Saturday Workload

[Budfrog]

Talk to any planner/DOM/DSM about Saturday attendance and you will get the reply "Its the same as any other day of the working week". Sorry to disagree but it's not ... it's part of what is commonly known as the weekend (a leisure period for a lot of people).

I know of a lot of DOs that wish to receive walk sorted mails on Saturday only to give them an earlier finish time (what many people came into RM for). Provided units are willing to increase their productivity on a Saturday to absorb the increased workload and save the 19mins why should they not be able to receive the work walk sorted at an earlier time ??

Well 3 main reasons:

1. Distribution plans would need to be altered.
2. If there was an increase in EP on Sat, RM would expect that EP Mon-Fri.
3. Targets (and bonuses) are dependent on delivery point sequenced targets being achieved by the end of the financial year ... walk sorted mails put a dent in this.
4. The CSS duty sets have been agreed assuming walk sequencing and not walk sorting which take s approx 33% of the time.

[comeracing]

could not agree more some of us have a life outside royal mail,family .sports etc,many jobs who work mon-fri finish early on the friday,so there is no reason why delivery staff cannot finish earlier on a saturday,the weekend flys by before you know it it is monday again,oh ye we used tdo have a DOM who went home 9AM on a saturday and was on pay until 13.00 HRS,ok for some .

[keithposty]

i totally agree with what is being said above, we all want the weekends to be with family etc but what people have to realize is that attendance patterns are 5 days out of seven now.

that includes weekends

it is 40, now 39 hours over the seven day period unless dictated in a different attendance rota (318)
duty builder, etc

[PhilthyPhil]

Our second wave on saturday is not sequenced. It comes walksorted direct from the MC rather than going to the MPU. I think this is so the MPU can do the mail for their DO earlier on saturdays tbh it doesn't make much difference to our arrival time whether it goes to the MPU or not. The MC wagons are so unreliable we would probably be better off if it did go to the MPU. At least the mail from the MPU is collected by our own driver so we get it on time. Unlike the MC wagons which are regularly 30mins+ late.

[fishtank]

Provided units are willing to increase their productivity on a Saturday to absorb the increased workload and save the 19mins why should they not be able to receive the work walk sorted at an earlier time ??

I'll be honest Budfrog,i don't think we could absorb the extra workload now without encouraging members to start early and skip their breaks.
We are cut to the bone now especially on saturdays with 25% of full-timers on their day off and being saturday higher than normal sick absence.
It's not a route i would like to explore....we've had saturday's EP used against us before.

[DirtyHarry]

Saturday working should be done away with.
Mon-Fri, that's the way to go.
I didn't join RM because I fancied tramping the streets until 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, no sireeeee.

[laudrup11]

Saturday working should be done away with.
Mon-Fri, that's the way to go.
I didn't join RM because I fancied tramping the streets until 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, no sireeeee.

Could not agree more mate.
Guarantee it's raised at conference this year AGAIN - guarantee it's blown out the water, mainly by folk who dont have to do deliveries.

[Biker Mouse]

Saturday working should be done away with.
Mon-Fri, that's the way to go.
I didn't join RM because I fancied tramping the streets until 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, no sireeeee.

Could not agree more mate.
Guarantee it's raised at conference this year AGAIN - guarantee it's blown out the water, mainly by folk who dont have to do deliveries.

......and by me! I don't want to see 16% of my colleagues without a job! We need to protect jobs not commit hari-kari!

[Darren Bent]

Time for divide delivery staff and mail centre department and voting. I don't want to WORK on Saturday at all.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I would rather not work Saturdays however I still believe the price in Job losses and the changes they would sneak in on the back of not working them is a price not worth paying.

[fishtank]

I think working on a saturday is unavoidable and unlikely to disappear in the near future.
It should however attract a premium,it is to a lot of people far more unsociable than working sunday or nightshift.

[DGP1]

This comes up ever few months............I personally don't mind Saturdays just the hours need adjusting to allow for the mail levels and the receiving office.

[jacobliam]

Personally i think we would all agree that the Saturday situation is a major problem. If we could get home for 12pm then we would all be happy. Just take out our mail and not the competitors.

[Mr Rush]

I used to enjoy working Saturdays, or at least I didn't mind the early start because it meant being home for noon. Thanks to the P&L revision I'm bloody miserable, but then again I'm not a few hundred down like season ticket holders.

[Budfrog]

RM and CWU have judged this quite poorly IMO and there would have still have been major savings with Walk Sequencing even if Sat was Walk Sorted ... trouble is promises have been made, targets set and a lot of bonus payments (at a very senior level) are dependant on the outcome.

The feedback that you get around Saturdays is that they are the same as any working day and if its OK for Shop Workers and people in other industries like healthcare then its OK for delivery postmen. Well a lot of people came into RM for early starts/finishes and the business is committed(at least on paper) to making attendances as family friendly as possible.