RMCtv : Sickness still a problem : Chief Operating Officer

[POSTMAN]

Grant McPherson
Chief Operating Officer

Another area which I think we'd all agree is challenging at the moment, especially around Covid, is our absence.

An absence really impacts everybody because when we have high absence other people have to cover, it cost the company a lot of money.

And I just ask everybody to think about you know come back to the business to follow the procedures, follow the topics, and try and get everybody safely back to our business because it really is a large problem for us.

And our metrics tell us that were considerably worse than other industries.

[olilew]

Make the duties longer and more difficult, sickness goes up. It's really not rocket science is it?

[POSTMAN]

RMCtv : Revisions and sickness

Simon 'The data is the data' Thompson

Team - structural revisions & absence - I have just received this from the data science team - what it shows is that at the point of deployment of a structural revision, absence goes up - and the weeks after it goes up even more.
Blue = before - Orange = during - Grey = after

What do you think is going on?
This doesn't happen for table top revisions - we have checked.

[Woody Guthrie]

Well I doubt adding coronavirus to the attendance procedure is going to help Simon.

For every one who now comes to work positive because they're terrified of losing their job you'll get another three off sick, just a rough calculation/guess Simon but it's all guesswork anyway.

Why do we have such a high sick absence rate?

Take an unannounced visit around the offices and you'll find out, not all offices smell of fresh paint and have Andrex in the toilet cubicles I'm afraid.

You're being conned by your own "team" Simon.

[Cucumber]

They don't 'pay out' to cover absence in our place.

Isn't this the case elsewhere?

[fb1969]

They've given up covering for absence in our place. Someone goes off sick and either their duty doesn't go out, or someone gets moved and a different duty doesn't go out. Tracked items usually get delivered, but often at the sacrifice of part of another duty.

With 11 vacant duties out of 70 many duties fail anyway, and you don't need a spreadsheet to tell you that there is no one to cover any absence.

Why not seriously look into why people are going off sick, rather than bleat on and on about it as if posties should die on delivery before ever thinking off going off sick - and then only if they've cleared their Tracked and Specials.

By the way Simon, you visited my office the other week. Sadly I was already out on delivery - I was covering the Tracked on one side of my van share because I was solo on the other side of it - so that duty and about 25% of my duty didn't go out that day.

You are starting to go beyond parody now Simon.

[CharlesG]

Simon Thompson : GA if you can share policy documents from other companies I would love to see it - also, team if anyone can explain to me how the ‘sickness holiday book’ process works - please drop me an IM directly…..

People say they have not heard of the sick holiday book —

Simon : GA apparently - in some operations when new people start - they ask ‘which weeks would you like off sick’? - I haven’t seen any evidence as yet - which is why I am asking - might just be a Rumour Mail issue!

This is from Workplace, discussing use of Sick Book in some Units. Seems like we are not trusted regarding sick.

[Cucumber]

They've given up covering for absence in our place. Someone goes off sick and either their duty doesn't go out, or someone gets moved and a different duty doesn't go out. Tracked items usually get delivered, but often at the sacrifice of part of another duty.

With 11 vacant duties out of 70 many duties fail anyway, and you don't need a spreadsheet to tell you that there is no one to cover any absence.

Why not seriously look into why people are going off sick, rather than bleat on and on about it as if posties should die on delivery before ever thinking off going off sick - and then only if they've cleared their Tracked and Specials.

By the way Simon, you visited my office the other week. Sadly I was already out on delivery - I was covering the Tracked on one side of my van share because I was solo on the other side of it - so that duty and about 25% of my duty didn't go out that day.

You are starting to go beyond parody now Simon.

Carbon copy.

And the sting in the tail is that the people who endlessly get shunted about....guess what....go off sick.

[sindba]

Are these people f***ing cyborgs? "Sickness metrics".

The reason people go off sick is because they are sick.

Perhaps, Simon, ask what company policies are causing them to get sick? Start with workload, working environment, covid, and culture, and work it out from there.

[A2B]

Throw into the mix people who are owed holiday but are told no days at all are available so they find their own solution

[Chelseablue]

Morale is at its worst, revisions still a mess , but thats ok as longs tracked etc gets done eh . Staff off sick bcause youve pushed them too far simon , its a disaster and this is meant to be a quiet period . Office was great until ,, revisions .

[number one]

Asking an ageing workforce to do more and more work with no extra reward.
Making people walk further
Making people deliver more
Tracking people’s movements
Giving people additional daily tasks
Questioning their work rate
Refusing them annual leave
Making them work from old tatty vans
Making them take 2/3 days mail out because the walk hasn’t been covered for a few days
Forcing revisions in even after staff have raised concerns

Hummm... I wonder why sickness is high?

[Sir Henry]

Simon Thompson : GA if you can share policy documents from other companies I would love to see it - also, team if anyone can explain to me how the ‘sickness holiday book’ process works - please drop me an IM directly…..

People say they have not heard of the sick holiday book —

Simon : GA apparently - in some operations when new people start - they ask ‘which weeks would you like off sick’? - I haven’t seen any evidence as yet - which is why I am asking - might just be a Rumour Mail issue!

This is from Workplace, discussing use of Sick Book in some Units. Seems like we are not trusted regarding sick.

Ooh nice one Simpleton, spread an unsubstantiated rumour and ask for confirmation of said rumour despite the fact you haven't seen any evidence YET (my italics) AND people having said they have not heard of the sick holiday book. oh but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence eh? Sounds like a pretext to a possible attack on sick absence, watch this space.

[blacov]

I will drop my few cents. Some may disagree with me but hopefully some will share my opinion. Royal Mail sickness problem is quite deeply rooted in covid pandemic. There a few groups of people emerging from it.

Terrified of catching covid and potential health complications.
Happy to take a free ticket to go off and with compulsory 10days isolation triggered off a track&trace ping (now scrapped)
Regular calculated sick leave. Call them system abusers if you like.
Genuine sickness very often due to fatigue/stress from workloads that are unachievable.

All of the above has been greatly exacerbated by increased volumes especially during last 2years as well as very badly timed and poorly designed, forced revisions.

In my opinion if not for the revisions now with the workloads decreasing slightly we would start to record a steep fall in sickness absences. This is a great place to touch on the potential pay deal. In order to give us anything remotely in line with inflation I am pretty certain Royal Mail will try to attack sick leave benefit and if not scraping paid sick leave completely they will try to weaken it significantly so it becomes difficult to go sick and still get paid.

[twoloops]

In the past most posties felt a bit guilty about being off sick & made the effort to get back to work as soon as possible, the unachievable work loads gives you no enthusiasm to rush back & most stretch it out for as long they you can & more than likely enjoy the break.