For everyone to have a van long term you've only got 2 viable options:norris9 wrote: ↑28 Sep 2021, 17:50There has to be a better format to make it easier for everyone, surely.
1. We need all rounds to be individual, not van-share.
It is so much easier doing a round on your own, you know where you stand, you know you won't be slowed down by someone else, you know you won't be bossed around by a runner, you know you won't be put with someone who doesn't know the round, you have plenty of room in the van to stay organised and be efficient.
2. We all need our own round.
It is so much easier, less stressful and more efficient to be on a specific round that you know each day.
3. We all need our rounds to be fair and doable within our contracted hours.
There is zero respect for our contracted hours. Zero respect for our finish time. The way things are setup means that if we want to cut off, management sometimes harasses you for it and it causes problems for you the next day, so we are put in a corner where it's better for us to stay out, which is completely wrong when they have contracted us to a specific finish time. Something needs to change here. Maybe by making each round easily doable within our hours and then topping us up with lapsing to get us to our time.
I understand that in some depots there may not be enough room for extra vans, or some may say it will be too costly for Royal Mail to provide a van to each Postie. These may be valid points, but maybe there are ways to make it work.
How much does it cost Royal Mail each time we lose a Postie, after giving them uniform, training, Van driving test, etc, etc, then having to recruit all over again.....
If you know where you stand, with your own designated round that you know you can complete even on a busy day, then there is virtually zero stress, the job is a pleasure. Whereas if you are going out blind, being moved around, put with the guy who wants to treat you like you're in the S.A.S, then you are coming into hell.
Make change, make the Royal Mail a pleasure to work for and people will be far less likely to leave! You will probably see many stay for life with these changes.
1) Some staff will have to move to permanent afternoons, which would have to include a % of the reserves
2) RM get more vans in permanently, this would probably result in a number of DOs moving to new locations, away from the area they cover, meaning an end to HCT walks
It's impossible for everyone to have their own round as you need some reserves to cover sick and holidays. The only two alternatives would be:
1) Someone gets chosen to be taken off their round and bunged on the one to be covered.
2) The round that needs covering gets split for that day (lapsing) between all walks that border it