RMCtv : How royalmailchat tanked the share price this week!

[POSTMAN]

This is a bit of a shock.

"Royal Mail employee feedback on the implementation of structural revisions also suggests potential downside risks to achieving the full £100m productivity benefits in FY21-22."

You'll be aware that the share price dropped a couple of days ago, they went down 8% to £4.40 now they are £4.20.

Anyway, in Simon's latest Q&A he says this...


I could see and feel a lot of the confidence that our shareholders have in us drop a little bit this week, and you may have seen that earlier this week and an investor called UBS put out a note expressing concerns about whether we would deliver our revisions on time and whether we could really manage our costs.

You know they've been scanning lots of channels particularly royalmailchat for comments and see that people have been questioning whether we can hit the end of October deadline for the revisions, and the disruption that they felt it had been causing, and I'll read you a bit from the UBS advice note.

They said. "Based on employee comments on royal mails employee forum regarding the progress of the revision activity so far, we conclude risks remain for what concerns obtaining the benefits and fold during this financial year, the company has started this year it's biggest ever change in revisions, and so far it's completed revisions in all thirty seven mail centers and about two weeks ago it had completed eighty five percent of the table top revisions twelve hundred and eighty six in total whilst deploying eighty five of the structural revisions, four hundred in total"

He went on to say "the company needs to focus on further recovering the service quality while deploying and finalizing the revisions ahead of the start of the peak season"

So I guess UBS is saying what we've really been saying for a while, which is we have to improve quality, and we have to deliver our revisions by the end of October.

You may have seen the day that UBS note came out, our share price dropped from around about four pounds eighty to around four pounds twenty so a significant drop, and I think it just shows how incredibly important it is that we do deliver our promises. you know the market is starting to doubt our ability to change it.

Frankly I know they're wrong, but that means nothing to them no matter what I think, you know, we actually need to show them and of course show them we will, and I know we can deliver these revisions on time, you know, we've got about a month to go but every single day does count, and as I've said before, if there are issues, let us know directly that's the only way we can sort things out.

For example. recently, I've heard more of you talking about how we need to make sure that the frontline recruitment happens as quickly as possible. so we've already been working with our unions on ways to speed this up, and you should look out for a joint statement tomorrow morning, ​I think the plans are about ten o'clock and if things aren't working with the revisions, as you'd think they should, please speak to your manager,.

And look team the world is watching everything we do,now is the time to show how we're changing

[Woody Guthrie]

The main problem with the structural revisions is the personnel and tools they are relying on to deliver them.

1. A 3 day course does not a planner make.

2. A route optimiser originally designed for refuse collection does not provide realistic route planning.

3. An indoor work tool designed at 100BSI+ that ignores everything but the core task does not provide a realistic indoor work plan.

4. A manager that refuses to understand these basic flaws in the process does not protect the integrity of the structural revision.

5. A union rep with no engineering background or technical knowledge does not protect the members' interests.

These are fundamental flaws in the process they were well warned about before the whole thing kicked off because they were exactly the same flaws that undermined the structural revisions 10 years ago.

Basically Simon as was made known by the Hooper report umpteen years ago many of your managers have been promoted beyond their capabilities, protected by a system of "you look after me and I'll look after you" and now hide their deficiencies by an over reliance on facts and figures derived from flawed planning tools.

Sorry Si and apologies if this affects the share price but putting the brakes on a speeding car might cost you a new set of brakes and tyres , letting it hurtle onwards will cost much more.

I won't even get into the CWUs culpability in this...

[Chelseablue]

Great post woody ! Ours is still a mess and should never have went through a structural revision in the first place. Never seen my office in such a state pre xmas pressure. , sorry but telling it as it is . Sick absence also crazy because of this.

[worktotime]

all managers are interested in is there savings for the office and not about a fair workload for the staff , and all they are interested in taking dutys out and decreasing f/t to p/t , so it will be a total s**t fest and a backward step for the company .

[noggin1969]

S

[derekm]

Spot on with that post woody

[worktotime]

well said Woody and so true

[fb1969]

Well said Woody.

Super SI says he wants to hear from people - those people (or is it team members) are the ones doing the job and the ones that know what does or doesn't work. But there is a difference between listening and hearing, and Super Si isn't hearing what is being said.

And for what its worth, our revision is apparently on indefinite hold.

[wallop]

OK here's a cunning plan, if we are so capable of shifting the value of FTSE 100 company on here lets get the share price down to about 50p all wade in and then start posting about how wonderful RM is, how the manager makes your life a joy everyday and how you'll go way over the top to get everything done "i'll gladly work a few hours over my time everday for free" etc.
Then sell the shares and retire.

[POSTMAN]

From my Google rewards app...

share.jpg

[Sugar]

You know they've been scanning lots of channels particularly royalmailchat for comments and see that people have been questioning whether we can hit the end of October deadline for the revisions, and the disruption that they felt it had been causing, and I'll read you a bit from the UBS advice note.

Simon really isn't getting it. If a big investment arm like UBS are having to come on here to see what is going on inside royal fail everyday then clearly the investment big wigs don't believe what royal fail are telling them and are savvy enough to go out and find out for themselves and get the info straight from the horses mouths on here. Kudos to UBS I say.

Maybe Simon should spend more time sorting out his chain of command and the cr@pola they are feeding up to his ivory tower than bitching and moaning about this place. As long as I worked there you always felt the higher ups didn't have a fooooking clue what was actually going on at the coalface because they weren't getting told.

[Ad_bee]

Yes, quite so but also the Managers don't want to know about, report or resource the overstretched workloads and for whatever the reason, the Union is just as wilfully blind and woefully inadequate.

I have no sympathy.

I had a manager in the week wanting to pretend that the 2 hours a day overtime on my delivery was just a figment of imagination or temporary anomaly. Its been the same overstretch for 3 years and getting worse week by week.

They will, of course, blame us.

To paraphrase Sibyl's prophecy in the epic poem Aeneid, 6, 86–87, of "wars, terrible wars, and the Tiber foaming with much blood"

"Blames terrible blames, and the shopfloor foaming with much indignation"

FWIW its some peoples' Day-Job to research company info on behalf of investors and to quote Yosser Hughs and since we know they're looking....

"Gis a job, go on, I know you've got one"

[cobrakai]

So it has nothing to do with fuel crisis/mail volume dropping off or finally paying people the money they were legally entitled to (which I’m guessing amounts to a very large amount of our profit).

The trouble with management at any huge organisation is that they always pin the blame on others. However I think the CWU is just as culpable with this shambles of a agreement that for many has made the job either unpalatable or so difficult that I doubt even Mo Farah could run round doing some of the rounds in the allotted times.

[blacov]

This company does everything but do not value its employees especially those on the frontline. Walks in many Delivery Offices are designed the way that without the goodwill and cutting corners these walks would likely not be cleared. Management taking advantage of people coming in early and working for free because otherwise they will not be able to complete. Last thing is just pure bullying, pressuring especially least senior or just weak into rushing around and going over against their will. Then finally we have revisions being rushed and they are a total failure. Instead of solving issues they aggravate all the flaws and push many people over the line. All of that just little over 2months before Christmas. If delivery staff stopped rushing around and would not offer any goodwill, if everybody without exception started taking their breaks, stopped coming in for free and refused overtime. Deliveries would be severely disrupted across the country and if this continued any longer than a couple of days it would trigger news all over the media and then shares would fall off a cliff.

Its never been worse to be a postie. Where are the union leaders? They are as bad as royal mail senior managers. Everyday I doubt if they are actually worth paying the subs.

[WalkerX]

Woody. Great post.