Member Info for OliGarch

Another cost for the business will be VR payments for the 2000 managers who will be losing their posts very soon. I appreciate that the long term savings will be circa £130m per annum but the initial outlay could be anywhere between £130m and £260m depending upon the VR packages on offer. As I understand it, an operational manager would be in line for up to two years salary and non operational managers get up to one year. If the redundancies are made before the end of the financial year then this will show up on this year's accounts.

JB, it's great to hear that someone is upbeat regarding parcel volumes. Unfortunately when I look at our parcel operation (which is 100% manually sorted in my office) all I see are unnecessary overheads. We have hired a temporary marquee for Christmas pressure at a reported cost of circa £150k which I appreciate is small fry in the grand scheme of things but when you are looking at an operation that spends approximately 20% of the time setting up their work area and a further 30% portering furniture then it doesn't take a genius to work out where the losses are coming from.
Add a lot of Christmas casual workers to the mix and I can see the regular staff walking off site due to lack of social distancing (as approximately 50% of the late shift did yesterday afternoon when it got too crowded).

Ispy, only one post so it could be an account that was created to cause trouble? Initially I thought that walkthelastmile might be an employee but I'm not sure now.
So a UK lockdown until the beginning of December at the earliest. I am waiting for a deluge of parcels especially as a large proportion of the country will be sitting at home with their furlough pay, looking at the internet and ordering for Christmas. RM will almost certainly bring the Christmas casuals in earlier this year but is there enough office space to work safely indoors? No doubt that the non employee investors will be rubbing their hands together at the high volumes but that's going to be negated by higher staff, PPE and outbuilding rental costs.
With the low percentage volumes of parcels automation I wouldn't be surprised if RM post even more losses early next year.

Walkthelastmile, apologies for shooting your post out of the water but Terry Pullinger stated as far back as March 2020 that the CWU would not support or call for industrial action during the pandemic. Regarding working conditions both employers and employees are obligated to abide by the Health and Safety at Work Act and the Industrial Relations framework. If you are facing issues in the workplace then speak to your CWU rep.
Of course none of the above has any bearing on the share price. Perhaps you should raise any IR concerns on RM Chat?

Sub £2???? Au contraire? Surely some mistake?
MrNation assures us all that it will break £6.32 in 2021!

Thanks JB. It did seem to be quite large and quite hasty.

postman24, I have been mulling over the practicality of a 5 day letter delivery (Monday to Friday) overlaid with a 7 day parcel service. I believe that this would actually provide more permanent delivery jobs as opposed to the possibility of 20,000 job losses. It would also increase opportunities and possibilities for work variation and overtime. The more senior staff might be happy with a weekday walk and the weekends off whilst the youngsters might prefer to mix and match with overtime potential. Just a thought?

28-Oct-20 16:35:11 235.60 1,567,653 Sell* 4m UT

MrNation,
RE: Shorts down Sun 18:00
"This share is a very easy bagger from here"

In which case I hope that you are now ball$ deep in RM shares.....lol

Oh joy! So RM usually hire 20,000 Christmas casual workers but are now hiring an extra 13,000 this year to cope with the online demand. Whilst the extra business is always good I'm dreading the lack of social distancing in mail centres this year as we are usually crammed in like sardines during Christmas pressure so it's going to be quite difficult unless the business are hiring more outbuilding capacity which is going to drive profitability down.

stodgy88, regarding talks between RM and the CWU, my territorial rep has said that dialogue is slow. The business has proposed a three year deal but the CWU have asked for a one year deal. I also understand that the CWU have been offered a lot less than the 2.7% offered to the CMA. Obviously the business knows that the CWU are not going to call for IA so they currently have the upper hand.
I see trouble ahead but as I posted earlier, this SP seems to thrive on bad news.

stodgy88, I also understand that RM are still on course to post "a material loss of around £500m" and such is the perverse logic of this SP that I expect that MrNation will get his predicted £6.32 per share in 2021.

HHIAN2, perhaps your cleaners were diverted to Cardiff? Lol....
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-cases-royal-mail-cardiff-19097975

How far north are you going? York, Carlisle?

beatrootjuice, I wasn't referring to the their customer service or obligations.
I was referring to how much better the condition of Amazon's fleet is as well as how quickly they update their real estate when it's obvious that their older buildings are becoming unit for purpose. RM seem to be quite content with trying to patch up buildings and vehicles that need replacing rather than seizing the moment and updating.

If the business hasn't already started looking into reassessing it's fleet capability then it will need to do so as a matter of urgency. The state of many vehicles leaves a lot to be desired and our MT have already said that sending vehicles out with bumpers and wing mirrors held together with duct tape and cable ties is acceptable as are dented panels, odd back doors and missing paintwork.
It's fairly obvious that with so many parcels we will need larger vehicles or more of the smaller vans with just one driver to a van.
Regarding parcels automation, the business has know that parcel volumes have been on the rise for well over a decade but been very slow to react. Moya Green had the chance to get the ball rolling before privatisation but failed. Most of the smaller mail centres are no longer fit for purpose and require major investment or replacement.
It's interesting to note that Amazon are quite prepared to move quickly when the need arises.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Klein
Klein's words are often summarized as "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win", and misattributed to Mahatma Gandhi and to Arthur Schopenhauer as "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident".

MrNation, if we're quoting Klein then "The best thing is to look natural, but it takes makeup to look natural". lol

I have just been looking at the Ts&C's regarding parcel collection
3.6 You are only permitted to book a maximum of five (5) Items to be collected per one Working Day and per Collection Point.
Also,
3.10 If we fail to collect the Item at the intended time for collection or if you cancel the Handover by providing 24 hours notice of cancellation, then you will be entitled to a refund. In addition, you will be able to rebook a failed collection for free.
I wonder if there is a maximum limit for the number of items that each walk is able to collect? If this proves to be popular we could see the old Doblo bulked out before we are ten minutes into the walk?

MrNation also posted
"MrNation Posts: 6,797

Price: 243.80

No Opinion

RE: Shorts down further Sat 12:53
I think what this comes down to is can RMG find a way to turn increasing parcel volumes in to a significant profit."

As an employee you will be fully aware that the RM parcels automation capacity is still fairly limited and will not be sufficient until at least the summer of 2022 by which time this pandemic will hopefully be all but a distant memory in which case parcel volumes will have dropped back to normality.