Mon-fri rumour

NWpostie · Post by **NWpostie** » 14 Jan 2019, 10:21

Our competitors are already delivering parcels every day including sunday, we would be weakend if we only did mon to fri, a lot of free time on the dole is not much fun, letter are a declining market anyway, parcels and bulk mailing is where the money is.

Post by **wacko74** » 14 Jan 2019, 14:53

Said it before and I'll say it again as long as any job losses are through VR I don't see it as a problem... and i'd predict that RM would get more applicants than the number of VR's available.

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 15 Jan 2019, 08:45

Nickvilla20 wrote:
SpacePhoenix wrote:I think that parcels, SDs and Tracked will eventually be a Mon-Sun service (with probably a premium paid for Sunday delivery)
I think your right many other company’s deliver Sunday. Amazon, DPD to name two. Royal Mail very behind the times on this.

The other courier companies pay out far less in wages with a larger percentage of people newly arrived into the UK who are willing to work for far less based on wages in other countries. Hermes for example is reported to pay about 5.60 per hour based on payment of 70 pence per parcel and then only on first time delivery. No payment if delivered later hence doorstepping.
RM already charge a hefty premium if you post an SD item on a Friday and want to be delivered on a Saturday. I don't think there is currently a premium on tracked items being delivered on Saturday.
The last time our DO offered to work on a Sunday we were not paid the figure we were promised by the DOM at that time. I wouldn't offer to do it ever again. People need time off work so aside from any religious reasons I don't think people should be obliged or 'encouraged' to work on Sundays. A lot of people routinely get Saturdays off work as well hence the term 'weekend' and why RM has difficulty getting staff. I enjoy work but there are other things to do in life as well. Its currently heading to far in the work direction in this country.

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 15 Jan 2019, 08:53

paul1231 wrote:
miles_peters wrote:mon to fri for parcels and letters
sat parcels only
(maybe even sunday aswell)

I can see that coming in, and I don't think there would be a shortage of people offering to do parcels only on Saturdays as overtime. The problem RM would have is they would have a fight against the union because of the amount of possible job losses, but for RM this idea would save a lot of money again possibly
I could see this and wouldn't mind it either, Letters only Mon - Fri and no letters saturday except maybe recorded and specials and maybe first class? then just Parcels on saturdays and maybe eventually sundays. With the shorter working week not likely to work in my opinion as at the moment more the half the days in my office you ever have to cut off or go over anyway i could see them say making it a 4/5hour day on a saturday perhaps and putting more hours back on to the other days. Cant see it happening any time soon though

Some firms seem to demand their bulk mailouts of letters are delivered on Saturdays as they know most people have the weekend off so are likely to look at the letter. Large council mailouts such as council tax and electorial mailings often arrive for delivery on Saturdays as well
This could of course be due to incompetence or RM higher management looking to **** off posties.

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 15 Jan 2019, 09:02

Celgar wrote:Large council mailouts such as council tax and electorial mailings often arrive for delivery on Saturdays as well
This could of course be due to incompetence or RM higher management looking to **** off posties.

Not aware of them ever being held back so it's probably just down to when they enter RM's system

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 15 Jan 2019, 09:31

This 'rumour' has been going around for years and I think even before RM were sold off possibly. RMs number one method of improving the business is cost cutting and downsizing even though it would be wiser to look for more contracts instead.
RM currently operate in a competitively unfair business regime introduced by the UK government under pressure from the EU. There is a date when RM can apply or negotiate changes to the USO and when that date arrives RM will act. There are many permutations as to how delivery days could be changed and what gets delivered when. If a decision was to be made on moving to a five day week operation it would NEVER be changed to Monday to Friday. Every DOM I have ever spoken to on this issue has stated if there were changes then the Tuesday delivery would be the one to be dropped.
Before we get to this decision time the main cost cutting exercise will be amalgamating sites to cut down on leasing building costs. The vast majority of RM sites were sold off a while back and leasing costs more than mortgage payments or outright ownership of properties.
Once we get to discussion time on the USO I think RM will more likely stick with the six day operation and negotiate to switch to 'every other day' delivery for letters & flats but every day for the rest of our products. They will or should also demand the removal of the DSA regime or at the least for economic changes to it. Regulation is generally a beneficial & necessary task but in the case of RM pressure from the EU has well and truly shafted us!
Letters and maybe even greetings cards are sadly a generational activity and I think RM will be hard pressed to stop the decline although not an impossible task. Ideas such as a date sensitive stamp range for Xmas cards or even just advertising RM services would help. By the time we get to the date/year for options to change the USO there will have to decisions made of some description.

toomuchcoke · Post by **toomuchcoke** » 15 Jan 2019, 17:33

paul1231 wrote:With the shorter working week not likely to work in my opinion as at the moment more the half the days in my office you ever have to cut off or go over anyway i could see them say making it a 4/5hour day on a saturday perhaps and putting more hours back on to the other days. Cant see it happening any time soon though

Hmm ... Make Saturday a Tracked, Specials & Collections only day (subject to renegotiating the USO obviously) and possibly allow redelivery requests too? Shorten the working day as you say, thus meaning anyone working on the Saturday gets a longer weekend than they otherwise would (meaning they'll be happier) and use the hours to boost the rest of the week. Perhaps have some indoor duties that throws in the sequenced mail and the D2Ds for Monday too for the entire office as otherwise Monday would be a bit hellish? Yeah, that could work though as you say "not any time soon"!

DirtyHarry · Post by **DirtyHarry** » 18 Jan 2019, 06:37

They manage a Mon-Fri delivery service in Ireland.
Not heard of the Irish postal service being adversely affected because of it.

rodtheplod · Post by **rodtheplod** » 18 Jan 2019, 20:04

They could save money by stopping full time staff finishing 90 minutes before there time and then paying part time staff overtime to clear left mail. Some full timers in our DO only work a 30 hour week 90% of the year.

Post by **97gaz** » 19 Jan 2019, 11:02

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 19 Jan 2019, 22:06

97gaz wrote:I can't see anyway that they will drop a Tuesday. Practically all of our mail is business related mail and the vast majority of Companies are closed on Saturdays.

I think letters will be Mon Fri only and Saturday will be special/Larger packets/tracked/Same day. That could be by either having a short Saturday and adding it on to the duty through the week or more Saturdays off and dedicated Saturday duties doing up to three duties worth of packets.

That would mean potentially double the amount of smaller packets on a Monday. The smaller packets would still be sent to DOs on a Friday night as we don't have the room to store them

postmanzach · Post by **postmanzach** » 20 Jan 2019, 06:42

rodtheplod wrote:They could save money by stopping full time staff finishing 90 minutes before there time and then paying part time staff overtime to clear left mail. Some full timers in our DO only work a 30 hour week 90% of the year.

This is it. I know my manager says straight up he doesn’t want to punish people for working efficiently, But it makes no sense. I don’t mind too much as I like the overtime.

Chupacabra74 · Post by **Chupacabra74** » 20 Jan 2019, 07:33

postmanzach wrote:
rodtheplod wrote:They could save money by stopping full time staff finishing 90 minutes before there time and then paying part time staff overtime to clear left mail. Some full timers in our DO only work a 30 hour week 90% of the year.
This is it. I know my manager says straight up he doesn’t want to punish people for working efficiently, But it makes no sense. I don’t mind too much as I like the overtime.

Then refuse to go over at Xmas....

Post by **Warriorpostie** » 20 Jan 2019, 11:22

Parcel only deliveries on Saturday’s suits me. Let the money hungry staff work Saturdays or the arse lickers. I’m happy to work mon-fri. Busy Mondays wouldn’t bother me as it’s always busy on a Monday having only worked to my time on the Saturday. Royal Mail need to start thinking outside the box & come up with different shifts or something. I.e 4 days on 4 days off.... I know personally my moral & overal mood would be better if it were the case. One in six Saturdays off was fine 20 years ago when you started at 4am or 5am & finished at 11am. Nowadays it’s 3-4pm finish on a Saturday.

DGH · Post by **DGH** » 20 Jan 2019, 15:32

However much posties may like the idea of Mon-Fri with Saturdays/Sundays being 'parcel days'/different contracts/whatever it's never going to happen.

Royal Mail have absolutely no incentive and indeed very little reason to wish for anything other than a 7 day working week with staff expected to work 5 of those 7 days.

They will be more than happy for those who remember the good old days to leave so they can be replaced by people who are, generally speaking, used to the modern 'flexible working', which generally means employees are ultra-flexible and the business uses them as it desires.

It is, sadly, an utter fantasy to believe that RM would want to have the bulk of their workforce Mon-Fri. Yes, there are actually pretty good arguments for it. But it's simply not how RM management think - and certainly not how friend Rico thinks.