Mails Down Mails Down blah blah

[ernieshoe]

The letters are counted by the sequencing machines. That count is verified and I have never heard a senior rep question its accuracy.
The figure generally quoted is that letter traffic is falling by about 5% each year and the figures on the first page of this thread would seem to be roughly in line with that.

If you are on delivery, let's say for ease of maths you have 1 000 letters/day.
A 5% drop would be 50 letters less/day. Over the 20 bundles on a delivery it would be 2 letters less/bundle approximately.
You wouldn't even notice. And of course if your round was made bigger it would be undetectable to you. The decline would be subsumed in the general increase of extra delivery points.

50 fewer letters would mean approx. 2 minutes less on prep.
From a business point of view those 2 minutes are not really recoverable. You can't really be given 2 more minutes lapsing, the reality is it just means 2 minutes scratching your arse.
But 2 minutes per postie = 100 000 minutes (assuming about 50 000 posties) or about 1.500 hours or about £15 000/day. And that is without taking into account of the effect on our colleagues in processing or distribution. And worse. the trend in letter traffic appears irreversible. Even the removal of the cap on D2D has done nothing to alleviate the decline in our workload.

So those with their heads buried in the sand who refuse to acknowledge the reality of the decline in letters (which are still the bulk of our daily workload) or those that choose to disbelieve the RM " propaganda" about traffic will never understand what is going on in their industry.

Personally I don't see any way of resuscitating this business. It is slowly dying. If they hived off GLS the death would be swift if not painless.

Great post.
In a nutshell what 5% less letters means per year.
This is likely to accelerate.
bills, invoices, utilities, bank statements, greetings cards, magazines, advertising literature is all declining year on year.
Paper Car tax discs and TV Licences have disappeared.
100's of magazine titles have disspapeared or gone online the last few years.
Sky mags, Saga.
How much longer do you think companies like Screwfix are going to send paper catalogues when they have an online presence.

There will be more things that currently get posted that will go online.

The traditional postperson will have to change or die out.

Then you have the advances in technology that will replace labour year on year.

Packets are the only way to sustain jobs.
The vans and trolleys were bought in so packets can be delivered - forget about H+S.

A lot of people on this forum need to wake up and realise what is happening.
So many people are in total denial.

In reply to somebody posting earlier.
Yes new houses are being built.
Yes there has been a big influx of EU Citizens swelling the population.
LETTERS HAVE STILL DECREASED !

[SierraOscarBravo]

The letters are counted by the sequencing machines. That count is verified and I have never heard a senior rep question its accuracy.
The figure generally quoted is that letter traffic is falling by about 5% each year and the figures on the first page of this thread would seem to be roughly in line with that.

If you are on delivery, let's say for ease of maths you have 1 000 letters/day.
A 5% drop would be 50 letters less/day. Over the 20 bundles on a delivery it would be 2 letters less/bundle approximately.
You wouldn't even notice. And of course if your round was made bigger it would be undetectable to you. The decline would be subsumed in the general increase of extra delivery points.

50 fewer letters would mean approx. 2 minutes less on prep.
From a business point of view those 2 minutes are not really recoverable. You can't really be given 2 more minutes lapsing, the reality is it just means 2 minutes scratching your arse.
But 2 minutes per postie = 100 000 minutes (assuming about 50 000 posties) or about 1.500 hours or about £15 000/day. And that is without taking into account of the effect on our colleagues in processing or distribution. And worse. the trend in letter traffic appears irreversible. Even the removal of the cap on D2D has done nothing to alleviate the decline in our workload.

So those with their heads buried in the sand who refuse to acknowledge the reality of the decline in letters (which are still the bulk of our daily workload) or those that choose to disbelieve the RM " propaganda" about traffic will never understand what is going on in their industry.

Personally I don't see any way of resuscitating this business. It is slowly dying. If they hived off GLS the death would be swift if not painless.

Great post.
In a nutshell what 5% less letters means per year.
This is likely to accelerate.
bills, invoices, utilities, bank statements, greetings cards, magazines, advertising literature is all declining year on year.
Paper Car tax discs and TV Licences have disappeared.
100's of magazine titles have disspapeared or gone online the last few years.
Sky mags, Saga.
How much longer do you think companies like Screwfix are going to send paper catalogues when they have an online presence.

There will be more things that currently get posted that will go online.

The traditional postperson will have to change or die out.

Then you have the advances in technology that will replace labour year on year.

Packets are the only way to sustain jobs.
The vans and trolleys were bought in so packets can be delivered - forget about H+S.

A lot of people on this forum need to wake up and realise what is happening.
So many people are in total denial.

In reply to somebody posting earlier.
Yes new houses are being built.
Yes there has been a big influx of EU Citizens swelling the population.
LETTERS HAVE STILL DECREASED !

Absolutely spot on. Not all of us on this forum are completely and utterly in denial about the decline of mail volumes that is going on and will continue.

There is no way back from declining letter volumes, which means the only viable way to manage the decline across the postal industry is to make Royal Mail the market leader in parcels.

Taking industrial action would do untold damage to the Royal Mail brand and our competitors in the parcels market will seize upon any opportunity presented to them by industrial action in our business. I may sound like a broken record, but this is deadly serious. If you take industrial action, it is not like in the past when business and customers could be persuaded back to our brand. In today's postal market, customers and business partners have more choice than ever before with who to take their business to.

If Royal Mail is disrupted with industrial action, how long before companies or local authorities decide they will no longer send paper statements or council tax bills through Royal Mail. They could instead decide to simply put it all online. Once that happens then that business is gone and gone forever.

Companies like Amazon may pull the plug completely on Royal Mail if the business is disrupted by industrial action. They have the capacity to deliver already and may just decide to expand it right across their operation. If that happens and Royal Mail loses that business, it will be gone and gone forever.

So those of you who think that you will be protecting your jobs and terms and conditions by standing at the gates instead of delivering for our customers - THINK long and hard because this time the damage from industrial action would be permanent. The scale of job losses resulting from such industrial action would be unprecedented. Make no mistake.

[poisonivy6]

To SOB , having read your replies to a various number of threads you just come across as very cold hearted and totally lacking empathy towards your fellow workers , I have been with royal mail for 21 years and have seen it change from a job that was once enjoyable to a job that totally devalues its workforce as nothing but mere numbers and that we should be just grateful for a job.
Our own CEO Moya greene says we need to work harder to keep business while in the meantime has enough time herself to be on the EasyJet board of directors, whilst also if you take the time to look be an advisory albeit non paying member of the tate gallery.
I myself am a very hard worker who barely has anytime off sick and yet the current climate in royal mail makes me think its just time to call it quits.
You just seem to be the kind of person who thinks we should put up with all the crap royal mail throws at us with a smile and as I said earlier be thankful for just having a job . sorry pal but a lot of us hold our self in higher esteem than that .

[clashcityrocker]

I apologise - I never meant to offer any credence to the poster known as SOB.
Of course we should strike to protect our terms and conditions but we should also realise we are pissing in the wind.
We've lost at least 50 000 jobs in the last 10/15 years. We will lose more.
We have lost our final salary pension. We are currently negotiating away our DB scheme. We put our colleagues on the DC scheme despite what the latest bulletin says about solidarity.
Perhaps if we changed our name to the Union of Blacksmiths and Chimneysweeps. We are an anachronism.

[ernieshoe]

The letters are counted by the sequencing machines. That count is verified and I have never heard a senior rep question its accuracy.
The figure generally quoted is that letter traffic is falling by about 5% each year and the figures on the first page of this thread would seem to be roughly in line with that.

If you are on delivery, let's say for ease of maths you have 1 000 letters/day.
A 5% drop would be 50 letters less/day. Over the 20 bundles on a delivery it would be 2 letters less/bundle approximately.
You wouldn't even notice. And of course if your round was made bigger it would be undetectable to you. The decline would be subsumed in the general increase of extra delivery points.

50 fewer letters would mean approx. 2 minutes less on prep.
From a business point of view those 2 minutes are not really recoverable. You can't really be given 2 more minutes lapsing, the reality is it just means 2 minutes scratching your arse.
But 2 minutes per postie = 100 000 minutes (assuming about 50 000 posties) or about 1.500 hours or about £15 000/day. And that is without taking into account of the effect on our colleagues in processing or distribution. And worse. the trend in letter traffic appears irreversible. Even the removal of the cap on D2D has done nothing to alleviate the decline in our workload.

So those with their heads buried in the sand who refuse to acknowledge the reality of the decline in letters (which are still the bulk of our daily workload) or those that choose to disbelieve the RM " propaganda" about traffic will never understand what is going on in their industry.

Personally I don't see any way of resuscitating this business. It is slowly dying. If they hived off GLS the death would be swift if not painless.

Great post.
In a nutshell what 5% less letters means per year.
This is likely to accelerate.
bills, invoices, utilities, bank statements, greetings cards, magazines, advertising literature is all declining year on year.
Paper Car tax discs and TV Licences have disappeared.
100's of magazine titles have disspapeared or gone online the last few years.
Sky mags, Saga.
How much longer do you think companies like Screwfix are going to send paper catalogues when they have an online presence.

There will be more things that currently get posted that will go online.

The traditional postperson will have to change or die out.

Then you have the advances in technology that will replace labour year on year.

Packets are the only way to sustain jobs.
The vans and trolleys were bought in so packets can be delivered - forget about H+S.

A lot of people on this forum need to wake up and realise what is happening.
So many people are in total denial.

In reply to somebody posting earlier.
Yes new houses are being built.
Yes there has been a big influx of EU Citizens swelling the population.
LETTERS HAVE STILL DECREASED !

Absolutely spot on. Not all of us on this forum are completely and utterly in denial about the decline of mail volumes that is going on and will continue.

There is no way back from declining letter volumes, which means the only viable way to manage the decline across the postal industry is to make Royal Mail the market leader in parcels.

Taking industrial action would do untold damage to the Royal Mail brand and our competitors in the parcels market will seize upon any opportunity presented to them by industrial action in our business. I may sound like a broken record, but this is deadly serious. If you take industrial action, it is not like in the past when business and customers could be persuaded back to our brand. In today's postal market, customers and business partners have more choice than ever before with who to take their business to.

If Royal Mail is disrupted with industrial action, how long before companies or local authorities decide they will no longer send paper statements or council tax bills through Royal Mail. They could instead decide to simply put it all online. Once that happens then that business is gone and gone forever.

Companies like Amazon may pull the plug completely on Royal Mail if the business is disrupted by industrial action. They have the capacity to deliver already and may just decide to expand it right across their operation. If that happens and Royal Mail loses that business, it will be gone and gone forever.

So those of you who think that you will be protecting your jobs and terms and conditions by standing at the gates instead of delivering for our customers - THINK long and hard because this time the damage from industrial action would be permanent. The scale of job losses resulting from such industrial action would be unprecedented. Make no mistake.

ABSOLUTELY !

I have a lot of parcels delivered and DPD are spot on every time - 1 hour time slots.
Hermes have also upped their game and their online tracking has improved immensely these past 12 months.

Tube drivers are able to blackmail their way to their demands due to the fact that it takes 3 months before anyone is trained to drive a tube.
Train drivers too - you can choose to take your car during a train strike but you can't take another train to your destination if they are on strike.

Postal workers are not in this category.
Unlike the tube or train if Royal Mail are on strike the public can just use another parcel company.
Hermes and others will heavily promote their services to woo new customers.
There are numerous courier companies preparing to take over in case of a strike. You can bet your bottom dollar they will throw substantial extra resources in to try and capture as much new business as possible.

Like SOB stated people / companies / organisations may use other methods rather than mail to communicate and stick with those new methods.

Royal Mail workers need to make absolutely sure they do not give any opportunities to competitors or any reason to make people using letters think of another way.
A strike is the gateway to both.

You can call this scaremongering if you wish.
This is just my opinion, but a thought out opinion with my eyes firmly wide open !

[clashcityrocker]

In the late Sixties and Seventies, there were between 40,000 and 45,000 milkmen delivering to more than 18 million British homes — around 99 per cent of households. But by 2014, only 10 per cent of homes still had their milk delivered, and that means the number of working milkmen has fallen to about 4,000.
That might look like just a lot of statistics. But the effect on everyday British life is incalculable. Nothing can replace the milkman, because he did so much more than simply bring the milk.
Britain's oldest milkman Derek Arch, from Coventry, is 88 years old and has had an extraordinary career delivering dairy in his home town
In 1984 — 30 years before milkmen had become all but an extinct species — the Earl of Kinnoull spoke up for milkmen in the House of Lords, calling them ‘unsung heroes who offer a vital service to our communities. They are inevitably cheerful, helpful people, who work very unsocial hours and are often very kind to the elderly. Along with postmen, they have a very special place in our society.’

Did anyone really care?

[Lounge Lizard]

Clash,
That's only 400 to 450 houses each day and they didn't have to sort the milk, bother with PDAs, get signatures, deliverer to neighbours or float share so maybe they were just inefficient and that's why they've gone.

[Lounge Lizard]

Clash,
That's only 400 to 450 houses each day and they didn't have to sort the milk, bother with PDAs, get signatures, deliverer to neighbours or float share so maybe they were just inefficient and that's why they've gone.

[clashcityrocker]

Supermarkets, changes in the shelf life of milk, the dissolution of the Milk Marketing Board.
The world just moved on while they stood still. A bit like butchers.

They were very green though. Returnable bottles and electric vehicles.
Yet:
Rows and rows of disused milk floats stand dying in the dairy yard
And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk bottles to their hearts

[ernieshoe]

Supermarkets, changes in the shelf life of milk, the dissolution of the Milk Marketing Board.
The world just moved on while they stood still. A bit like butchers.

They were very green though. Returnable bottles and electric vehicles.
Yet:
Rows and rows of disused milk floats stand dying in the dairy yard
And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk bottles to their hearts

"Hanging out their old love letters on the line to dry" - snapchat and facebook messages now !

[GRS]

This SOB character is either on a wind up or a senior manager/director. To be so one way without even seeing or acknowledging a different opinion takes some doing for a normal thinking person.

[LouBarlow]

Companies like Amazon may pull the plug completely on Royal Mail if the business is disrupted by industrial action. They have the capacity to deliver already and may just decide to expand it right across their operation. If that happens and Royal Mail loses that business, it will be gone and gone forever.

Amazon have dropped Royal Mail then re-negotiated contracts more times, in my years on the job, than I can recall. It is the typical management spiel dished out before impending industrial action, time and time again, which just confirms you are indeed a management plant. Your dedication to the cause must be appreciated by your taskmasters, seeing as you are a constant presence on these boards, including on a Saturday night. Get a life pal.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Are people intentionally ignoring the rules http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/community/rules.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The rules are not there to dampen your right to free speech. They are there to protect your jobs, and WE ARE monitored by management.

Think before you Post and treat EVERYONE with respect.

[jetblack]

I have a lot of parcels delivered and DPD are spot on every time - 1 hour time slots.
Hermes have also upped their game and their online tracking has improved immensely these past 12 months.

This has to be a joke, surely ? I live in a rural area I'll grant you, as do circa 20% of the UK population, but courier services are an absolute joke. Not so profitable outside the centres of population you see. I could cite many examples, albeit anecdotal, of deliveries from rival couriers locally taking not days, but weeks to arrive.
As for the Hermes online tracking, again, in the last few weeks I've tried to track a few packages via Hermes online - and it was about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.

Supermarkets, changes in the shelf life of milk, the dissolution of the Milk Marketing Board.
The world just moved on while they stood still. A bit like butchers.

You said it in the first word - supermarkets. Its the nature of capitalism. Over time the big fish swallow up the little fish.

How does the demise of milkmen relate to the postal market ?

BTW - we are the big fish in this particular pond.

[tone123]

Can anyone help me understand the situation with Whistl & UK MAIL et al? Are royal Mail legally obliged to carry their letters or is it a commercial choice?
If it's the latter then why not drop the contracts, yes you'd lose the contractual money but how could they continue to function without RM doing the final mile deliveries? They just don't have the infrastructure and could not create it in any kind of timescale that would prevent them going bust.

I don't know enough about how it works but it seems to the uninitiated that RM are effectively giving away their own business and under-cutting themselves.