Mon-fri rumour

[97gaz]

[

[30+YEARMAN]

It's all about saving money and making profit,they are not really interested in the standard of service they give the public, so if they could make it Mon-Fri they will

[postslippete]

I cannot possibly envisage a Royal Mail business operation that expects all its working staff to work on a Monday to Friday basis when our competitors are currently delivering on a Saturday and a Sunday as well. Callers offices are now often open on Sunday's and so I imagine staff coming in to work Sundays delivering parcels. We do seem to be copying the competition in many ways - like delivering parcels in late evenings with these LATs. The one area where there is scope for huge growth isn't parcels though, its actually the letters, but RM seem to be scaling down their letters business. Imagine only having a USO on certain days of the week. That would enable a load of Royal Mail cost cutting perhaps by maximising efficiency across delivery spans with loads of lapsed duties to fill the hours and half the vans could be sold off!

[DGH]

I cannot possibly envisage a Royal Mail business operation that expects all its working staff to work on a Monday to Friday basis when our competitors are currently delivering on a Saturday and a Sunday as well. Callers offices are now often open on Sunday's and so I imagine staff coming in to work Sundays delivering parcels. We do seem to be copying the competition in many ways - like delivering parcels in late evenings with these LATs. The one area where there is scope for huge growth isn't parcels though, its actually the letters, but RM seem to be scaling down their letters business. Imagine only having a USO on certain days of the week. That would enable a load of Royal Mail cost cutting perhaps by maximising efficiency across delivery spans with loads of lapsed duties to fill the hours and half the vans could be sold off!

Exactly.

The most likely result is that RM move to a 7 day operation, reducing costs by introducing 'alternate day delivery'.

Letters get delivered Mon-Sat but on alternate days (so half the deliveries go Mon, Wed, Fri one week and Tue, Thu, Sat the next).
Parcels, tracked and specials get delivered to all addresses on all 7 days.

Paid option to have letters delivered every day rather than every other.

[Warriorpostie]

I cannot possibly envisage a Royal Mail business operation that expects all its working staff to work on a Monday to Friday basis when our competitors are currently delivering on a Saturday and a Sunday as well. Callers offices are now often open on Sunday's and so I imagine staff coming in to work Sundays delivering parcels. We do seem to be copying the competition in many ways - like delivering parcels in late evenings with these LATs. The one area where there is scope for huge growth isn't parcels though, its actually the letters, but RM seem to be scaling down their letters business. Imagine only having a USO on certain days of the week. That would enable a load of Royal Mail cost cutting perhaps by maximising efficiency across delivery spans with loads of lapsed duties to fill the hours and half the vans could be sold off!

Exactly.

The most likely result is that RM move to a 7 day operation, reducing costs by introducing 'alternate day delivery'.

Letters get delivered Mon-Sat but on alternate days (so half the deliveries go Mon, Wed, Fri one week and Tue, Thu, Sat the next).
Parcels, tracked and specials get delivered to all addresses on all 7 days.

Paid option to have letters delivered every day rather than every other.

So how exactly will duties work if they only deliver mail every other day? & parcels 6-7 days a week? Vans are still going out everyday. One day you work 10 hours, the next you work 4? Or shall it be shift work? With full timers doing the letters days & part timers doing parcel days. Doesn’t seem very cost effective to be fair.

[SpacePhoenix]

The one area where there is scope for huge growth isn't parcels though, its actually the letters, but RM seem to be scaling down their letters business.

There's no growth with letters, it's shrinking a hell of a lot. You can tell by just looking at sequencing batch sizes when there isn't a bulk posting. I don't think it's going to be too long before RM start mothballing machines

[97gaz]

[

[SpacePhoenix]

I cannot possibly envisage a Royal Mail business operation that expects all its working staff to work on a Monday to Friday basis when our competitors are currently delivering on a Saturday and a Sunday as well. !

No-one is saying that all RM staff will be Mon-Fri. If they cut mail deliveries on a Saturday then they will be able to save a lot of money while still delivering all the packets. Packets for two or three rural deliveries could easily be done in one shift. If those packets were limited to competitive packets i.e. large/tracked/ special/next day they could cover even more duties. That means on a Sat you could stand down two members of staff out of every three or maybe even more.

The savings will allow them to create Sunday duties also so we can offer packet delivery seven days a week.

I won't be surprised if it happens.

Don't think the staffing overall would be reduced by that much, nearly the same amount of staff would be required in the MCs and if Sunday delivery did start happening, then you'd need staff in the MCs Saturday nights, so overall hours in some areas might well be the same

[DGH]

I cannot possibly envisage a Royal Mail business operation that expects all its working staff to work on a Monday to Friday basis when our competitors are currently delivering on a Saturday and a Sunday as well. Callers offices are now often open on Sunday's and so I imagine staff coming in to work Sundays delivering parcels. We do seem to be copying the competition in many ways - like delivering parcels in late evenings with these LATs. The one area where there is scope for huge growth isn't parcels though, its actually the letters, but RM seem to be scaling down their letters business. Imagine only having a USO on certain days of the week. That would enable a load of Royal Mail cost cutting perhaps by maximising efficiency across delivery spans with loads of lapsed duties to fill the hours and half the vans could be sold off!

Exactly.

The most likely result is that RM move to a 7 day operation, reducing costs by introducing 'alternate day delivery'.

Letters get delivered Mon-Sat but on alternate days (so half the deliveries go Mon, Wed, Fri one week and Tue, Thu, Sat the next).
Parcels, tracked and specials get delivered to all addresses on all 7 days.

Paid option to have letters delivered every day rather than every other.

So how exactly will duties work if they only deliver mail every other day? & parcels 6-7 days a week? Vans are still going out everyday. One day you work 10 hours, the next you work 4? Or shall it be shift work? With full timers doing the letters days & part timers doing parcel days. Doesn’t seem very cost effective to be fair.

It's pretty simple, you'd deliver 2 deliveries in one day (everything goes on one delivery, just specials, parcels and tracked on the other). On a Sunday you deliver (say) 6 walks worth pf packets and specials. You rota 5 days in 7 rather than 5 in 6 as now. Conceivably, given a 35 hour week, you might work 4 x 8.5 hour days rather than 5 longs and shorts as now. The savings are approaching 50% on every day, except Sunday, which would be a new cost. You'd also have half the number of vans going out each day, obviously, as they'd be covering 2 walks.

Even given a need to introduce rather shorter duties to do the above and allow enough IPS time (though auto-packet walksorting will save an amazing amount of time on that if it happens, RM'd still save a ruck of time,

I do agree, it has lots of issues. But all those issues inconvenience us, not RM.

The only thing preventing it really is that our competitors use us to deliver mail and they'd probably not be keen on that going to odd days.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want this to happen. But we're kidding ourselves if we think Mon-Fri is going to be standard - it's not how labour works under free market liberal capitalism.

[Celgar]

A better option would be to stay pretty much as we are but get the DSA stopped. Prices across the board could then be lowered by a significant amount - anything from 20% to 40% - and we would then start to claw back a lot more business.

[leolion855]

Arent you allowed to demand sunday off as a religious day off rest?

[Rommagic]

What about only parcel and special delivered on Saturday’s middle of January until end of September every year.

[Celgar]

Arent you allowed to demand sunday off as a religious day off rest?

Most posties are not going to want to deliver on Sundays given that some of us already work the other six days as well. David Cameron tried to make Sunday an ordinary working day so there didn't have to be over time paid but he had to back down on that idea.

[SpacePhoenix]

Up to what size and weight are parcels covered by the USO?

[Biker Mouse]

Up to what size and weight are parcels covered by the USO?

Are parcels covered by the USO?I thought it was only letters.