Is it Job & Finish or work your hours?

[Darren Bent]

If Royal Mail make people to deliver more mail after coming back to work say 60 minutes early it will encourage post delivery person to stay away from office or slow down, then mail get undelivered. This is why Royal Mail offer overtime.

I also think it is cheaper to pay overtime than hire new people as they will avoid holiday pay, sick pay, bonus payment for new employees.

The question is workload balance need to be better, but it can't prevent heavy mailing day from a certain company which send mail to nearly every house on the walk.

[Jenny Manchester]

At the end of the day if everyone came in and started their duty at the right time took their break and done their killing off and redirections proper, signed out of the office checked their vans for fuel, tyre pressure, bumps, scrapes etc, etc, filled the log book in instead of scribble, then used their trolleys on the walk, filled out p739 cards proper how many of you actually do that on here? without cutting corners also jumping gates/fences, mail hanging out of letter boxes deliberately not going to a address which is out of the way, there would be less complaints indoors and outdoors and less mis-deliverys.
How can Royal Mail justify one minute work your hours then the next minute let the runners go home early. My office is not short staffed but they seem to pay runners overtime rather than make them go back out and work their hours. They tell me this P & L is working but they are paying five hours a day for posties coming in a hour early on the IPS not mentioning the extended they are paying and most leave the tracked and packets and its working? So what happens when the IPS overtime stops? and a clampdown on extended?
Here is how should work - All posties start at the time they should. Clear the floor policy at break time where nobody goes out delivering on breaks. Nobody leaves the office till every letter is thrown off and allocated to its frame. Anyone back before their time maybe asked to do further work indoors or outdoors everyone goe home same time, job done managers happy.

[bigcol]

Both my P&L partners come in an hour early on overtime to throw off their walks. They then wait around for an hour before going out as I come in on time.

You really couldn't make it up.

[Darren Bent]

Jenny no one will be happy being held up by slowest sorters. So what happens if a guy got 400 more letter on new walk than a regular with 400 letter less. It won't work unless there is teamwork.

[da'bunny]

At my office it is job and knock, do your round, do lapsing (if there is any) then go home.
However, when there is o.t 99% of it is still done by our finish time.
Ive always thought it strange that they want to save hours, yet pay us o.t even when we are still getting it done without going over time!
The thing is tho NO ONE would do an extra bit of a round for free. Hence they pay o.t
A couple of people may come in early but it doesnt make any difference, as we still have to wait for another lorry to bring in more for us to sort up and prep.
Nearly everyone leaves the office between 8.15am and 9am and so if all therounds take 3 1/2 hours (which is what all walks at our office are based on) then even the slowest person would be back by 12.30pm
It would be a health and safety issue surely if the rounds took any longer as we would all be bursting for a pee!!
We also still use bikes. Using a trolley would probably add a hour on to the delivery time.

[eastie]

Problem is with different drivers you get the round finished at different times.
OPne of my P/L drivers is fast and is ready when I finish my loopsand we finish on time wheras another driver I have always leaves me waiting for my next bag and we always cut off.
What happens is that I subconciously slow down with the slow driver rather that wait around for him.
I actually live on my round in the last road I deliver to but there are times when I have cut off at my finish time and go home and the wife says that the mail was delivered about an hour ago

[Jenny Manchester]

At my office it is job and knock, do your round, do lapsing (if there is any) then go home.
However, when there is o.t 99% of it is still done by our finish time.
Ive always thought it strange that they want to save hours, yet pay us o.t even when we are still getting it done without going over time!
The thing is tho NO ONE would do an extra bit of a round for free. Hence they pay o.t
A couple of people may come in early but it doesnt make any difference, as we still have to wait for another lorry to bring in more for us to sort up and prep.
Nearly everyone leaves the office between 8.15am and 9am and so if all therounds take 3 1/2 hours (which is what all walks at our office are based on) then even the slowest person would be back by 12.30pm
It would be a health and safety issue surely if the rounds took any longer as we would all be bursting for a pee!!
We also still use bikes. Using a trolley would probably add a hour on to the delivery time.

8.15am and 9am your obviously not on park and Loop then as for lapsing no time for that.

[tommyrep]

At the end of the day if everyone came in and started their duty at the right time took their break and done their killing off and redirections proper, signed out of the office checked their vans for fuel, tyre pressure, bumps, scrapes etc, etc, filled the log book in instead of scribble, then used their trolleys on the walk, filled out p739 cards proper how many of you actually do that on here? without cutting corners also jumping gates/fences, mail hanging out of letter boxes deliberately not going to a address which is out of the way, there would be less complaints indoors and outdoors and less mis-deliverys.
How can Royal Mail justify one minute work your hours then the next minute let the runners go home early. My office is not short staffed but they seem to pay runners overtime rather than make them go back out and work their hours. They tell me this P & L is working but they are paying five hours a day for posties coming in a hour early on the IPS not mentioning the extended they are paying and most leave the tracked and packets and its working? So what happens when the IPS overtime stops? and a clampdown on extended?
Here is how should work - All posties start at the time they should. Clear the floor policy at break time where nobody goes out delivering on breaks. Nobody leaves the office till every letter is thrown off and allocated to its frame. Anyone back before their time maybe asked to do further work indoors or outdoors everyone goe home same time, job done managers happy.

Jenny, if this had been your initial post I would have agreed with you 100% !! And I humbly now apologise.
Many of these people- in my experience - can be part timers who are trying to impress, while boosting their income at the same time or are on temp contracts. If this is case at your DO, this form of control over these individuals is dispicable.
Are there a lot of people cutting off to create this O/Time opportunity to the "runners" ? There appears to have been a revision in your office when you mention P&L, if so there are obvious problems with the duty spans when packets especially are allowed to build up.
I assumed that you were having a pop at your work colleagues - as they are clearly not workMATES - and I was assuming that the O/Time was a result of under staffing. Managers do rely heavily on the sort you describe, runners-early starters-working through rathers than having meal breaks, etc. I have seen them in my own DO and this obviously comes at a price to the DO - when these people are getting ENHANCED O/T payments!
I too would like to see managers implementing the policy of the staff ALL leaving together once all the indoor work has been done, but it is much better for them to have a divided office, all fighting against each other !! makes their job a lot easier.

[tommyrep]

it is really not your workmates fault after all - is it ???

Depends.
Are they starting early?
Are they skipping their breaks?
Are they jumping fences,signing for recordeds,carving the job up,not using delivery methods,dumping D2D.
Are they doing all this so they can get in a bit of OT during duty time.
If they are,it is their fault and even if they aren't they are definitely not helping to sustain jobs.
I don't buy this "maybe they are just faster" pish.

Fishtank

My point in stating " it is not really your workmates fault- is it ???" towards Jenny is this, if managers are prepared to make ENHANCED payment to these individuals then they would be fool to turn it down !! I would prefer that the delivery failed and they had to explain the reasons why to their superiors. Now if there were NO carrot dangled the management would have to deal with the true problem that is apparent, which is probably unfair/unachievable duty spans imposed on an overworked/overstressed staff. I also agree with your (-probably true -) assumptions in relation to " not doing the job properly". I have noticed a big increase in all the points you mention since our revision as implemented, it was bad before but much worse now !

[chrisj]

Without going into the macropolitics of employer/employee relations and the unfairness/unrealistic new working practices,increase in part time hours, more work for less (real) pay, execs overpayment, degradation of trade union powers and so on,

Jenny's post is about people taking the micky with or without management being complicit or weak. Delivery managers and line managers also get bulliedl even more so than posties; hence they tend to go for easier options. Some will rather allow some malpractice to go and most will prefer not to rock the boat too much by taking on the the seniors/full-timers and the militants. But all that does not excuse the behaviour and selfishness and self-centredness of some posties.

A round in my office has had addresses added on to it twice since the walkholder was sacked about 2 years ago and that round is still not even the hardest in the office. They have added at least 1 hour+ extra amount of work and it is only now coming up to some other rounds. Within weeks of the bloke being sacked more work was put on for the trainee that was put on the round (the round became a trainee round all of a sudden) and the next adjustment was after (not during) the first traunch of P&L revision.

The guy that was sacked used to be at the pub by 11.30 or 11.45 whilst others were still slugging. He was also able to retire home after the pub for a rest and was on SA almost every day. Even with all these privileges and time to make money; he was caught with undelivered mail.

What a plonker! And yet, he and other will turn round blame stress and unrealistic work load - he actually did!

[Jenny Manchester]

Biggest laugh of the day today at work one guy he won't touch a letter all week till his start time where he sits on his frame till 6 30am takes his break what does he do today? He only goes out delivering packets on his break because its Saturday! Defeating the object or what?

[tommyrep]

Jenny,

Some of the staff still just cannot accept that the days of job and finish are over ! Until this deep rooted view of getting finished earlier can be dealt with, people will continue to give RM their services free, under the impression that they are scoring something from their actions - getting finished a bit earlier but doing the same work without a break.
If, as you initially posted - they were to be sent out with packets on returning before their finish time - possibly the penny would finally drop ! taking their breaks and starting at normal times on a Saturday and the managers all know that.
Management still like to give the impression that they would like to see all staff finished early on a Saturday, but they know that with people starting before time and not having their breaks all adds up to clearing the office faster and THEY can swan off even earlier themselves.

[NewPostieUK]

I think some people are getting mixed up between 'Job and Finish' and 'finishing early'.

Some (lucky) non-drivers in my office get dropped off after their duty either at home or a place of their choice. This has nothing to do with the hours they work. They usually finish on time (on an easy day) or work overtime, before going home.

I have to go back to the office to pick up my car anyway, so the only issue is taking back the P739's, bags, trollies etc. as long as I get paid for that I don't have a problem.

[Jenny Manchester]

I think some people are getting mixed up between 'Job and Finish' and 'finishing early'.

Some (lucky) non-drivers in my office get dropped off after their duty either at home or a place of their choice. This has nothing to do with the hours they work. They usually finish on time (on an easy day) or work overtime, before going home.

I have to go back to the office to pick up my car anyway, so the only issue is taking back the P739's, bags, trollies etc. as long as I get paid for that I don't have a problem.

Remember if your going out of your walk route and dropping your partner home and have accident your down the road mate. RM won't tolerate that they will want a statement off you and your partner and when you say "he/she wasn't there I dropped him/her home" then goodnight Vienna.