Why does a 9:45 hour day have to equal a later than 3pm finish or for that matter a 6 hour delivery span?
The physical demands of a 6 hour walking delivery will be too much for almost anyone I know - they will be joining the Marines to get a rest.
There is presently a huge amount of early IPS flats and plastic wrap mail that cannot be sequenced and we are seriously short of people to do that work. Those on longer days can remain on an earlier start so that all other mail is ready to fill the gap between sequence runs and then do a maximum 5 hours outside leaving at 10 and finishing at 2:45 to return to the office and sign out.
I am not sure yet, but imagine that the longer duties will only occur where a 4 day week with a three weekly Saturday cycle is in place. The average is more likely to be a 4 week Saturday off cycle giving 2 x 9 day fortnights with maximum duty length of 8:45 hours. On a shared duty it may suit the driving partner to start later and do packets until 6pm after returning the walking partner to the office at 3pm and taking his meal relief.
I think it's time to start getting imaginative with what can be done - especially to the point of reducing any unnecessary work on a Saturday i.e. by sorting out dtd arrangements with relief staff to be done mon – fri.
Managers will not be able to turn down good ideas just for the hell of it, and the onus is now on us to provide those ideas and extract what benefits we can from an agreement that has threatened to divide us at times but may yet unite us.
, even allowing for only 4 hours on the prep, you'd be prepping 6000 items and I don't see that happening.
