The truth about standards

[Martin Walsh]

Many on here have stated that they wanted to know what the standards were before they voted. However I think they are thinking that somehow we will all know what we have to sort out just like in the indivdual performance standards agreement which was for a 1 minute test. Well this was never going to be the case.

The workshops will study the following , the indoor workload tool , the geo route system , traffic recording and door to door into workload.

The indoor workload tool measures all the indoor element of the delivery side. It persumes things like that you dont recieve any missorts in your mech bundles etc and it persumes your manager adjusts the system on a daily basis based on sick leave etc and it also persumes that it adjusts the system to fit in your office ie is your office on two floors , do you have alpha sorting , do you have secondary sorting , do you have to clear in from x amount of frames etc. The only way the union can test the accuracy of the indoor worklload tool is in a live enviorment and thats what will happen. We have to be confident in the system they use . The other issue is that the indoor workload tool can be set at different performance rates ie 100% or 75%. Equally some prep on different frames , some on prep 2000 frames , some on 48 box fittings , some have double slots some dont. All of these have differnt planning values.

In terms of traffic recording well there is plenty of evidence that IPKs ( items per killo ) have been down dialled and are not accurate. Equally we know since delivery re -engineering that work which used to be done in delivery offices are now performed in the mail centre. There is plenty of evidence that when a mail centre comes under pressure to clear the early hours of the morning it just tips the work back to the delivery office and is not meched even thou it is recorded as meched. That means that work has to be IPS and in some cases secondary sorted and that workload is not recorded as being IPS and can show that an office is not working as hard as they really are. Again there has to be a full audit of traffic including the mist system in a live enviorment to test if traffic recording is accurate. Again this cant be done overnight.

Geo route , there is a new geo route system 2008 which has reduced walking speeds due to the negative publicty and given more time for attendance calls ( time knocking at doors ) . However when the union have overlayed this on the previous geo route system, in West Byfleet the previous system said 5 walks and the new improved system showed a lost of 7 walks. The same happened in Islington where the orginal system showed 60 walks and the new system 58. So you have to say that they have adjusted the other planning values to comphensate the reduction in walk speeds etc. Again we need to make sure we expose this in a live enviorment.

So again agreed standards are not in the form of how many items per hour or how many do you prep in an hour it is far more complex and variable then that. Thats why you were never going to recieve the standards in with this agreement. If you did it would be like war and peace and will not inform you of what applies in your office until you run your office criteria through the computer programme.

[fishtank]

So when will we find out in layman's terms just exactly how our performance will be monitored in the future?

[Martin Walsh]

So when will we find out in layman's terms just exactly how our performance will be monitored in the future?

I think your more likely to find out at what sites the tests are going to be carried out at first. It is only by testing in a live enviorment that you identify the flaws in the systems.

[fishtank]

So when will we find out in layman's terms just exactly how our performance will be monitored in the future?

I think your more likely to find out at what sites the tests are going to be carried out at first. It is only by testing in a live enviorment that you identify the flaws in the systems.

I will put it another way.
Is it possible these performance standards will be so cumbersome and task specific that they will never make it past the testing phase or that the CWUs idea of fair and Royal Mails idea of fair are so different that an agreement cannot be reached.
In which case what next?
I appreciate i am asking for an opinion here.
The reason i am asking is much of what is tied up in geo-route and the performance standards will shape the duty structures that may or may not be coming our way soon.
They may not be budget driven but they WILL be performance driven.

[teesdale]

Royal Mail have definately got to provide accurate figures for whats being sent out of mail centres to delivery offices and to get some managers who are honest about what type of mail it is. Bristol Mail Centre is a free for all at the moment with managers inflating figures to make their area or project seem successful. We have the Early shift manager suspended for leaving work lying around for a week and an Afternoon manager suspended for saying hed processed some mail when it was still left and he went home, his figures given have been questioned on another two occassions. 1st class mail failure to process for delivery next day have occured on 4th,5th,7th Jan,1st,2nd,29th Mar and 1st,6th Apr 2010. Totals 17500 packets and 135500 letters, god knows how much 2nd class was late as well with lots of work being squashed into containers to make it look less by managers.

[dvbuk55]

What it boils down to is we're being asked to vote for a pig in a poke. We'll have to "persume" that the live trials are held in offices that are as near "average" as possible and that the figures produced are accurate. What exactly is going to be used as the "top 10%" of performance standards - is it national or is it local - you would assume it would have to be national wouldn't you BUT I just have that gut feeling......................

If the 2008 figures for georoute both produced a negative on the previous testing wouldn't you imagine someone would say - "hang on we need to look into this at some length before we trial this" because we all know what trials at Royal Mail turn into.

[drb]

Can't help but feel that this "hiding of figures" and crap enforced performance standards only puts one set of people last on the list......The Public.....

[pickaname]

Many on here have stated that they wanted to know what the standards were before they voted. However I think they are thinking that somehow we will all know what we have to sort out just like in the indivdual performance standards agreement which was for a 1 minute test. Well this was never going to be the case.

The workshops will study the following , the indoor workload tool , the geo route system , traffic recording and door to door into workload.

The indoor workload tool measures all the indoor element of the delivery side. It persumes things like that you dont recieve any missorts in your mech bundles etc and it persumes your manager adjusts the system on a daily basis based on sick leave etc and it also persumes that it adjusts the system to fit in your office ie is your office on two floors , do you have alpha sorting , do you have secondary sorting , do you have to clear in from x amount of frames etc. The only way the union can test the accuracy of the indoor worklload tool is in a live enviorment and thats what will happen. We have to be confident in the system they use . The other issue is that the indoor workload tool can be set at different performance rates ie 100% or 75%. Equally some prep on different frames , some on prep 2000 frames , some on 48 box fittings , some have double slots some dont. All of these have differnt planning values.

In terms of traffic recording well there is plenty of evidence that IPKs ( items per killo ) have been down dialled and are not accurate. Equally we know since delivery re -engineering that work which used to be done in delivery offices are now performed in the mail centre. There is plenty of evidence that when a mail centre comes under pressure to clear the early hours of the morning it just tips the work back to the delivery office and is not meched even thou it is recorded as meched. That means that work has to be IPS and in some cases secondary sorted and that workload is not recorded as being IPS and can show that an office is not working as hard as they really are. Again there has to be a full audit of traffic including the mist system in a live enviorment to test if traffic recording is accurate. Again this cant be done overnight.

Geo route , there is a new geo route system 2008 which has reduced walking speeds due to the negative publicty and given more time for attendance calls ( time knocking at doors ) . However when the union have overlayed this on the previous geo route system, in West Byfleet the previous system said 5 walks and the new improved system showed a lost of 7 walks. The same happened in Islington where the orginal system showed 60 walks and the new system 58. So you have to say that they have adjusted the other planning values to comphensate the reduction in walk speeds etc. Again we need to make sure we expose this in a live enviorment.

So again agreed standards are not in the form of how many items per hour or how many do you prep in an hour it is far more complex and variable then that. Thats why you were never going to recieve the standards in with this agreement. If you did it would be like war and peace and will not inform you of what applies in your office until you run your office criteria through the computer programme.

Let me attempt to précis the above in one sentence:

"We havent got a freaking clue what is going to happen".

[Martin Walsh]

That is rubbish . Royal mail have locked themselves into agreeing standards. It was even in higson's letter . That is why we are in a strong position . But everyone has to test the standards against a live enviorment. For instance royal mail talk about the upper decile offices the top ten percent but how do they measure them? Some of these offices could be starting early etc , if it's measured on cost per letter than London and those with riss payments will have a higher cost per item due to higher pay rates .

We have to get the standards right and they have to be fair and achievable. That may take a bit more time but studying planning values for hundreds of different varriations was never going to be quick.

[fishtank]

We have to get the standards right and they have to be fair and achievable.

That is the only measure of whether we are in a strong position dingo.
Do not fool yourself into believing Royal Mail do not want these performance standards.
They want them because they believe they can use them to drive efficiency savings.
Nothing has been achieved with these standards at the moment because nothing has been agreed.
But could you answer this question.
How can revisions go ahead if we do not know what standards will be expected of us?

[Big Daz]

RML are not doing revisions untill the workshops are done and dusted and the outcomes agreed.

[fishtank]

RML are not doing revisions untill the workshops are done and dusted and the outcomes agreed.

Just how long do you think RML will wait Daz?
And if there is no agreement?

[bexhil palace]

So can Dingo confirm that mail being down by 10% year on year may not be an accurate assesment as most delivery staff suspected.

[Big Daz]

RML are not doing revisions untill the workshops are done and dusted and the outcomes agreed.

Just how long do you think RML will wait Daz?
And if there is no agreement?

Alas, Im not physic, so can not answer your 2nd question

For your first question, RML will wait untill workshops are concluded before moving, so I would guess in the event of unable to agree new paramaters RML would commence revisons by the end of May.

I doubt that RML and CWU will be unable to agree new parameters though.

[trythat]

RML are not doing revisions untill the workshops are done and dusted and the outcomes agreed.

Sorry have to disagree, we're have a number of CDV ordered, more trolleys and PDAs, all in the office, they are on about it coming in 4 weeks time.

We of course would like all this to be suspended untill all work shops have been agreeded, but I must say it does seem as though we're getting nowhere,
I would like it all to be put on hold until Area Reps and office reps have had what little training they can expect.

Was also told all managers from my office off to London (I think) on Monday and Tuesday, where I presume they will be told what to agree to and what to hide from us, it will be intresting to see if they tell us anything that they learnt.