Staffing Issues

[Budfrog]

Last week a former colleague of mine (DOM) was asked to undergo some 'Root Cause Analysis' and write a report on why his unit is failing so many of it's KPIs. His reply was that it wasn't really necessary to write a report as nearly all of the KPIs were being failed due to manpower shortages. He went on to suggest that in the interim his unit required some casuals to cover indoor and outdoor workload but that in the long term his Vacs need filling and he needs Reserves as a contingency for sickness etc. His managers first and only reply was ... 'But that would mean going over budget !!, you will need to come up with a better solution'

Is it like this EVERYWHERE ??

[redneck]

Is is in my office, staff cuts a few months back due to VR and now a number of staff are working harder than ever and being paid o/t to come in an hour early on IPS to get it done satisfactorily - projected savings are not being made. Standards are continuing to slip.

[Budfrog]

My former colleague told me that he has to go out on walks 2 or 3 times a week (works at home in the evening to complete his own job) and couldn't believe how difficult some of the walks are now - and that is coming from a DOM a fit guy in his early 30s who started as a delivery OPG.

[deltaforce]

Managers clearing walks seem par for the course these days. Also common is managers being ordered to other do to clear up the failures there also.. In my early days as a postman, managers would not do delivery work under any circumstances. What's happened to their union to let this go on ?

[fishtank]

Doms have for too long failed to protect their resourcing structure, It probably felt wonderful slashing budgets and looking good in front of the DSM while we had the fat to lose, I'm sure they must have loved the back-slapping and the bonuses, Were they really stupid enough to believe it would stop at the fat?

[SpacePhoenix]

It probably holds true in many MCs.

[POSTMAN]

And has the DOM flagged it to anywhere,or is he just like all the other kippers...

[General Mannerheim]

Most of the `managers` doing the clearing up of work that Postal grades should be doing are wet behind the ears that only a few months ago where posties themselves. i.e they where part time and think they are bettering themselves by going onto management as "it's full time."....feck them,hope your all enjoying doing the cut offs or lapsing you turds whilst your boss gets a new car out of all the cutbacks.

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

Too many depots, including mine, running on an insufficient number of OPG grades.

Linos become dependent upon a significant number of OPGs working their day(s) off week-in week-out to cover their section, because some of those duty day of covers have been "loaned" to other struggling depots for well over 12 months.

Which has the knock-on effect of the remaining OPGs having more chance of winning the lottery, then being able to book lieu day leave, some of which has been carried over multiple years and amounts to the equivalent of multiple weeks.

Too many OPGs effectively helping the DOM to make the depot look like it is resourced properly, when it is really understaffed and has 318 duty structures that have no chance of completing the workload if OPGs use the correct tools; abide by h&s guidelines; leave mail/parcels in unsafe places; take/account for their entitled paid breaks etc. A busy day comes along and instead of following cut off procedure to finish on time, because they don't want to claim overtime, they do more things that save significant time like locking up their HCT and delivering loops by pouch (carrying far more than 5Kg and not delivering just to blocks of flats).

[DGP1]

Happening in my office, things are now at the level that we're just failing duties, the DOM doesn't care anymore, he knows he's going because he doesn't have the staff to cover.

[ziggy]

It's the Same in our office as well. Most people have reached their limit now and actually don't care anymore.

It's interesting to see that it's the same up and down the country. Does anyone know what their plan is?

Anytime I've went through this with previous employers there has usually been serious financial problems with them. The end result was either pay offs or the places have closed. I can't imagine this being the case with RM but it does seem that something's got to give sooner or later

[g66]

We had a manager at our office today telling certain staff to do more d2d`s as their duty wouldn`t be done tomorrow!

[Martin Walsh]

There is a recuitment problem in Royal Mail in some areas did not recuit to vacancies because they believed Whistl would enter the market. In addition they allowed lots of full time VRs to leave on pilon terms with the promise of backfilling of a 25 hour delivery duty.

When Whistl collasped they then had to recuit in additon to those promised under the pilon agreement.

The problem was that last year under the management reorganisation they made redundant a significant amount of managers who dealt with recutiement. The new manager recuitment team can only handle 1000 nationally and there were over 4000 requests at one stage for recuitment. Hence the shambolic delays in some units. Obviosuly the delays meant that a number of new requits by the time they were offered the job in Royal Mail many had found alternative employment elsewhere and then the lengthy recuitment process starts all over again.

This is why there are so many managers on delivery. More than last year when Royal Mail had promised the end to managers on delivery.

[ziggy]

There is a recuitment problem in Royal Mail in some areas did not recuit to vacancies because they believed Whistl would enter the market. In addition they allowed lots of full time VRs to leave on pilon terms with the promise of backfilling of a 25 hour delivery duty.

When Whistl collasped they then had to recuit in additon to those promised under the pilon agreement.

The problem was that last year under the management reorganisation they made redundant a significant amount of managers who dealt with recutiement. The new manager recuitment team can only handle 1000 nationally and there were over 4000 requests at one stage for recuitment. Hence the shambolic delays in some units. Obviosuly the delays meant that a number of new requits by the time they were offered the job in Royal Mail many had found alternative employment elsewhere and then the lengthy recuitment process starts all over again.

This is why there are so many managers on delivery. More than last year when Royal Mail had promised the end to managers on delivery.

Whistle was never in my area and was never likely to be either yet we have still been waiting to have duties filled for a long time. RM are trying to replace the Fulltimers who have left with 18 hour contracts. The pressure put on staff to cope has been ridiculous. Constant indoor lapsing (they never take this lapsing into account tho) and constant outdoor lapsing. Added to this there's the increased work with emptying boxes and delivery to neighbour. We are yet again fast approaching our busiest time of the year and morale is at an all time low. There is literally nothing left to give.

It's hard to imagine a company this size being as badly managed as it is. Using an excuse of lack of staff in Recruitment is a tad hypocritical of RM considering what us delivery staff are being expected to cope with

[wannabeek]

yeah, agree with that about the tenuous Whistl connection. Whistl was never ever in their wildest plans going to hit our deep rural area and we have getting more and more understaffed for ages now. It's getting ludicrous now, full-timers retire and just are not replaced at all, even with part-timers. There are not even any adverts for any vacancies anywhere near us. It has now become normal to fail duties every week, they just try to make sure that the same ones don't fail too often.

It does remind me of a factory I worked in many years ago which was on the brink of collapse and all the staff had given up hope for many weeks, managers and assembly-workers alike.