Red faces at RM as posties try to deliver huge change

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Red faces at Royal Mail as posties try to deliver huge change http://www.thisistotalessex.co.uk/Red-f ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

COMPLAINTS are mounting against Royal Mail in the CM postcode with the public worried about late deliveries, lost post and foreign agency workers with no local knowledge.

Postmen this week admitted to the Chronicle that they are embarrassed as their reputation in central Essex takes a battering.

But they insist the tide is turning, putting the public backlash down to teething problems as they adjust to the greatest overhaul in the local postal service for decades.

Area manager Tony Gauthier gave the Chronicle a behind-the-scenes tour of the sorting office on Victoria Road, Chelmsford, to show our readers how hard his team are working to get back on track.

"Our workers are very passionate and they are working hard to fix the problems," said Tony, who runs the CM area, covering Chelmsford, Witham, Braintree, Maldon, Brentwood and Harlow.

"They take offence when they are criticised publicly. All these guys live in Chelmsford – and it's the same in Witham and all over the CM postcode area – and when they finish their shifts, people know who they are and keep having a go at them about the post.

"It's difficult to explain the problems to people. Post is down 23 per cent in the CM postcode area.

"The mail has changed and we don't get much social mail any more – people use e-mail and social media more often.

"Now a lot of our business comes from packets from companies like Amazon and eBay so we had to adjust. Before, we did two deliveries and the first had to be done by 9.30am, and that was costing the business an absolute fortune.

"We now do just one delivery and have changed the delivery times, and some people just don't understand it.

"You should now get your mail by 3pm, or 4pm in a rural area. If you get it at 3pm, it's not late.

"Postmen don't go out on bikes any more. They are all in vans so the mail is more secure. And there are new machines that sort the mail and make us more efficient.

"These are massive changes that will remain in place for many years to come, and there have been teething problems, but I would say we have fixed 80 per cent of them, we are learning from our mistakes and we are getting less complaints."

Over the past three months, 17 local postmen have taken voluntary redundancy, and the head count now stands at 176 at the Victoria Road depot.

The postmen arrive at 6.30am, and work with vast machines to sort the mail into a delivery order, before heading out in teams of two in their red vans before 10am.

They typically finish before 4pm, but the workload is often so heavy they return with undelivered mail, and bosses draft in agency staff to deliver the leftover post.

"We have had agency staff who can't speak or read English, which has resulted in post being wrongly delivered" said postman Frank Woodhatch.

"Once that's been discovered we have said to the agency that we cannot use them, and we are getting people in on a regular basis and using less agency staff now, so I hope that reassures the public."

Frank, 49, of Springfield, a representative for the Communication Workers Union, and a postie for 29 years, added: "We are one of the few organisations in Chelmsford and in Essex where people have been in the job for a number of years. They feel that they are letting the public down. We have had to change the way we work, which has proved quite difficult. We have removed bicycles and now have two postmen in vans doing longer routes.

"Some of the deliveries aren't quite right and we don't like seeing bad reports from customers. But we are in the process of putting it right. In some cases the new system is working but not in all cases.

"There are massively fewer postmen now. Over the last three months, we lost 17 people and they had 377 years' experience between them.

"It's sad to see friends going, it always is, and we are losing experienced workers, which is an issue.

"But we are addressing the problems. We want to deliver letters. It will take time but we are going in the right direction. It's much better now than six weeks ago."

Frank's colleague Chris May said: "The main problem we had was the casual workforce, who weren't properly trained. Having to send them out caused most of the complaints and I can understand that.

"Since then we have kept the casual staff in the office and sent the experienced workers out and I should imagine the quality of service and public perception has gone up."

Office manager Dave Seal said: "You are always going to get negativity with change but we are learning something new every day. I would like to think we are over the worst of the teething problems and if anything goes wrong we will try to fix it straight away."

[Straight4ward]

Frank's colleague Chris May said: "The main problem we had was the casual workforce, who weren't properly trained. Having to send them out caused most of the complaints and I can understand that.

No. The main problem was not employing sufficient staff in the first place which would have negated the need to employ casuals.

[pinstripe]

You hit the nail on the head there, S4W.

[Stormproof]

Post is down 23 per cent in the CM postcode area.

Another quote with no data to back it up. 23% down from when? I bet its up 95% from 100 years ago!

[happyhippo]

Post is down 23 per cent in the CM postcode area.

Another quote with no data to back it up. 23% down from when? I bet its up 95% from 100 years ago!

if mail is truely down then why do we take longer to sort/deliver it? im sorry but i don't buy that argument anymore. My bags are stll as heavy as when i first started and i still go to all 550 points on my walk with d2d's every week. management need a new excuse or simply tell us the truth they have messed up bad.