RMCtv : Simon Thomson aka Eric Morcambe : "We have the right vans - but not necessarily - in the right - place"

[FAB]

Now if Eric Morcambe was CEO RM might be in with a chance!

[97gaz]

Someone was sent out in a van the other day that the managers knew overheated, "just put a few bottles of water in the back"...

True story: a rural driver here was given a van where the battery/starter motor had gone. A line manager asked her, if they jump started the van was it possible for her to do the whole delivery without turning the engine off.

Starting problems are usually starter/battery/alternator faults. The problem with using a non starter once it is started is, if the alternator is knackered, you only have a limited time to use it before the battery is flat. A charged Peugeot will, once the ignition light comes on get you about ten to fifteen miles of steady driving without stopping and starting. Once you get to that point all sorts of things happen, the most serious being loss of power steering. Ask me how I know.

[clashcityrocker]

Ask me how I know.

How do you know?

[cpsteve]

If a van is not secure you do not use it you politely tell the manager, its your fault if the mail or van is stolen if you leave the van running unattended.

[POSTMAN]

What a s**t storm!

Operations Manager

Feeling disappointed with the vans position which is impacting our ability to delivery our customer scorecard.

We had our DOMs put their peak plans together which gave a demand for 64 vans (we now have collections within our teams this peak) and now entering into cyber weekend short and now starting to fail parcels on the back of this.

Currently only 9 in my team with peak upon us when we had 63 last year although meant to be getting another 14 taking me to 23 vans across 19 delivery offices and 3 collection hubs although we have to organise to collect them.

We’ve got our staff now questioning our frontline managers around trust and even questioning them around are we wanting to fail this Christmas, its a difficult position from us in OPS.

Have we any further update if we have the ability to contact external companies to engage and get the hires in that we desperately need.

[postieblueshirt]

If Simon is working in a delivery office over Christmas maybe he can use his own car to help out as long as he gets the proper insurance obviously..

[POSTMAN]

Service Delivery Leader Who forgot that XMAS was due this year

There are definitely lessons to be learnt from this year.
We have to work collaboratively to ensure we our conscious of cost and our environmental impact when putting in our vehicle requirements.
However with format 3 and 4 parcels on the increase we need to make sure sufficient cubic capacity to deliver and trust our teams when they say what they need.
The unintended consequences have been a huge amount of stress and pressure for DOMs trying to explain the shortfall to their teams.
Hopefully we can put some time aside after peak to make sure a better approach for next year.

[oypostie]

Environmental impact !!! What the feck. If we're worried about our environmental impact then maybe we shouldn't deliver anything at all.
Oh, hang on. It appears we are trialling that in Oxford

[HTPostman]

Environmental impact !!! What the feck. If we're worried about our environmental impact then maybe we shouldn't deliver anything at all.
Oh, hang on. It appears we are trialling that in Oxford

Or having 7 vans all going to the same area in the name of lapsing. Or (potentially) a van going to an address with a 9am special, a postman then going in a van to the same address with mail/small parcel, going there with a large parcel and then yet another van going there later on with an LAT.

Come on management don’t give us the environmental agenda, that went down the drain when we ditched bikes.

[97gaz]

Ask me how I know.

How do you know?

Lol

[themaze]

What a s**t storm!

Operations Manager

Feeling disappointed with the vans position which is impacting our ability to delivery our customer scorecard.

We had our DOMs put their peak plans together which gave a demand for 64 vans (we now have collections within our teams this peak) and now entering into cyber weekend short and now starting to fail parcels on the back of this.

Currently only 9 in my team with peak upon us when we had 63 last year although meant to be getting another 14 taking me to 23 vans across 19 delivery offices and 3 collection hubs although we have to organise to collect them.

We’ve got our staff now questioning our frontline managers around trust and even questioning them around are we wanting to fail this Christmas, its a difficult position from us in OPS.

Have we any further update if we have the ability to contact external companies to engage and get the hires in that we desperately need.

Maybe the staff should take the bull by the horns and inform the dom there not doing any overtime thus freeing up the vans for collections in the afternoon.

[clashcityrocker]

It is interesting to see just how little trust the senior managers place in their underlings.
For what it's worth I don't think that mistrust is ill judged.

[Sir Henry]

The unintended consequences have been a huge amount of stress and pressure for DOMs trying to explain the shortfall to their teams.

So, the huge amount of stress and pressure for the poor f***ers at the actual sharp end of your inability to find your arse with both hands and a book on anatomy (posties) is either intended or they can get to f**k for all you care.

SERIOUSLY Simpleton do you ever consider that someone who cant do joined up thinking should give the stream of consciousness missives a rest?

[casualnowwithangard]

At my DO we have no hire vans, they put in packet drivers only to realise they didn't have enough vans to let us do the job, no additional pdas it's a joke. The one day they have a van it was a combi and you can't exactly fit 8 yorks of parcels in that!

[POSTMAN]

DOM

Trust, transparency and tools to do the job.

We hear and see these words on a regular basis, but when it comes to day to day issues this is not what we often experience.

One current example is hire vehicles - I have now been waiting 6 days for a replacement vehicle following a completely unblameworthy accident - how is this acceptable ? I now have a small rural office with a quarter of their fleet missing on the busiest week of the year.

Simon Thompson, we all know that if your company car was out of action, that you would not be waiting a week for a replacement - and rightly so, as it is an important requirement for the job. So why can we not provide the same level of respect, service and courtesy to our frontline employees?

The very first requirement on the DILO DOM role is accountability, but that is completely lacking in our hire vehicle process. I send a spreadsheet to an anonymous vehicle requests email address, and apart from emailing every day to get an update, that is the end of my involvement with the process - where is the transparency ?

I would love to be accountable for hiring vehicles, as I'm sure most DOM's would - the charges end up with our offices anyway, but that is not the system we have. The only answers I get to my daily emails are that they are waiting on Nexus to source a vehicle (even though Nexus claim on their website to be able to provide vehicles within hours)

I am now in the ridiculous position of having to explain to my employees and customers that Royal Mail cannot provide me with just a single hire vehicle.

So, due to this nonsense, compounded by the issue I already have with being short of peak hire vans as well, my next trust survey score will be appalling - all because of something completely out of my control.