers have five seconds to type in the details and can process more than 1,000 letters per hour.

Shift manager Stuart Watson said: "No-one works on live mail until they have achieved accuracy targets.
"We do not accept people with less than 80 per cent accuracy."

When I worked on code sorting we were expected to process 2,000 letters per hour,
which was mainly the full 6/7 digit postcode, not just the 3/4 digit outward code.
And we were only allowed a 3% missort rate, not 20%.

[Tman]

If you were a coder on the old 2nd generation code desks, you got all the mail to be coded, good, bad and indifferent,but the MDEC keyers "only" get the non-OCR-able letters, (ie, harder items) and that's why thier targets are lower than yours were.

If they code O/W only they'll be in for a kicking too, as that's no good for I/W sorting at the destination MC.

[booboo]

Trust some local rag to get it wrong.

It's Tina Gordon, not Gallon. She's apparently now gone and the guy who was temporarily covering her job whilst she was seconded has taken it permanently.

Agency keyers did get let loose on live mail even though they failed to reach the quality targets in training, otherwise there just wouldn't be enough keyers over Xmas. THis has happened every Xmas as far as I remember.

What they don't tell anyone is that all the cronies get temporarily elevated to managing/ training/ coaching for 4 weeks whilst the keyers that are genuinely capable of doing these jobs get turned down because they're not friends with the right people. One Xmas a keyer who's a qualified teacher got turned down as a trainer because it was apparently felt they didn't have the right attributes!!!!

Then there's fact that they take on alot more temps than they really need. We have a problem with police checks so we end up with temps processing live mail who turn out to have criminal records that we then have to sack when the checks finally come back.

All in all Xmas at the MDEC is totally chaotic, and as people keep saying, you'd think after 6 years they'd just be fine tuning Xmas pressure from previous years rather than making a pigs ear of it. Nothing changes.

[Tman]

And don't forget the usual Xmas pressure trick of "dumping" images.
Close on 10,000 a day for some MCs.

[Magnus]

Booboo:

What they don't tell anyone is that all the cronies get temporarily elevated to managing/ training/ coaching for 4 weeks whilst the keyers that are genuinely capable of doing these jobs get turned down because they're not friends with the right people. One Xmas a keyer who's a qualified teacher got turned down as a trainer because it was apparently felt they didn't have the right attributes!!!!

Nicely put. There is, sadly, a clique at Stoke MDEC. It revolves around the same 10-12 people. Some of them are probably unaware that they belong to a clique. But alas, that's the way it is.

BTW, although The Sentinel harped on about the 1,000 items per hour, the vast majority of keyers (especially those who have been there a while), exceed 2,000 items per hour and have 90%+ accuracy.

The Sentinel have a habit of getting little details wrong... I know.

[booboo]

The clique has changed a little. The current shift manager is very unprofesssional in the way he seems to want to hang out with the "lads" so some of the cronies have changed since he took over in April.

Interesting to see how long he lasts if the situation regarding an ex-MDEC-er is as bad as I've been led to believe. Plus there's been alot of other cock-ups on his part and the new unit manager may be taking more direct control at Stoke as a result. Just have to wait and see.

[Magnus]

Funny thing is, I remember lots of people moaning about Pam Foster, and wishing she would leave (more direct words were used, if I recall).

Funny how it turned out.

A case of "be careful what you wish for".

Anyway, happy new year to everyone at Stoke MDEC.

[booboo]

Yeah, she was allegedly replaced because the HYS results were steadily getting worse and the aforementioned Ms Gordon was probably concerned about the impact this would have on her own career.

So what does she do? Replaces her with an even bigger f***wit. Even worse, is it my imagination or does he get Mr Heart Attack to deputise when he's off? He has to be the biggest waste of space in the building, never does anything.

Like I said it'll be interesting to see how long the current shift manager lasts. How many cock-ups has he made? Does he really know what he's doing? Then there's the business over the big lad that used to be on nights, the one that did the HYS presentation in WTL summer before last. Rumour is (always rumours in Stoke MDEC) he's taken royal mail to tribunal not once, but twice last year over stuff that shift manager's done. Don't really know much else. Be interesting to see how true this is.

[Magnus]

Must admit I'm not sure who "Mr. Heart Attack" is, but I'll look forward to meeting him. Or perhaps not.

Take care, folks.

[Magnus]

Interesting to see how long he lasts if the situation regarding an ex-MDEC-er is as bad as I've been led to believe.

Erm, shouldn't he be concentrating on current MDEC keyers? He has zilch authority over former MDEC keyers!

Unless of course, someone is claiming unfair dismissal.

Take care, folks.

[booboo]

Interesting to see how long he lasts if the situation regarding an ex-MDEC-er is as bad as I've been led to believe.

Erm, shouldn't he be concentrating on current MDEC keyers? He has zilch authority over former MDEC keyers!

Unless of course, someone is claiming unfair dismissal.

Take care, folks.

That's just my point. It sounds like this ex-keyer has taken Royal Mail to an Employment Tribunal because of the shift manager. So although the keyer's left, it could still affect the manager's career, that's if anyone in Royal Mail really cares. I'm sure any other company would look to get rid of a manager that has cost them so much. One of the lads off my shift sees quite a bit of this ex-keyer outside work, so if you want to know more, ask them.

As for Mr Heart Attack, think WAM, looks 90 but is in fact somewhere in his 40s, doesn't like people talking and never actually does anything.

[HeyYouGuys]

Dear me, Booboo, you seem to be gunning at a few targets here, cliques, "lads banks", shift managers.

Just relax and live a little is my advice.

You get them at every large company. On my shift there is a "lads bank". They think they rule the roost, but they don't. They are just a bunch of losers. You just ignore them and get on with it.

If you ever think your requests for promotion are turned down to favourtism, then raise the issues with the manager/rep/or whoever.

:lfo :cfo :mfo

[Magnus]

On my shift there is a "lads bank", although a female known as "The Witch" (or something similar) sits amongst them. They think they rule the roost, but they don't. They are just a bunch of losers. You just ignore them and get on with it.

Mmmm. Sounds vaguely familar.



I think I could probably guess which MDEC you work at.

Welcome to the board, anyway.

Take care, folks.

[Marky Mark]

Dear me, Booboo, you seem to be gunning at a few targets here, cliques, "lads banks", shift managers.

Just relax and live a little is my advice.

You get them at every large company. On my shift there is a "lads bank", although a female known as "The Witch" (or something similar) sits amongst them. They think they rule the roost, but they don't. They are just a bunch of losers. You just ignore them and get on with it.

If you ever think your requests for promotion are turned down to favourtism, then raise the issues with the manager/rep/or whoever.

:lfo :cfo :mfo

Alternatively you just find somewhere else to work. Most of the "attitude" is caused by the fact that MDEC is an extremely boring job and to alleviate that boredom, people bitch about colleagues. The worst cases I've seen at Stoke are people slagging off so-called mates, people that they even socialise with out of work, or people that they have as friends on Facebook and the like.