A self-employed man who has worked for many years as a courier for Evri from its Gloucester delivery depot on Eastern Avenue has spoken to Punchline-Gloucester.com about the reality of work with the delivery giant – where a small packet can earn just 50p per delivery.
John – not his real name – approached Punchline to share his dismay at "penny-scraping" practices within Evri's operations, which he claimed leave Gloucester workers feeling stressed, trapped and undervalued while customer deliveries are put at risk.
In its latest full year of accounts to February 29, 2024, Evri, which is owned by Apollo Private Equity, recorded a revenue of £1.7bn and a record-breaking profit of £117m, the latter being was more than double of the previous year. As of July last year, the company had a workforce of around 28,000.
Backstory: John's day-to-day experiences amount to a litany of workplace woes.
But workplace morale is a contentious issue for Evri: last month, Liam Byrne, who is chairman of the business and trade committee of MPs, said he had been "inundated with feedback" from whistleblower workers who listed inaccurate payment, unachievable targets, wage cuts, bullying and intimidation in their day-to-day experience. The committee is in the final stages of its Making Work Pay report for the forthcoming Employment Rights Bill, which plans to address issues in the so-called 'gig economy'.
Having heard claims that Evri uses a "slave-driver contract", the committee's enquiries will already know that poor rates of take-home pay across the courier sector are a given.
Evri began in 1974 as Hermes but, having commenced a rebrand in January 2021, feedback on employment agency sites lays bare the pitfalls of work with the company. As one former Evri worker wrote on indeed.com: "The job was okay, but the pay was devastatingly bad. 67p per parcel. You had days where you had 40 deliveries, 50, 60 and a good day would be 80-100. You do the maths. I worked six days straight and made £270 for the week. I made the same amount at another delivery company in two days. If you are paying rent, I suggest you don't work here."
But Punchline's interview with John, a courier working from Evri's Gloucester main depot on Eastern Avenue, points to an employment culture which systematically undervalues its front line – and ultimately relies upon 'coercion' to deliver results.
Items being triaged at the Gloucester depot.
John told Punchline-Gloucester.com: "Over the years that I have worked for the company, when you describe how things now are, people say 'why put up with it then?', but the truth is that this is like the story of the frog in the bucket of water that's slowly heating up. Evri tend to do something - any detail that they change in your working day – to Evri's own benefit and to the detriment of the courier.
"It's gradual, little changes, in little drips, each year, and the couriers can get up in arms, but there is nothing they can do except just carry on."
Except, of course, not all do. Added to the stresses of his daily job, John said the revolving door in Evri's staff rota directly impacts a sense of teamwork, any energy for progress being drained amid a pattern of new faces steadily replacing those who have only just arrived.
"For example, we had 12 new starters on Tuesday to replace the 10 who left from the previous fortnight - that original intake worked the week, got their payslip and then thought 'Hang on, I'm not doing it for that'."
New workers are lured, he said, by the promise of a welcome bonus – as publicised through the government's own Find a Job pages, which suggest Evri can hand a bonus of up to £2,000 to eligible newcomers.
"Yet the truth of that," John said, "is that neither I, nor any others I know at Evri, have ever known anyone meet the criteria they apply for any welcome bonus – the qualifying circumstances for a welcome bonus are so high it's impossible to be eligible, even as an experienced courier."
An early morning scene from the depot in Gloucester. Workers claim that parking is inadequate to cope with couriers converging on the site.
For those couriers who remain and build experience, thereby becoming more efficient, he said an early shock awaits them.
"If you show you can cope with more volume of parcels, management will look at your data and pull you aside to say you are now earning TOO MUCH, so you must take a pay cut.
"Their criteria doesn't factor in that when a courier is delivering more they are out there for longer, often in the wet, in storms. They just say, 'Well, you can't earn that much money, so you have to cut your rate by 5p per parcel'."
With hourly pay rates calculated on the basis of completed delivery transactions and size of parcels, each shift begins with couriers converging at the Gloucester depot, often en masse. This can mean up to 60 cars and vans jostling for position, so they can quickly collect and exit the depot – with a parking bunfight for only eight courier vehicle spaces on site.
John said: "Your performance, everything you do, is known for the second you leave your door at home, from when you begin your day, through algorithms to ensure they are maximising your time. But no one receives a penny in pay until they have made a delivery. From the Gloucester depot pickup, you might go to Newent, which can take 45 minutes, before you start being able to earn any money."
Start times also vary, he said: "If we are told the lorry bringing the parcels is late, then we must hang back. The depot leaving times are getting later and later because Evri are not sending through so may overnight lorries. To save money, when they might have had six lorries bringing items overnight they might now have just two - they wait until any lorry is full to the brim before sending it, so the depot has to absorb and process larger delivery amounts at one time."
Another salami slice to John's income surrounds changes to the definitions of parcel size, and their consequent rate of payment. A packet, he explained, used to be an item up to 1.4kg, with anything above that weight being a parcel, which naturally earns a higher item delivery rate, all specific pay rates being individually determined and factored by proximity to the depot. But that threshold weight was recently raised to 2.1kg – with anything below that called a small packet.
"For me, a small packet pays 50p per item, so on my last shift, out of my delivery total more than half were now classed as packets."
Parcels being readied for loading.
The arithmetic suggests the resulting pay can be devastating, John said, adding: "And if you try to offset the lower rate by working as quickly as possible, they say you're earning too much... and cut your rates again."
All of these factors combine, John added, to create a working environment where couriers feel bamboozled by the system – and stressed by a sense of ever-increasing pressure, all for a dwindling financial outcome.
"Everything they try to do is about scraping pennies off couriers, because when there are 20,000 of them out there, so every penny adds up to a fair amount of money.
"I would not say it is amounts to a culture of bullying, but it is coercion. A managers' job is not to help the couriers, it's simply to recruit more couriers and get the parcels out the door every day. That's their job description."
Consequently, in cases where a courier, for any reason, may have been unable to deliver a parcel, he said "they will threaten to withdraw your work or take the round off you".
Sometimes the problem may be simple, such as a large box which you can't fit in your car with other parcels on board – and for which you have not have the time to make a return trip.
"So you say it'll have to wait until tomorrow. They will say, 'Oh, you don't want to lose your round, do you?'."
John also remains unconvinced at the recent announcement of what was heralded as a milestone pay deal for Evri workers, negotiated by the GMB Union, for SE+ drivers (defined as those drivers who are the union's members).
From January 25 this year, Evri announced a new level of provision for sick pay, having created a pension contribution scheme three years previously.
But calls for better working practices to ensure couriers are paid more, he said, were resisted: "Evri offered a lump sum of up to £950 but no pay increase, and the union just said okay."
As things are, the existing pay arrangements for Evri couriers are protected and will remain in place until the end of May, after which a new round of pay negotiations begins.
John added: "The GMB don't want to get involved too much because they can't disrupt Evri's business model; the GMB subscriptions encourages us to keep our membership but all we are getting is our existing pay rates protected, not an increase. They don't listen to what their members want – we did not want a lump sum of money before Christmas, we wanted a pay increase per item, but Evri won't accept that, they have just said here's a lump sum of money."
The next round of pay negotiations start in June and, until then, Evri cannot reduce pay rates but John said the much-publicised improvement to the working deal is hollow: "Evri couriers now have holiday pay and pension, but in order to have holiday pay our rates have been reduced by between 11% and 13%, so that money they save is then put aside for when I want time off – so all it means that I have paid for my own holiday, it is pre self-paid!"
Inundated with feedback from frontline Evri workers: MP Liam Byrne.
He added: "The headlines were all of 'groundbreaking news' that the GMB has achieved holiday pay for couriers, but we're paying for it for ourselves. Similarly, the pension scheme is a workplace pension scheme which by law Evri have to provide, but again when Evri pay out their contribution to us at 3% that is offset against their corporate tax, so the only benefit is that it reduces Evri's own tax bill."
He added: "Sadly these fact doesn't make headline news. I really love this job, no matter what the storms and bad weather, every courier will tell you that as soon as they leave the premises and the day is their own, they love it, but for those who are starting, when they see the difference between what they are promised and what they get, they don't stay."
Amid MPs' enquiries, Evri has robustly defended itself against accusations of alleged workplace failings. Hugo Martin, the company's director of legal and public affairs, told MPs last month that his own inbox simply did not reflect the nature of complaints raised before the committee.
Mr Martin said: "Our couriers will have frustrations around services that they provide ... we don't always get it right."
Offers such as this, posted on the government's Find a Job pages, simply do not bear out in reality, Punchline's whistleblower said.
The Business and Trade Committee has meanwhile said it will publish updates on its findings here, where you can also track progress of the government's Employment Rights Bill.
In response to this report, a spokesperson for Evri said: "We're committed to ensuring that Evri is a great business to work for. That is why we've been proud to lead the industry in offering self-employed workers greater protection and benefits since 2019, whilst maintaining a flexible working model.
"All our couriers earn above the national minimum wage with earnings, on average, 30% higher. Our Self-employed + courier model remains the UK's only union GMB-backed courier initiative which provides pensions and, holiday and sick pay.
"We regularly audit our practices and couriers have numerous ways to raise any concerns which will always be fully investigated. We would like to support John directly to address his concerns."
For the sake of editorial independence and the protection of sources, Punchline has declined this invitation from Evri.
However, we are happy to include the following clarifications raised by Evri in the wake of this report:
"Our "self-employed plus" model introduced benefits that led the way for others, with the GMB Union saying: "Other employers should take notice, this is how it's done."
"Under this new model, we were the first parcel company to introduce benefits including holiday pay, the right to guaranteed pay, auto-enrolment into a pension, and the right to maternity and paternity leave as well as insurance-backed sick pay.
"Current courier pay rates are on average £17 per hour outside peak and £20-21 during peak.
"Couriers are paid per parcel based on volume of parcels in an area and geography of the area. Couriers who cover different rounds will have different rates depending on area but will always be advised of the rate.
"We measure time worked from first receipt scan to last parcel delivered to determine hourly rate of pay in line with NLW guidelines.
"Couriers can raise concerns through various channels including through our union, with their local team, via our courier app or helpdesk or by ringing our whistleblowing hotline.
"We have new starter payments of £1,000 for busier times, which acknowledges delivery time may be slower as the courier learns the ropes."
● Punchline-Gloucester.com says: "Many of the concerns raised by John resonate strongly with the statements we have been hearing in Westminster's approach to its Employment Rights Bill, which was introduced to the House of Commons last autumn and now awaits report stage. The new law aims to improved conditions for gig economy workers, ensure work patterns are more predictable and bolster workers' rights in terms of their ability to request more predictable work patterns. We really hope the government is listening, because people like John are the crucial cogs who ensure the wheels of our economy keep turning. We ignore these experiences at our peril. To get the best from our workers, we need to work with them. Many fantastic employers across the county treat their staff with support and encouragement; John's picture suggests Evri is failing at every opportunity."