Moya:More cost-cutting to come

[Brain Fury]

If there has been such a cull in managerial grades, how come there are 4 managers doing next to nothing all day in our office?
I don't believe a word of it. RM could get rid of at least 50% of the remaining managers, and no one would notice.

Of course you don't believe a word of it. That has no bearing on whether it's true or not.

[Judgee]

We have the same amount of managers in my office now that we have always had. I know some have supposedly been given redundancy packages in other offices but personally I haven't witnessed any of it?

As was mentioned above, we could quite easily lose half of them and still function as we do now. It is the obvious place for job cuts. Can't really cut down on workers as we are struggling to get all the walks out every day as it is!

[fishtank]

As I am sure you know, about 1000 "managers and executives" were made redundant last autumn including a third of the top 250 managers in the business.

Since that included removing the "Lead DSM" role, a role that no-one in the business could explain, justify or even comprehend it isn't really surprising. £70k to relay messages from the DSMs to the Delivery Director plus 18% potential bonus of course...nice work if you can get it.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

MY personal opinion is that the oft mentioned change from Line Managers to Team Leaders is fast approaching. A team leader will be in charge of 6 Delivery Teams plus a roving reserve or two, and he will be one of the Day Off cover reserves so will need to do a delivery. Line Managers will disappear entirely and DOMs will be downgraded.

That will probably account for around 2,500 to 3,000 managerial positions.

[fishtank]

Line Managers will disappear entirely and DOMs will be downgraded.

Not before time, Span of control should determine management ratios but RM is still stuck in the Stone Age and simply counts heads, This is a simple repetitive job, easily learned and with very few variables, There are roughly 13,000 "managers" and 130,000 "others" and that's far too high a number for a business like this. I would imagine they'll be looking at closer to 1:20 as a ratio but i'm not even sure if we need to replace a lot of line managers who seem to spend most of the morning "creating" work for themselves....and most of the afternoon doing what exactly?

[Budfrog]

Of course the term 'Manager' covers a wide array of jobs in Royal Mail ones that would not be classed as managerial roles in any other industry. It seems that to be called a 'Manager' within the business you simply need to be in a grade that is represented by the CMA.

I wouldn't argue with the need to re-align the numbers of staff on managerial grades to the requirements of the business but first of all I would want to look at what tasks are really essential to move the business forward, what roles actually contribute and add value ... only once this is done should there be any rationalisation exercise ... Oh ... wait a minute, I forgot this is Royal Mail >>> far better to arbitrarily remove jobs and worry about the consequences later (whilst making sure you still employ enough graduates to cover the some of the shortfall).

[Brain Fury]

Of course the term 'Manager' covers a wide array of jobs in Royal Mail ones that would not be classed as managerial roles in any other industry. It seems that to be called a 'Manager' within the business you simply need to be in a grade that is represented by the CMA.

I wouldn't argue with the need to re-align the numbers of staff on managerial grades to the requirements of the business but first of all I would want to look at what tasks are really essential to move the business forward, what roles actually contribute and add value ... only once this is done should there be any rationalisation exercise ... Oh ... wait a minute, I forgot this is Royal Mail >>> far better to arbitrarily remove jobs and worry about the consequences later (whilst making sure you still employ enough graduates to cover the some of the shortfall).

In the "restructuring" last autumn, I know of one newly rationalised management team that sat down with their new boss. One of the team asked who had taken over responsibility for a certain task as the members of his old team that had previously done it had all been given VR. The boss' answer? I didn't know we did that.

After a previous "restructuring exercise" a senior manager asked who was responsible for a certain task only to be told "the person who was doing that job was made redundant 3 months ago".

The fact is, certainly for non-operational managers, we are long past the point of restructuring to meet the requirements of the business. The business cannot afford to properly manage all the things it wants to do. Apparently it can afford to do these things badly.

[fishtank]

The business cannot afford to properly manage all the things it wants to do. Apparently it can afford to do these things badly.

The business needs to drastically streamline what it "wants to do", some of the ideas being bounced around at the moment reek of panic and desperation and remind me of the bad old days when we bought up loads of companies in an attempt to have a finger in every pie.

It isn't rocket science, Just do what we do and do it well, reward the staff for efficeincy, don't try to bully them into working harder just because many of the lumpen front line Ops managers are stuck in the 80s ethos of sweat=higher productivity.
It doesn't.

[Budfrog]

The business cannot afford to properly manage all the things it wants to do. Apparently it can afford to do these things badly.

The business needs to drastically streamline what it "wants to do", some of the ideas being bounced around at the moment reek of panic and desperation and remind me of the bad old days when we bought up loads of companies in an attempt to have a finger in every pie.

It isn't rocket science, Just do what we do and do it well, reward the staff for efficeincy, don't try to bully them into working harder just because many of the lumpen front line Ops managers are stuck in the 80s ethos of sweat=higher productivity.
It doesn't.

I agree totally FT ... streamline the business and concentrate on collecting, processing and delivering mail. For far too long RM has been overcomplicating the support systems and placed managerial resource against tasks that add no real value. I have never worked in an industry with such a divide between supervisory grades and the staff themselves and something radical needs to be done to try the change the toxic climate of mistrust that exists.

[blackadder]

r.m usuly have 10.000 leave a year. people fed up, sackings or the old dears hanging up there bags. our lovly moya may indeed emply 3000 on a 6 month temp contract to be looked at every 6 months to replace the 10000.

[rubberbond]

The business cannot afford to properly manage all the things it wants to do. Apparently it can afford to do these things badly.

The business needs to drastically streamline what it "wants to do", some of the ideas being bounced around at the moment reek of panic and desperation and remind me of the bad old days when we bought up loads of companies in an attempt to have a finger in every pie.

It isn't rocket science, Just do what we do and do it well, reward the staff for efficeincy, don't try to bully them into working harder just because many of the lumpen front line Ops managers are stuck in the 80s ethos of sweat=higher productivity.
It doesn't.

You are quite right ,the trouble is they are constantly trying to reinvent the wheel. The other point being of course is the management "style" for want of a better word, all command and control, no initiative or free thinking allowed AT ALL.

[villagegreen]

I have the pleasure to work in an del office in the north east, at the moment we've just been told we're going to have to save another 140 hours. We have around 26 fulltime staff sorting in the morning and about 30 partime staff that start just before we are due out on delivery. Efficiency, working smarter and productivity or just some of the quotes thrown at us every day. What really makes it hard to swallow is we have a DOM, two line managers, four work place coaches and a DOM support. Can someone tell me what the hell is efficient about this set up. No doubt it will be the delivery staff that will have to bear the brunt of the savings. What is the ratio for manager per head of staff ?