Moving with the times

Post by **woody38** » 02 Aug 2017, 20:10

Today I ordered a ne phone, DPD are the carrier, I had a text from my phone provider telling me the parcel would be delivered tomorrow, I then got another text asking me to book a slot, I booked a slot which is an hourly slot. what I am trying to say is why is RM constantly so far behind the times, Moria Green goes on about us being competitive but if we a so far behind with the technology in the first place how can we compete.

Nobody likes working Sunday & I now RM have tried Sunday working in the M25 area, but that is not good enough, we are the only company that deals with the public that does not include Sunday as a normal working day.

bmccoll · Post by **bmccoll** » 02 Aug 2017, 20:26

Feek, it's well nigh impossible to get a Saturday off and now you're wanting us in on a Sunday?!?!?

Sir Henry · Post by **Sir Henry** » 02 Aug 2017, 20:34

So what time did DPD deliver your letters?

Bahia Feliz · Post by **Bahia Feliz** » 02 Aug 2017, 20:38

Sir Henry wrote:So what time did DPD deliver your letters?

arnold cheshire · Post by **arnold cheshire** » 02 Aug 2017, 20:49

Fantastic

Bahia Feliz wrote:
Sir Henry wrote:So what time did DPD deliver your letters?

Driver74 · Post by **Driver74** » 02 Aug 2017, 21:41

Dpd always deliver within the hour time given had loads of stuff with them also amazon come on Saturday evening and all day Sunday so Royal Mail are miles behind these companies with parcels

Alexei · Post by **Alexei** » 02 Aug 2017, 21:50

I don't think Amazon have official staff though, do they? Aren't they essentially zero hours contracts and paid per successful drop?
DPD, from what i understand do employ staff though. Debatable wether or not their conditions are better. £22k p.a, 2 weeks annual leave ( from what i hear ), no idea about days off. An old colleague went to work with them, but we don't hear much from him any more. Perhaps the grass wasn't greener and he's ashamed to admit.

edit:
I agree with the original point however that RM need to move forward with the times. I can't see this happening however unless there is a two tier work force. One for mail, one for packets. It could work, but the duties for both roles would be massive.

Gangham_style14 · Post by **Gangham_style14** » 02 Aug 2017, 22:10

Alexei wrote:I don't think Amazon have official staff though, do they? Aren't they essentially zero hours contracts and paid per successful drop?
DPD, from what i understand do employ staff though. Debatable wether or not their conditions are better. £22k p.a, 2 weeks annual leave ( from what i hear ), no idea about days off. An old colleague went to work with them, but we don't hear much from him any more. Perhaps the grass wasn't greener and he's ashamed to admit.

edit:
I agree with the original point however that RM need to move forward with the times. I can't see this happening however unless there is a two tier work force. One for mail, one for packets. It could work, but the duties for both roles would be massive.

The other company's T&C aren't that good to be honest, Amazon employ "glorified agency" who have self employed drivers get ready for the confusing part who aren't technically self employed as the "agency" charge the worker for use of van (which they hire to worker)
Fuel, mileage etc, the pay per day is around £110 with anything from 120+ drops, drops are pretty close to each other in one street you could have 5 then the next 3 followed by 4 in the next road, Amazons policy is they expect you to deliver up until 9pm at night !!! Obviously no sick pay, no holiday pay ... not great .

DPD (dynamic parcel distribution) they have all brought into a franchise with the company so they pay I think £1000 up front, buy into a route and that's there delivery
They have timed deliverys and need to stay within the window else management phone them on there phones they have built in on the van questioning them and putting the pressure on, they also do collections too, if they require holiday they have to find someone to cover there route and pay them, it's ownership of route basically, invoice wise your probably looking at over 3 grand a month you bill to DPD.

This is simply from talking to deliverys drivers on my duty who always question "what's Royal Mail like to work for" well....... lol

bmccoll · Post by **bmccoll** » 02 Aug 2017, 22:12

Alexei wrote:One for mail, one for packets. It could work, but the duties for both roles would be massive.

If you are you suggesting a return to the old duties, you are for the high jump!

Post by **woopesh** » 02 Aug 2017, 23:08

I was chatting to a DPD driver and he told me those time slots made his delivery a nightmare. He needs to criss criss all over his route in order to make timed deliveries rather than covering one bit at time. Imagine trying to do that on a trolley walk?

Alexei · Post by **Alexei** » 02 Aug 2017, 23:24

A duty with 'timed slot deliveries' would work in RM, in my opinion, but RM would never entertain the idea, and even if they did, the targets would be unrealistic, and ultimately result in trying to put the good old square block into the triangle slot.

GRS · Post by **GRS** » 03 Aug 2017, 05:11

Trouble is you've fallen into the senior management trap of trying to compare us to a company who offer a completely different service and do a completely different job. It's like someone going into a 2 Michelin star restaurant and wanting to know why their food isn't in front of them as quickly as McDonalds can put it there.

MacKG · Post by **MacKG** » 03 Aug 2017, 06:17

It could work I suppose, as long as it was its own duty like others have said. Can't even begin to imagine how you'd be expected to do it on top of your regular round.

tone123 · Post by **tone123** » 03 Aug 2017, 09:38

I'm currently in a DO with only one van, everything else is done with an HCT. To give you an idea of distance, my current walk is an extended straight line & has a 10 minute dead walk at the start and 20 min at the end. How on earth could I deliver a packet timed for an early hour if the address is at the end of the walk?
Moving to timed deliveries can only really be done if they are carried out by vehicle and not put into a walking round. Sounds an expensive thing to set up in addition to the existing infrastructure.

As for working Sundays, no way. I objected to it when Sunday trading laws were relaxed as it was clear that it was the start of a very slippery slope. I admire countries such as France where they have steadfastly protected their right to a bit of downtime. They seem to manage very well without Sunday trading.

Alexei · Post by **Alexei** » 03 Aug 2017, 10:08

tone123 wrote: Moving to timed deliveries can only really be done if they are carried out by vehicle and not put into a walking round. Sounds an expensive thing to set up in addition to the existing infrastructure.

Think most posties agree on that, but taking knowledge and advice on the implementation of these sorts of ideas is not something RM would consider.

I guess you could even say RM already have a certain delivery time scale each day ... for my particular office, their time slot would be between 10-1430

In theory, all duties should be planned efficiently, and adhered to the walk log/running order, but i can appreciate what works for one person may not work for another. Example being my duty; RM have planned the duty so you start with the easier(nb, lighter & flat terrain) bags, which progressively get worse(nb, heavier, longer, more climbing), not to mention the plan has you walking up hills for the 'second half' of the duty at the start of loops. Surely i'm not the only postie who thinks starting a loop at the bottom of a hill is madness?

Edit:
TL;DL - If RM planned the duties the most effective and efficient way possible, the postie would be there roughly the same time each day, disregarding any lapsing or duties dissected for O.T.