Tracked Items try harder!

[OnAFlyer]

Tracked items really important? Most of the ones I deliver are from the 'Everything £5' shop.

[DGP1]

Tracked items really important? Most of the ones I deliver are from the 'Everything £5' shop.

[steve1873]

We have been told today in our office we must try harder with tracked items in other words if the householder is out at number 9 we must now knock on 11, 13, 15, 17, or back to 7, 5, 3, 1, till we can actually get rid of the item it means if a signature is required give it who ever then put a note on the p739 letting the customer know who has it.
The best bit is if you bring it back to the office there is a sheet in everyone's van and we have to fill in the address, the tracking number, reason why its not delivered and then all the other address's we have tried to deliver it.
Have you ever heard such codswallop in your life? I ain't got time for all that crap.... Oh and our Union man agreed it. Anyone else got to do this crap?

How exactly don't you have time??


Simply follow the correct cutting off procedures and you will still finish on your correct finishing time

What you take out you have to deliver so if you have 10 tracked items its going to have a knock on effect if most are out. You cant say to a manager "I have 10 items they might be out take half a row of me" my walk is over the delivery span as it is.

This is, quite simply, nonsense. It is what management want to make you think, as it makes life easier for them. If you are out on delivery and it becomes apparent you are not going to have enough time to complete, and do not want the over-time, then you must contact the office and inform the DOM or line manager at the soonest opportunity. It is then THEIR job to get that work covered. You have fulfilled your responsibility.

Of course, if you feel before leaving the office that you may not have time to complete, it is recommended to have the discussion there and then, but it is sometimes not fully apparent until later in the day that completion is not going to be possible.

I will also add, that even if you realise whilst out on delivery that you are going to over-run and do in fact wish to complete on over-time, I would advise phoning and getting confirmation that you will be paid the over-time and not just assume. I am fortunate that any time I run over, I just see my lino the next day and fill in the OT sheet. However, I know for a fact this is not the case in every office and many are denied the OT or have it questioned due to not getting authorisation from lino or DOM ahead of time.

[charlie1]

This months courier does seem to indicate that top management are intending to see the discretionary of leaving items with a neighbour, changed to a compulsory must try them.
With the rise in packets being sent, (which even Royal Mail acknowledge) plus the above instruction if implemented nationally, should see our union insisting all walks are adjusted to allow for the extra time this will add to each delivery. The revision in my office already sees us over the model week at least nine months of the year.

I would not be leaving any items with neighbours, where the sender has specifically requested no delivery to neighbour. Special delivery items should only go the actual delivery address, and that already applies.

Over time a regular postie will build up a knowledge of which neighbours will take for each other, along with those that will definitely not do it. Not only that you will often have a fair idea who will be in and when. Those customers that identify to me they will take for each other, I will definitely try, time permitting.

The main reason our delivery office fails to deliver as many items first time now, is the fact we leave the office so much later after our revision. Its not unusual to be starting our delivery after 9am, most customers that do work, will have departed by then. Before the revision we had several bulk support drivers, these would also be out delivering packets and tracked items starting at 7am! We now have none of these. Just to add to this our Dom and sidekicks would if they had their way, have us starting an hour later than we presently do.

The trouble is those at the top do not want to really listen to those that perform the job, day in day out. Middle management just do what they are told, many in fear of their own jobs going, so this stuff keeps on coming down from on high. The union often struggle to even send a coherent message back up the line too. In fact some of the union bods in my office are more management than the actual management. None of them have performed an actual delivery in years where I am based. Therefore I wont hold my breath that the union will nip this latest idea in the bud, more likely is a joint statement embracing it all.

[Sidley]

Maybe a new app on the PDA could help? A list of all the addresses that the carrier delivers to and a menu that one can use to record info as to when customer is likely to be in or out (this could be collated from info of previous deliveries). Also a prompt suggesting which neighbours would accept delivery and which of them is likely to be in at the time (also collated from info of previous deliveries).

Do I get my WCM gold star?

[steve1873]

Do you know what would piss me off as a member of the public? Being continually disturbed day in, day out being asked if I can take in a parcel for a neighbour whom I may not even say 2 words to otherwise.

Until RM acknowledge that delivery to neighbour does impact on delivery times - in fact potentially doubles or trebles each attendance call - then I will continue to P739 items and return them to the delivery office, where upon the customer can collect or can arrange a redelivery.

[Sidley]

Saturday mornings where I deliver, no one would thank me for knocking them out of their kip whilst the original addressee has a lie in too sound asleep to hear the doorbell or too hungover to give a f**k.

[stokes11eg]

Glad I'm retired! no way would i even think of doing this, and if people realise they are paying through the nose to have a 'secure' delivery' then find out what may happen to their item--well, I think they just won't bother. It's an own goal. I bele3ive if item is marked. 'private asnd personel' it must be delivered to the named person. Or at least that is what is uesd to happen.

[wabbithunta]

Glad I'm retired! no way would i even think of doing this, and if people realise they are paying through the nose to have a 'secure' delivery' then find out what may happen to their item--well, I think they just won't bother. It's an own goal. I bele3ive if item is marked. 'private asnd personel' it must be delivered to the named person. Or at least that is what is uesd to happen.

We've been instructed by our DOM that any Special Deliveries or Tracked items that need a signature must be delivered to the actual address on the item, so if nobody is we bring them back, but any unsigned tracked items we can leave with next door neighbour and leave a card....!

[dvbuk55]

Glad I'm retired! no way would i even think of doing this, and if people realise they are paying through the nose to have a 'secure' delivery' then find out what may happen to their item--well, I think they just won't bother. It's an own goal. I bele3ive if item is marked. 'private asnd personel' it must be delivered to the named person. Or at least that is what is uesd to happen.

Now what on earth could be delivered "private & personal" stokesy that you wouldn't want the neighbours to know about

It was interesting that the early trials stated that it didn't add any time to the delivery now who in their right mind wouldn't think that leaving one property, walking to the next or next, finding nobody in, walking back to the original property to leave a card - either way you need the card to inform the recipient of the packets whereabouts and that doesn't take any more time

[chrisj]

It was not vigorously challenged by the CWU!

Of course, it adds extra time but how can that time be genuinely added to the delivery time? Answers on a post card.

D2Ds prep and delivery has not even been totally added to the overall time spent doing the job... The best that some offices would have done is to add an 'average time' to the delivery at the start of planning. However, that time rarely ever correlates to the actual times as you can have from 0 - 7 D2Ds and some walks have far more drops than others (and thats adds loads to indoor prep time for some especially with 6/7 d2d items).

I was double prepping a walk recently and the managers/PHG had stuffed the frame with 5d2ds including the bulky one from the Red Cross and even thicker Spec Savers mag... Suffice to say that the job was slow going and virtually impossible because there were doubles slots on the frame and some of the double slots were on the bottom row.

The job was not completed for the 27.5 hr postie and I did not envy him trying to pull out all the mail. His frame was also shot to pieces...

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

Of course, it adds extra time but how can that time be genuinely added to the delivery time? Answers on a post card.

D2Ds prep and delivery has not even been totally added to the overall time spent doing the job... The best that some offices would have done is to add an 'average time' to the delivery at the start of planning. However, that time rarely ever correlates to the actual times as you can have from 0 - 7 D2Ds and some walks have far more drops than others (and thats adds loads to indoor prep time for some especially with 6/7 d2d items).

You do realise that the IWT does actually allocate time for d2d prep at the rates agreed with the cwu?

So when the duties were planned yes an average number of d2d contracts was used,

but also weekly when your rep is having his weekly resourcing meeting with the dom they should both be checking the information being input into the IWT for the coming week, this will include the correct number of contracts of d2d, the IWT already has each walk split down into number of delivery points and as such calculates the amount of time d2d will take at the agreed rate for each walk

[chrisj]

You always have to remember that all offices do not work like yours... It sounds to me like you are in a very strong 'unionised' office. Theories and agreements are one thing but reality is very very different.

Even if one has a Rep that has all the information, there is no guarantee that the Rep will be successful in implementing a lot of the agreement. The Rep will need to be persistent and have support from members, CWU hierarchy and even management.

We do not have any resource meetings whatsoever. And it is laughable to think that D2D were allocated as part of the workload. IMO, they were simply assumed to be absorbed because we had more mechanisation of mail and mail volume continue to go down.

Your advice might sound good but they simply repeat and have very little value in the real world - of offices up and down the country.

[Brain Fury]

Glad I'm retired! no way would i even think of doing this, and if people realise they are paying through the nose to have a 'secure' delivery' then find out what may happen to their item--well, I think they just won't bother. It's an own goal. I bele3ive if item is marked. 'private asnd personel' it must be delivered to the named person. Or at least that is what is uesd to happen.

Except that all the evidence is that the majority of customers want parcels left with neighbours. The first time completion rate of our competitors i.e. delivered at first attempt (including to neighbour) is much higher than Royal Mail's and we are suffering by comparison.

Whoever said that it was senior management's intention that this should not be optional is exactly right. Both Moya and Sue Whalley said this during the recent Ops & Mod managers conference and Moya was quite taken aback when a CWU rep stood up and said that as far as he was concerned it wasn't compulsory.

[chrisj]

Just to back up what I said above.

In my office, FT staff are given 20 minutes to throw out their mech before being invited to go on IPS, Packets or double prepping.

The 20 minutes actually included the D2Ds for which 1/6th should be prepped everyday. So how many D2Ds can be done in 20 minutes if the postie is on 450-550-property rounds.

Last week, one postie who does not do his d2ds prior decided to argue that he was not going to IPS until he has finished his d2ds (6 lots) and 2 boxes of mech. The whole thing took him more than 40 minutes. In the meantime, there were posties that were already at the IPS for 50 minutes (some even went there before they were supposed to be there. Why?

Because they had done their d2ds before the day, they come in very early to throw mech, loose, flats and some packets and after all that they had even more time to go and work on IPS for free - so they can get out. That is what that postie arguing with the manager is up against. He got away with being told off but he tends to stand his ground as he is a 'piece' to everyone; including managers. And he is not even a member of the CWU Union