Possible future of Royal Mail

[franco1]

Lots of good points and to be clear i also worked for RM back in 2000 as agency staff and i know how things have changed, i used to be home by 12pm with full days pay.
As to the scanning of letters and walking at same time, at Whistl we were told to arrive at door then scan, but obviously that would take forever so naturally we scanned and walked, besides most of us do that anyway when we rifle through letters from one door to the next.
In no way am i saying that scanning every letter is a good thing, but im positive it will happen, i hope it wont but we live in an age where information is key.
It cost Whistl nothing to barcode the letters they just simply had the machines to do this.
Whether RM will charge extra for this service i think probably not.
What may happen is what happened at Whistl whereby our location and time was known by management on the system because every item is tracked.
This info led to questions being asked about gaps in scanning one letter to next.
It will be a tool for the powers that be to assess your speed, too fast and we give you more delivery points, too slow and we question your performance.
Dont hat me for saying it but scanning every item we deliver will happen.
Just hope its not in my lifetime.

[BarnsleyLackey]

So, your action would be - Leave the trolley at the gate, as you're walking up the path - get your PDA out. Then what? The idea of holding a chunky bundle in my left hand and also flicking through it with the same fingers while scanning the barcode with the PDA in my right just doesn't work for me. You're talking mail all over the floor, or - Get to the door, pull the place's mail off the bundle, put bundle down, get PDA out, flick through the letters to scan them (tricky in itself), put PDA back in pocket, post letters, pick bundle up and you're away.
It'll take an absolute age. If I did that now, I don't know how many extra hours I'd need to do it. If the walks are made bigger with pre prepped mail and more work out doors, you still wouldn't get it done using this way of working.

It sounds like I'm nitpicking, but I can't think of another way to do what you're saying. Unless retina scanners are coming.

[greengiant]

So, your action would be - Leave the trolley at the gate, as you're walking up the path - get your PDA out. Then what? The idea of holding a chunky bundle in my left hand and also flicking through it with the same fingers while scanning the barcode with the PDA in my right just doesn't work for me. You're talking mail all over the floor, or - Get to the door, pull the place's mail off the bundle, put bundle down, get PDA out, flick through the letters to scan them (tricky in itself), put PDA back in pocket, post letters, pick bundle up and you're away.
It'll take an absolute age. If I did that now, I don't know how many extra hours I'd need to do it. If the walks are made bigger with pre prepped mail and more work out doors, you still wouldn't get it done using this way of working.

It sounds like I'm nitpicking, but I can't think of another way to do what you're saying. Unless retina scanners are coming.

Our PDAs struggle to last a delivery round as it is, even putting them to sleep between scans. I'd imagine you'd be lucky to get a single loop done if you had to scan every single letter!

[Acca Dacca]

Lots of good points and to be clear i also worked for RM back in 2000 as agency staff and i know how things have changed, i used to be home by 12pm with full days pay.
As to the scanning of letters and walking at same time, at Whistl we were told to arrive at door then scan, but obviously that would take forever so naturally we scanned and walked, besides most of us do that anyway when we rifle through letters from one door to the next.
In no way am i saying that scanning every letter is a good thing, but im positive it will happen, i hope it wont but we live in an age where information is key.
It cost Whistl nothing to barcode the letters they just simply had the machines to do this.
Whether RM will charge extra for this service i think probably not.
What may happen is what happened at Whistl whereby our location and time was known by management on the system because every item is tracked.
This info led to questions being asked about gaps in scanning one letter to next.
It will be a tool for the powers that be to assess your speed, too fast and we give you more delivery points, too slow and we question your performance.
Dont hat me for saying it but scanning every item we deliver will happen.
Just hope its not in my lifetime.

Doesn't matter what you do, what you did at Whistl or what you think the majority of us do.

Royal Mail will NEVER tell anyone to scan as they walk and get clearance from Health and Safety reps to do so.

[ben_c]

RM already track letters - they have done for years. What do you think MailMark barcodes are for? They are scanned at inward and outward mail centres automatically and provide real time visibility of the pipeline to customers... no need for doorstep scanning

[Lounge Lizard]

RM already track letters - they have done for years. What do you think MailMark barcodes are for? They are scanned at inward and outward mail centres automatically and provide real time visibility of the pipeline to customers... no need for doorstep scanning

Exactly. So for a bulk mailing a customer can be informed that it's reached, hopefully, all thirty-something Mail Centres overnight for delivery that day.

[NWpostie]

The future of Royal Mail will be more packets and parcels, letter will make up a smaller part of our work year on year.

It does make sense to gear ourselves up for that, the fact we have a national network with good market penetration will put us in favourable position.

[buzzboy]

It seems we are slowly or should I say quickly turning into parcel force . You can kinda tell how things used to be by observing the layout of the D.O and the frames , they have modestly sized shelves to place packets which are now totally inadequate due to the increase in size and number of parcels . Standard loops are now no longer possible without an extra bag for this stuff , H&S says no ! but i'd be interested to hear how you guys cope and as more than half of residents seem to be at work we end up doing 739's and lugging this stuff around until we start the next loop .

[greengiant]

It seems we are slowly or should I say quickly turning into parcel force . You can kinda tell how things used to be by observing the layout of the D.O and the frames , they have modestly sized shelves to place packets which are now totally inadequate due to the increase in size and number of parcels . Standard loops are now no longer possible without an extra bag for this stuff , H&S says no ! but i'd be interested to hear how you guys cope and as more than half of residents seem to be at work we end up doing 739's and lugging this stuff around until we start the next loop .

hcttrain.jpg

[franco1]

Could someone please explain what is the difference between Parcelforce and Royal Mail.
Do they deliver bigger packets? Are they paid the same?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Could someone please explain what is the difference between Parcelforce and Royal Mail.
Do they deliver bigger packets? Are they paid the same?

Parcel force are our Courier arm. most, but not all drivers are owner drivers and are paid by the delivery. The employees of PFWW are on roughly the same as us, perhaps a little more,

[franco1]

[eric the viking]

Could someone please explain what is the difference between Parcelforce and Royal Mail.
Do they deliver bigger packets? Are they paid the same?

Parcel force are our Courier arm. most, but not all drivers are owner drivers and are paid by the delivery. The employees of PFWW are on roughly the same as us, perhaps a little more,

25% are owner drivers and yes we earn a bit more but that is because we work 11 hour days.

[meercat]

yes we earn a bit more but that is because we work 11 hour days.

I can't see that as a valid reason to be paid more. Am I missing something? I know people who work 12hr shifts in McD's for £7ph. Not complaining, we do different jobs.

[eric the viking]

yes we earn a bit more but that is because we work 11 hour days.

I can't see that as a valid reason to be paid more. Am I missing something? I know people who work 12hr shifts in McD's for £7ph. Not complaining, we do different jobs.

We work a 40hr week plus mandatory overtime, daily S.A. so we take home more is what I was getting at. The hourly rate is almost identical.