Royal Mail workers: ‘The situation is getting worse’

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I am afraid most on here, based on a straw poll of posts, so not scientific I grant you, would and never will vote labour again. Most seem to want the Union to disaffiliate after their attacks on Posties but, although it seems to appear at every conference, it keeps getting voted down or dismissed for some failure of rules or timings.

[Phantom]

I've been saying this for many years now and i know its a catch 22 situation but overtime is killing this job. If people worked their contracted hours and cut off then RM would have NO option but to either increase the workforce or increase wages to match the workload. A take home pay of £400 is now needed for all staff! - Overtime makes it easier for RM to survive and provide a service, if this was taken away from them they would severly struggle!

[dvbuk55]

Your missive reminds me of the case made by teachers when touting for a pay rise whilst enjoying a 35 week working year, 6 hour day and a ready made curriculum to follow. The board have an array of yes men, who are neither able to run a complex company nor understand what the end product of this company is. Forget the 2007/9 agreement, since the SDD there has been a never ending stream of ill thought out plans which has resulted in a service which is far worse than it ever was and much less profitable. That is not solely due to an open market. There has been little innovation in product design and a downgrading of most services. All those things you consider are worthy of great reward are really failures and it really doesn't matter if you spend 24/7 x 365 if the end result is worse than the original. Because something is made cheaper it does not make it better and it is not an honourable thing to misuse, misguide and lie to employees and have an undisclosed agenda to their detriment. The Government is culpable only in their washing of hands like Caesar not in the running of the company.

[F0zziebear]

I didn't say what they were doing was right. If I had complete faith in them I would have stayed. I didn't so I left.

I was saying that they do work hard.

In a previous post somewhere I said the following regarding types of strategy:

1. Finance led strategy which primarily focuses on cost-cutting

2. Marketing-led which focuses on profit and revenue generation via product & service innovation

RoyalMail has failed to develop the 2nd strategy much in the last decade. Any products & services they have developed have been peripheral and not jolted the market. I know of one innovation that would seal up one of their current products.

To be fair on the other hand many of things they are doing were necessary. The over-bloated management structure, the numbers of central/HQ personnel. The number of area personnel and the number of frontline personnel all needed to be reduced. They also needed to overhaul and improve the mechanisation if they were to compete with a rival company(ies). They also needed to overhaul the internal IT infrastructure. These were all minimums and will continue to need investment for several years to come.

My opinion about RM does flutter between sympathy, empathy and none of these. They could and should have done more but also done it in a different way. Having said that it is easy sitting on sidelines and criticise. I have been at the centre and many of things they've wanted to do have been prevented by political interference, which in many cases delays many ideas they have.

It is not a completely black and white closed case is my only conclusion from my first-hand experience.

[dvbuk55]

You see Fozzie I am a simple man, there is only black or white, good or bad, one side of the fence or the other, win or lose - for me there is no in between, no fence sitting, no grey areas. I see what is, not what effort has gone in to creating a failure. Mediocre management creates mediocrity and that is what has been the sum total of any effort however well meant for the last ten years. The turnover of higher management in recent years speaks volumes. Nobody could call RM a success story, so it is a failure and should not be rewarded and applauded.

[k979aaa]

I didn't say what they were doing was right. If I had complete faith in them I would have stayed. I didn't so I left.

I was saying that they do work hard.

In a previous post somewhere I said the following regarding types of strategy:

1. Finance led strategy which primarily focuses on cost-cutting

2. Marketing-led which focuses on profit and revenue generation via product & service innovation

RoyalMail has failed to develop the 2nd strategy much in the last decade. Any products & services they have developed have been peripheral and not jolted the market. I know of one innovation that would seal up one of their current products.

To be fair on the other hand many of things they are doing were necessary. The over-bloated management structure, the numbers of central/HQ personnel. The number of area personnel and the number of frontline personnel all needed to be reduced. They also needed to overhaul and improve the mechanisation if they were to compete with a rival company(ies). They also needed to overhaul the internal IT infrastructure. These were all minimums and will continue to need investment for several years to come.

My opinion about RM does flutter between sympathy, empathy and none of these. They could and should have done more but also done it in a different way. Having said that it is easy sitting on sidelines and criticise. I have been at the centre and many of things they've wanted to do have been prevented by political interference, which in many cases delays many ideas they have.

It is not a completely black and white closed case is my only conclusion from my first-hand experience.

So in your opinion are we a postal service or a business which is only profit driven two options service or profit!.

[BELIAL]

Yep Fozz is without doubt a profits is king man, more more more,work harder faster for less and the surplus HR can rot

[F0zziebear]

Without giving the game away I think my actions have spoken louder than my words regarding whether I am money money money.

I have been very fortunate through my life and the opportunities it has afforded me. Whilst I disagree with some of what the senior management have done at RM many of them provided me support, advice and opportunities which has enabled me to do and be what I am at the moment, so it would churlish of me to criticse them on the one hand and not say thanks on the other.

I believe RM is stuck between being a business and a service, and that is what is killing the company, because it has led to an unclear strategy. If it is a business then it should be privatised. If it is a service, then the primary aim of making a profit should not be it's objective. I do not believe it can be both successfully at the same time.

[BELIAL]

To be fair on the other hand many of things they are doing were necessary. The over-bloated management structure, the numbers of central/HQ personnel. The number of area personnel and the number of frontline personnel all needed to be reduced.

Who knows what your actions are, but these are your words and they are not misquoted and they do stand alone and the meaning is not distorted by selection. Now I could be wrong ,but that clearly reads to me that profit must come before jobs ,families ,homes etc. That is a view I will never share ,and one which will never have a moral or ethical leg to stand on

[F0zziebear]

On this point I specifically disagree. Jobs for jobs sake is not what I call necessary or of social benefit. I base this on personal experience in RM. I worked in a layer of management that no longer exists. And I say thank you for that as this layer of management got in the way of successfully communicating what people at the top wanted and those at the front end to implement. This layer of management was bureaucratic and pen pushing.

You are right to say that those doing these jobs were hard working like anyone else and others who had found a comfortable non-threatening position until their pension kicked in.

However based on my life experience man needs something to do. In every society people have done 'things.' So it is all well as good eeking out efficiencies form businesses and the public sector, but these people and their families will either die from hunger or need supporting. Now in the 1st world and specifically in the UK we have a thing called the welfare state. This was setup to support those who for whatever reason were unable to contribute 'financially' to the system. Now I have included numerous words in this paragraph that are open for interpretation, and we could debate for many hours about the current benefit or otherwise of the welfare state in 21st century Britain, but unless we open a specific thread for that there is't much point continuing it here.

Based on what I have said here and other things I decided to leave Royalmail. I am not saying that I am some kind of saint, but I had the choice to leave under VR terms with a reasonable pay off (in my opinion) that allowed me to pursue an alternative direction.

Where for art thou F0zz

[axeman]

Made a sideways move then ? but your thoughts are somewhat missguided frontline staff are being reduced at unprecedented levels and are in a state of neer collapse. As for managers it is plainly obvious that we are over subscribed but they for the moment need these dynamic gofors around (due to unrest within the delivery offices) because they have no morals other than bonus payments made because of the intimmidation ,threats they give staff no doubt directions from the invisable man and crazier. when no doubt the unrest is sorted then just hopefully we will see a dramatic cull of these leeches , bullies , arseh**es until then the gofors are set to cause more unrest due to there inexperience and lack of man management ' skills '

[dvbuk55]

Well clearly you cannot criticise the hand that fed and therefore your opinion is biased. We still work in this service and really know more than you the state of play in the workplace. Those who can do and those who used to do, pontificate.

[Tman]

Uncalled for. Fozz's tone has been more than placatory so far, but presumably he tells it from experience, so why criticise him for that?

Yes/no, black/ white is how digital logic works, but hardly relevant in an organisation as large and complex as RM. Such absolutes may be the norm for the one-dimensional, but I would imagine most RM employees have the nous to see things are never that easy.

Anyway (as recent posts on here prove) still being an employee is no guarantee to knowing what's going on. Quite the reverse, in some cases...........

[dvbuk55]

Uncalled for. Fozz's tone has been more than placatory so far, but presumably he tells it from experience, so why criticise him for that?

Yes/no, black/ white is how digital logic works, but hardly relevant in an organisation as large and complex as RM. Such absolutes may be the norm for the one-dimensional, but I would imagine most RM employees have the nous to see things are never that easy.

Anyway (as recent posts on here prove) still being an employee is no guarantee to knowing what's going on. Quite the reverse, in some cases...........

Placatory - intended to pacify by acceding to demands or granting concessions - to whom? Did you mean condescending? Fozz tells it from past experience, presumably, and from a biased view.

There are only two outcomes in any enterprise, whatever the size, success or failure. RM has been a failure in recent years, one failure of which is to inform the current employees whats going on - present company excepted of course.

[nelp]

An intresting debate are we a service or a profit based industry, I think this lies at the heart of our current problems untill this is defined we will always be at odds. The classic question is who is the customer,in the eyes of delivery staff it is the people who recive the mail. But to the buisness it is those who post it. in fact it is both as those that recive are also part of organisations that post and as they recive a retarded sevice this affects their opinins about the whole organisation.

The constant cutting of staff leads to a later and later arrival time many buissness customers comment on this and then look to use othe methods to deliver. We need to rethink our whole stragtey, a simple example;- there is a massive increase in packets but we still have callers offices open at inappropriate times. in most places mornings only. So lets open in the eveings and all day Saturday and Sunday. Lets also provided a 24 hour redilvery service this would require a mobile phone number and a number of drivers on standby out side of normal hours. As we would be able to rediliver within a two hour window, we would become the service of choice for the vast majority. Why wont this happen, because initaly it would cost as it would be a service ! in the long run we would increase profits because rivals would be unable to compete.

We need to be a great srvice first and then profitability will follow. Sadly our senior managment lack imagination. I also belive they have little understanding of what happens on the shop floor as junior and middle managers live in too much fear to tell the truth to those above.

I do feel one of the problems is that we promote from within regardless of ability and this just leads to the same old us and them situations.