who is very concerned about our future?

[ssdd]

I started in November as "Agency" doing parcel delivery. I was sent out on my own (no van sharing remember) no training. When offices were being decimated by covid and self-isolating , I was routinely sent to different towns in far extremes of the county, delivering in areas I did n`t know, in the dark, sometimes in some notoriously rough areas. Sometimes the DO was closed when I got back. It was madness looking back on it. Nevertheless, I`m a reserve postie now, luckily my colleagues that I van share with have all been friendly and supportive and I`m getting the training "on the job", training that I should have got in the first place. I joined at the wrong time, I guess, but having been made redundant, I did n`t have a lot of choice. Having been a reserve for 5 months, I can see that I probably would n`t have had any time with a "workplace coach", van share or not, as he`s having to do deliveries due to staff shortages. I`m not looking forward to this winter.

Good point, I`m more experienced now, but I think with staff shortages and impossible work loads, winter will be hell.

Maybe you joined at the right time...as in it may be better than when you were on agency...

It can't get any worse than your finishing time.....

[tractorboy2]

If the final mile parts of the business were grouped into geographical regions and sold off or set up as wholly owned but independent, even dare i say it franchised companies. In the eyes of the regulator they should be easier to manage and improve. The regulator then would be having a league table and managers/directors in areas would be far more accountable for their actions/inactions. The regulator will have no qualms about publishing the league tables and it will ultimately change the culture and drive performance . There is of course one issue and thats worker involvement !

+
[/quote]

The final mile is a bit of a joke really. And refers to other operators mail (Whistl , The Delivery Group , UKMail etc) , which Royal Mail are just meant to deliver (hence the term Final mile) in reality we process far more of this than we should , and the amount which goes to the wrong mail centre in the first place (and which should be surcharged but isn't) is a joke.

I may misunderstand what you mean , and the agreement around DSA mail is different to what I posted (though this is what we were told at the beginning).

Also I'm waiting for the day Royal Mail tell them all that we will no longer deliver their mail as we are now predominantly a parcel company.

[Norfolk 'N' Chance]

The way i see it is the company is failing to modernise despite huge investment over the past decade.

That’s what they want you to believe.

What huge investment have we had over the past decade? All I have witnessed is the assets of the business being stripped and sold off to pay dividends to shareholders. Look at the state of the buildings we are using, the age of the vans we are driving. The business has been cut to the bone not invested in.

The parcels hubs are a decade too late and financed by borrowing. You can’t blame the frontline staff either for failure to modernise (whatever modernising looks like). The job is totally different to the one I joined up to do.

From an outsiders perspective it does seem like theres not been the level of investment made that the PR and News stories on websites etc, lead you believe? If hundreds of millions have been spent where has it gone? Is/was it value for money and was it in the right/most deserving areas? - Staff and Customers perceptions (whether true or unfounded) are often the reality.

I saw a you tube video of a mail centre (leeds i think?) that had a new all signing and dancing parcel sorting machine. Again as an outsider it looked fairly good, but I did think that from a systems perspective the fact that parcels came out on a belt and then were manually selected from the belt and put into cages, "as very last century". Maybe its wishful thinking but I would have thought that with the current developments in technology, QR/barcodes and optical readers etc, that the outputs would be routed via automated gates with arms and tippers to divert to cages or bins, pretty much like how an amazon wharehouse and airport bagage is handled?

[WASD]

"Maybe its wishful thinking but I would have thought that with the current developments in technology, QR/barcodes and optical readers etc, that the outputs would be routed via automated gates with arms and tippers to divert to cages or bins, pretty much like how an amazon wharehouse and airport bagage is handled?

I can only guess it's the buy cheap buy twice mentality. Buying cheaper machines but in reality they are not as good as you say. Then the company spends more money from man hours further required. But yet, better investment would save them money in the long run.

We saw this exact same thing with PDAs. And it looks like the new PDAs are suffering the same fate.

Apologies if obvious is obvious.

It's why we frequently blame "up top", for bad decisions after bad decisions.

[SpacePhoenix]

"Maybe its wishful thinking but I would have thought that with the current developments in technology, QR/barcodes and optical readers etc, that the outputs would be routed via automated gates with arms and tippers to divert to cages or bins, pretty much like how an amazon wharehouse and airport bagage is handled?

I can only guess it's the buy cheap buy twice mentality. Buying cheaper machines but in reality they are not as good as you say. Then the company spends more money from man hours further required. But yet, better investment would save them money in the long run.

We saw this exact same thing with PDAs. And it looks like the new PDAs are suffering the same fate.

Apologies if obvious is obvious.

It's why we frequently blame "up top", for bad decisions after bad decisions.

I wouldn't call them cheap at approx £800 per PDA

[WASD]

If the final mile parts of the business were grouped into geographical regions and sold off or set up as wholly owned but independent, even dare i say it franchised companies. In the eyes of the regulator they should be easier to manage and improve. The regulator then would be having a league table and managers/directors in areas would be far more accountable for their actions/inactions. The regulator will have no qualms about publishing the league tables and it will ultimately change the culture and drive performance . There is of course one issue and thats worker involvement !

I think you're right. However, we need to remember RM is changing from letters to parcels, that's the market.
Franchises always keep their image, DPD are franchised in parts, and i bet not many knew that. As is Greggs. Likely others.

[WASD]

"Maybe its wishful thinking but I would have thought that with the current developments in technology, QR/barcodes and optical readers etc, that the outputs would be routed via automated gates with arms and tippers to divert to cages or bins, pretty much like how an amazon wharehouse and airport bagage is handled?

I can only guess it's the buy cheap buy twice mentality. Buying cheaper machines but in reality they are not as good as you say. Then the company spends more money from man hours further required. But yet, better investment would save them money in the long run.

We saw this exact same thing with PDAs. And it looks like the new PDAs are suffering the same fate.

Apologies if obvious is obvious.

It's why we frequently blame "up top", for bad decisions after bad decisions.

I wouldn't call them cheap at approx £800 per PDA

Sorry, what!? So £1k with VAT if it applied. Again, what. RM really have no idea.

WHAT.

These are not custom units either, just off the shelf available to any business i expect. The other ones were off the shelf models, so that's where i'm making the presumption. I've not used one yet, but i know they are not fit for our purpose.

[SpacePhoenix]

These are not custom units either, just off the shelf available to any business i expect. The other ones were off the shelf models, so that's where i'm making the presumption. I've not used one yet, but i know they are not fit for our purpose.

Yep, basically standard PDA. You have the hardware and the Android OS then each company will have its own custom software on the top of Android

[denhamhoop]

"Maybe its wishful thinking but I would have thought that with the current developments in technology, QR/barcodes and optical readers etc, that the outputs would be routed via automated gates with arms and tippers to divert to cages or bins, pretty much like how an amazon wharehouse and airport bagage is handled?

I can only guess it's the buy cheap buy twice mentality. Buying cheaper machines but in reality they are not as good as you say. Then the company spends more money from man hours further required. But yet, better investment would save them money in the long run.

We saw this exact same thing with PDAs. And it looks like the new PDAs are suffering the same fate.

Apologies if obvious is obvious.

It's why we frequently blame "up top", for bad decisions after bad decisions.

I wouldn't call them cheap at approx £800 per PDA

Sorry, what!? So £1k with VAT if it applied. Again, what. RM really have no idea.

WHAT.

These are not custom units either, just off the shelf available to any business i expect. The other ones were off the shelf models, so that's where i'm making the presumption. I've not used one yet, but i know they are not fit for our purpose.

I did hear a rumour they are all from Amazon second hand their cast off stock which sadly wouldn't surprise me in the least. Whomever does the purchasing for RM must be on one hell of a backhander

[Norfolk 'N' Chance]

Thanks Denhamhoop,

There must be some cost benefit analysis in the decision to still have manual handoffs as part of the new automated parcel systems that Im not aware of? - the problem that my tiny mind cant fully understand is this;

1) RM senior management want to use less staff and reduce costs
2) The technology appears to exist for world class sorting/processing of parcels etc (at what cost admittedly I dont know)
3) Any fully automated/mechanised process can run 24hrs a day with lower levels of supervision
4) Taking people out of the sorting process, must by the very nature of human error, Increase productivity and reduce errors
5) Personal injuries and ill health from twisting/bending and associated movements for manual workers to load cages and bins etc are eliminated
6) Its just good business sense

Am i missing something or is it that being an outsider i dont fully appreciate what the pathway to change is.

And as for £800 for a PDA that seems mightily expensive.... makes you wonder if the manufacturer/supplier of them is based on the top of a hill .

[Grumpyoldmailman]

Am i missing something or is it that being an outsider i dont fully appreciate what the pathway to change is.

Yes you are missing the fact one of the CWU’s main purposes is to protect and save jobs.

[SpacePhoenix]

Thanks Denhamhoop,

There must be some cost benefit analysis in the decision to still have manual handoffs as part of the new automated parcel systems that Im not aware of? - the problem that my tiny mind cant fully understand is this;

1) RM senior management want to use less staff and reduce costs
2) The technology appears to exist for world class sorting/processing of parcels etc (at what cost admittedly I dont know)
3) Any fully automated/mechanised process can run 24hrs a day with lower levels of supervision
4) Taking people out of the sorting process, must by the very nature of human error, Increase productivity and reduce errors
5) Personal injuries and ill health from twisting/bending and associated movements for manual workers to load cages and bins etc are eliminated
6) Its just good business sense

Am i missing something or is it that being an outsider i dont fully appreciate what the pathway to change is.

And as for £800 for a PDA that seems mightily expensive.... makes you wonder if the manufacturer/supplier of them is based on the top of a hill .

If letters end up being cut for the number of days per week then dynamically generated walks is a distinct possibility. With recent changes, apart from stamped and foreign mail, shortly everything les e will have a 2D barcode on, with the destination address encoded in the barcode. The boundaries between walks would change each day depending on what's going where

[Norfolk 'N' Chance]

Am i missing something or is it that being an outsider i dont fully appreciate what the pathway to change is.

Yes you are missing the fact one of the CWU’s main purposes is to protect and save jobs.

That indeed is a very fair point and I conceed that I overlooked it to a large extent. However with so many vacancies and staff shortages could a lot if not all direct jobs be saved, with the aim being to cut indirect staff and temps? -

[SpacePhoenix]

Am i missing something or is it that being an outsider i dont fully appreciate what the pathway to change is.

Yes you are missing the fact one of the CWU’s main purposes is to protect and save jobs.

That indeed is a very fair point and I conceed that I overlooked it to a large extent. However with so many vacancies and staff shortages could a lot if not all direct jobs be saved, with the aim being to cut indirect staff and temps? -

MC rely massively on casuals/agency now. If they were taken away, on a day with normal traffic levels (not a summer time lull) we'd probably fail miserably

[Chelseablue]

Going by that other posting .. if your gonna struggle with mental health problems/stress with messed up undoable revisions then phone a helpline , yes im worried about the future.