Office morale

robbertwhitton · Post by **robbertwhitton** » 09 May 2020, 03:11

May well regret putting this on but here goes,just wondering how office morale is,?is it really bad or are we coping with all that’s going on with what we do best,laugh and joke and general workplace banter,are we still able to do this or are we a beaten lot,I wonder if our bosses get asked from above,”how is your workforce.are they happy,do they have everything,are they able to do the job,safely,securely and correctly within the time we give them without stress or pressure?the nightmare stories on here suggest otherwise,and doesn’t make good reading,a happy workforce blah blah blah etc,I anticipate some gloomy replies,but maybe a few have got it right,if so please share your secret,stay safe.

DGH · Post by **DGH** » 09 May 2020, 04:29

Ours is pretty decent really. Possibly slightly higher than usual because there's no 'why can't you complete?' nonsense from managers. We do what we can. Some stuff gets left. But everything goes within a few days.

The only depressing thing really is the fact it proves if you remove the USO we could run the office with 20% fewer staff. But just at the moment, morale's not bad.

clashcityrocker · Post by **clashcityrocker** » 09 May 2020, 07:28

DGH wrote:
The only depressing thing really is the fact it proves if you remove the USO we could run the office with 20% fewer staff. But just at the moment, morale's not bad.

Where does the 20% keep coming from?
If you totally removed one day it would be 1/6th - which is about 16%.
But Saturday isn't being removed completely, the staffing level is 50% of normal. Which makes a cut of about 8-9%.
(And not even that really because some of those hours are being transferred to longer days Mon - Fri)
Or is my maths not very good?

Post by **rambo1** » 09 May 2020, 13:43

clashcityrocker wrote:
DGH wrote:
The only depressing thing really is the fact it proves if you remove the USO we could run the office with 20% fewer staff. But just at the moment, morale's not bad.
Where does the 20% keep coming from?
If you totally removed one day it would be 1/6th - which is about 16%.
But Saturday isn't being removed completely, the staffing level is 50% of normal. Which makes a cut of about 8-9%.
(And not even that really because some of those hours are being transferred to longer days Mon - Fri)
Or is my maths not very good?

And...it doesn't get cleared on Saturday.

Chelseablue · Post by **Chelseablue** » 09 May 2020, 14:59

Lot of duties still not cleared from thurs , really bad decision making from above and below. Mail in frames from days ago anyone else?

clashcityrocker · Post by **clashcityrocker** » 09 May 2020, 15:42

rambo1 wrote: And...it doesn't get cleared on Saturday.

And ....so what?
Have more parcels been delivered than if nothing had been changed?
Have more parcels progressed along the pipeline, thus avoiding gridlock in the Mail Centres? (Eavesdropping on their conference call they were talking about marquees being hired to house the overflow from the building.)
A couple of days backlog in every DO is preferable to 2 weeks backlog clogging up a mail centre.

And more Saturdays off if you want them.
What's the problem?

Post by **rambo1** » 09 May 2020, 16:16

clashcityrocker wrote:
rambo1 wrote: And...it doesn't get cleared on Saturday.
And ....so what?
Have more parcels been delivered than if nothing had been changed?
Have more parcels progressed along the pipeline, thus avoiding gridlock in the Mail Centres? (Eavesdropping on their conference call they were talking about marquees being hired to house the overflow from the building.)
A couple of days backlog in every DO is preferable to 2 weeks backlog clogging up a mail centre.

And more Saturdays off if you want them.
What's the problem?

Our office has gone from being 99 % cleared, to having 1000's of packets, tracked, all sorts brought back, to hopefully get delivered on Monday, if overtime is allowed and people want it. It's a right mess when it didn't have to be. Those in higher positions are killing this business. We should be recruiting more to suit the increase in business, not cutting hrs. Won't be long before companies start using other couriers. If we get a drop in traffic which will allow clearing all packets on Saturday on 50-60% staffing, then we're gonna lose a lot of jobs. The thick upper management just don't get that pkts take a shed load more time than letters. We're on a slippery slope to the bottom. There will be no royal mail in five years , it will be gone, but in the meantime, a few posties will get Saturday off, till they get a letter saying they will get every day off..

deltaforce · Post by **deltaforce** » 09 May 2020, 16:26

What makes you think couriers are in a better position than we are. There is very little spare capacity in parcel delivery market at present

DGH · Post by **DGH** » 09 May 2020, 16:31

clashcityrocker wrote:
DGH wrote:
The only depressing thing really is the fact it proves if you remove the USO we could run the office with 20% fewer staff. But just at the moment, morale's not bad.
Where does the 20% keep coming from?
If you totally removed one day it would be 1/6th - which is about 16%.
But Saturday isn't being removed completely, the staffing level is 50% of normal. Which makes a cut of about 8-9%.
(And not even that really because some of those hours are being transferred to longer days Mon - Fri)
Or is my maths not very good?

We're currently about 30% of staff down and, with the new Saturdays = packets only thing going, much more inefficient than we were two weeks ago when it comes to clearing.

So we can clear the office on a weekly basis with 30% fewer staff. This was the case until silly Saturday started.

Given you'd probably want all walks going every other day for certain rather than every three/four days for certain, shedding 30% of staff would nit be sensible. But 20%? I could see it, depending what they can do with the USO.

Of course those looking forward to Mon-Fri every other week aren't considering that very soon it'd be working 5 days out of 7. As soon as RM can get the go ahead to deliver on Sundays, they'll grab the chance - they'd be mad not to. Of course incorrigible optimists will believe staff will be recruited specifically for Sundays, because RM always do what staff would like, don't they?

Dorset Plodder · Post by **Dorset Plodder** » 09 May 2020, 17:24

So Far we've not had a major drop in morale. I must admit the RM v CWU Argument last week was a real pain in the ass. No-one knew what was going on and things were changing on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

It could have been handled a lot better by RM in the first place.

But things have calmed down now that we've had things clarified.

Our New Mon-Fri system doesn't come into effect until next week, so no one's really seen how it's going to work with the new staffing levels. So far most duties are coming back early due to there being no mail delivered. One surprising thing to come out of the "Parcels only Saturdays" system today was the fact that the "Early Finishers" weren't allowed to go home really early (like they do most Saturdays) and instead had to sort the mail that had arrived late morning, and throw it off....... AND NOT just their own walks either.

There was a fair bit of grizzling going on

but TBH it did make sense, it'll save us getting Hammered as much on Monday.

Seymour Buts · Post by **Seymour Buts** » 09 May 2020, 18:50

Okay, considering there's a globel pandemic going about. Most have just shrugged their shoulders and said it is what it is. Saturday's have proven somewhat interesting, nobody really knows how much to take but there's no pressure to work past your time. Clear if you can, if not bring back the non priority stuff for Monday. It's like Christmas everyday, but I think people realise they're probably lucky to be working and getting out the house while many are stuck in and/or unemployed as a result of this virus.

kookoo32 · Post by **kookoo32** » 09 May 2020, 23:45

Morale isn't bad at our place. We just laugh at the amount of packets and parcels coming through every day. Specials have been horrific this week - a van share duty in our office had 83 specials on Wednesday. I was lucky and had 29

. I was able to laugh at that. And in fairness to the two posties in that pairing they took it well. I think I would have been a broken man if it had been me.

Management don't seem too stressed about failing duties either, or people cutting off.

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 10 May 2020, 00:34

The general public have no idea what is going on. Some still saying they thought Saturday deliveries had been cancelled.
No overtime available on Saturdays & Mondays so RM is effectively condoning ' modern day slavery '.
No good points about these new measures or any benefits for the workforce or the customers.
P***** off about being ' selected ' to start later and finish later every day.
In terms of mail levels most days are worse than Xmas pressure days. RM says we will make a loss this year yet financial institutions say profits will be up 400% higher than predicted by Rico. DOMs said at the start of virus situation we would be delivering virtually no mail by now. Little did they know.
It's quite possible a vaccine will not be found for the Covid so I wonder what the government will do then.

Chelseablue · Post by **Chelseablue** » 10 May 2020, 09:41

No ot being paid but some staff going past there time finishing the mail/pkts as scared to bring any mail back . Why are some offices paying ot days off etc? Surely thats discrimination ?

Dorset Plodder · Post by **Dorset Plodder** » 10 May 2020, 10:04

Celgar wrote:The general public have no idea what is going on. Some still saying they thought Saturday deliveries had been cancelled.
No overtime available on Saturdays & Mondays so RM is effectively condoning ' modern day slavery '.

P***** off about being ' selected ' to start later and finish later every day.

According the letter we saw from Rico all changes to duties were "Voluntary"

I think you might have an argument to retain your Usual Contracted Start Time there, we've had no one Bullied into doing anything they're not happy with (apart from delivering shite loads of unimportant parcels of course).