Supplementing the IPS and lapsing

mattjo1@talktalk.net · Post by **mattjo1@talktalk.net** » 21 May 2018, 17:54

You shouldn't be lapsing to cover sickness.

Surely your rep has a resourcing meeting and the agreed lapsing plan is displayed.

tommyrep · Post by **tommyrep** » 21 May 2018, 19:51

I thought there was not enough indoor work to utilise full timers hours, hence more or longer times out on delivery ?
All lead to less posties whatever the truth is.
Something doesn't add up ! Example, pay 4/5 hours OT, to lapse one additional delivery duty ?

Sir Henry · Post by **Sir Henry** » 21 May 2018, 22:13

We have a bunch of regulars who come in very early every morning and do IPS. When I walk in their walks are already thrown off, they're ahead of the game, they're ready to leave the d.o. before anyone else and are back earlier and are more likely to do extra as its ghost overtime due to their walks early finish.

Bosses like having a bunch or certs for any extra that needs doing.

A2B · Post by **A2B** » 21 May 2018, 22:43

Sir Henry wrote:We have a bunch of regulars who come in very early every morning and do IPS. When I walk in their walks are already thrown off, they're ahead of the game, they're ready to leave the d.o. before anyone else and are back earlier and are more likely to do extra as its ghost overtime due to their walks early finish. Bosses like having a bunch or certs for any extra that needs doing.

Do you work at my office

People in early on overtime IPS when there isn't enough IPS to warrant it, then DOM says we may have to do more outdoor work as we're off the IPS to early!!!!!!!!

People can do all the overtime they want but they are wrecking the office for everyone else

yubin282 · Post by **yubin282** » 22 May 2018, 13:10

Just over a year ago during WLT, we we're given the usual talk about customer complaints and how to make them fewer BLAH BLAH.

A colleague suggested "when we lapse we don't really know the area thats why mistakes happen".

The DOM 100% that this wasn't the case and people were just being negligent.

So i sarcastically suggested "why don't we lapse more so there's fewer complaints"

He wasn't happy.

postslippete · Post by **postslippete** » 22 May 2018, 18:06

I raised this with the Area Rep many months ago and he simply stated the usual if you haven't got time to do your lapse, then you simply follow the overrunning procedure.

One question very neatly sidestepped and gives RM managers free rein to lapse as and when it suits. Truth is, Royal Mail do benefit from lapsing duties. For example, 3 staff in an hour early doing IPS = 3 hours O/T but one duty being lapsed can save up to 8 hours O/T. The only way they often don't benefit is with 1. parcels not being delivered and 2. customer complaints

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 22 May 2018, 23:13

tommyrep wrote:I thought there was not enough indoor work to utilise full timers hours, hence more or longer times out on delivery ?
All lead to less posties whatever the truth is.
Something doesn't add up ! Example, pay 4/5 hours OT, to lapse one additional delivery duty ?

This is the direction of travel that RM is locked into and I don't foresee a change happening. We have RMs desire to downgrade or eliminate use of walk frames, the latest paranoid EU data protection rules, and an unwillingness by some posties to not slow down a bit or do the job properly. You just know it's going to end badly especially when even Moya had voiced concerns about the EU data rules.

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 23 May 2018, 06:38

Celgar wrote:We have RMs desire to downgrade or eliminate use of walk frames

That will never happen. There's not enough large letters to justify any being sorted by machine, and the sequenced letters will always be in two waves as with a CSS machine there's a physical limit as to how many letters can be sequenced at a time

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 23 May 2018, 09:32

There's not enough large letters to justify any being sorted by machine

Most of ours already are machine sorted, they're just not sequenced they're walk sorted into two or sometimes three duties. If anything there are too many to machine sort with the present technology.

The technology already exists to combine sequenced letters and flats, the real questions are whether it is worth Royal Mail investing in this technology or whether the structural decline in the letters business will continue at present rates making the whole thing economically pointless. Is bench merging a cheaper option than sequencing everything, How much time can be saved by taking out the entire prep stage in delivery and how much real estate can be sold off if DOs can be merged when they don't need the space to prep the mail.

The business will no doubt crunch all of those numbers during the trial phases but what's pretty certain is that more automation in mailcentres is guaranteed along with more mailcentre closures and mergers.

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 23 May 2018, 20:04

fishtank wrote:If anything there are too many to machine sort with the present technology.

There's no way that there's too many. MCs that have the T2K machines are running whatever they can through them, packets, manual letters (which then get sorted manually at most MCs), normal mech letters (which if not extraced don't get sequenced).

For packets I don't think it'll be too much longer before we get more Tracked through than normal packets

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 25 May 2018, 12:24

fishtank wrote:
There's not enough large letters to justify any being sorted by machine
Most of ours already are machine sorted, they're just not sequenced they're walk sorted into two or sometimes three duties. If anything there are too many to machine sort with the present technology.

The technology already exists to combine sequenced letters and flats, the real questions are whether it is worth Royal Mail investing in this technology or whether the structural decline in the letters business will continue at present rates making the whole thing economically pointless. Is bench merging a cheaper option than sequencing everything, How much time can be saved by taking out the entire prep stage in delivery and how much real estate can be sold off if DOs can be merged when they don't need the space to prep the mail.

The business will no doubt crunch all of those numbers during the trial phases but what's pretty certain is that more automation in mailcentres is guaranteed along with more mailcentre closures and mergers.

The vast majority of RM real estate has already been sold and then leased back immediately where offices were not combined. Completely uneconomic and really stupid in business terms but a large short term gain. Where all the money went I wouldn't like to say. The vehicle fleet is no longer owned by RM either but we still service them.
Some MC staff say its physically possible to introduce more machinery and others say no. I think as with all the privatised companies that were formerly owned by the nation dividends and share price are key to their decision making. RM will invest in more machinery if it can save money by cutting staff & paid hours of duty time. The worst end of the scale is when, for example, the water companies actually borrow vast sums of money to boost dividend pay outs. Then at the bottom of the barrel you have companies like Carillion.