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"Massively overstaffed"? Whatever gave you that idea?
How many people do you think it takes to transport and deliver 10 billion items of mail a year to 29 million houses?
Our office hasn't had any new starters for months now. In that time about 25 people have left. Everyday we fail to deliver tens of thousands of items of mail. And that's just for one town. The story is the same in deliveries all over the country.
Remember, it's the company that, many years ago now, chose to reduce the hours for new starters to 25 a week (or 30 in a few offices). Including meal breaks that's 22 and a half working hours a week. You can't get much done in that time, especially when, due to the staff shortage, your round isn't prepped when you walk in like it should be so that's another 90 minutes of delivery time a day gone.
In the past a lot of us would do overtime to get the rounds finished. Then RM stopped the overtime. We're failing by so much that the overtime is back again, problem is many people who used to do it don't bother now. For example, in my postcode section last Wednesday I was the only postie who booked overtime for delivering beyond my finishing time. Everyone else just brought everything they couldn't deliver back.
And we can't rely on agency staff anymore. Their numbers have been cut drastically during the week and, on Sundays, their guaranteed pay has been cut by so much that they don't bother coming in anymore. We need about ten agency staff to do our Sunday parcels. Last Sunday two turned up.
We're most certainly not massively overstaffed!
I'm on my old round tomorrow and Wednesday. It was an hour over the top before the latest revision and it's had about 100 houses added to it since then. Plus it didn't go out on Saturday so I'm gonna be rolling in the overtime this week.
Loving it!
"Revenue is increasing, so is profit."
Who's kidding themselves? Revenue is increasing, profit isn't. It's not a good sign when revenue goes up by 4.4% but profit goes down by 4.5% (last years figures) and they're expecting revenue up and profit down again.
Seven years ago is irrelevant in the stock market.
GLS profits aren't going up. Net profit in 2021 was £252 million. In 2022 it was £242 million, for the first nine months this year margin was down 1%. predicted 'adjusted' operating profit of £336 million this year vs an adjusted total of £342 million last year and £358 million the year before so we're looking at another decline.
One of the big analysts downgraded GLS in November from 390p a share to 330p.
Regarding Royal Mail, we're maybe 10,000 staff down. At £100 a day each that's a million a day saved. We may already be back in profit. The mail isn't getting delivered but we're making money not doing it!
Loving the 20% profit sharing. Don't expect the instituional investors will be happy their dividend has probably gone for the next three years.
Not bothered about later start times. In fact I enquired about being one of the later parcel drivers if they bought that into our place.
Pay rise not backdated - terrible. £500 lump sum softens the blow for that though.
6% this year. Happy enough with that.
2% next year - terrible.
Will it get voted through? I'm off work this week so don't know the mood of my colleagues but I think a silent majority will say yes just to get things over and done with but there will be a sizeable 'no' vote.
Hounddog. I've seen a few articles on that site. The author is illiterate and factually incorrect on so many things that it's best ignored or laughed off. I think they read things off Wikipedia and accept them as fact.
In the past they've used Post Office pictures when talking about Royal Mail. I know a lot of the public confuse the two but serious investors should really know the difference.
Royal Mail doesn't have "over 162,000" employees. That's IDS as a whole, which the author isn't talking about. The author has mentioned this 162,000 figure just for RM repeatedly. I don't think they realise the Wikipedia page is incorrect in that regard. RM had 140,035 employees on March 31st 2022. That's probably about 10,000 lower now. And of course a lot of them are part time so comparing the numbers with other postal operators is pointless.
Anger - "Still in denial about letters and a complete unwillingness to change practices that were put in place in the 1970’s."
We see how many letters come in a day. You only see what you receive. I get hardly any letters these days. I don't even have my pay slip sent by post anymore as I use the app.
I haven't had mail for nine days. I don't know if this is because I haven't had mail or if it's sitting at my local DO undelivered (I work in a different office to where I live so can't check), but I see how much stuff still comes through. Some people still get half a dozen or more items a day, every day, especially in 'rural' areas. New build estates - hardly any letters but packets ae ovewrhelming. It's really quite strange if you're on a delivery that spans both new and old how the mail profile changes so much between roads.
Regarding working practices. I started in 1994 and we've changed massively. I don't think there's anything left from those days, until the latest change of Dedicated Parcel Routes which is from the 90s at least and probably decades before then. It's RM who are bringing in these old working practices, we're just going along for the ride.
Darkesh - no comment on the management.
The 300 a day isn't just from the bulk drivers, that's from everyone. On light days it's a lot lower. The DPRs have just started and I don't know how many they're bringing back. I perhaps shouldn't have suggested it'll lead to 30 parcels a day for them to deliver. We get around 4,000 tracked items a day to deliver, probably the same again in non-tracked parcels. I haven't a clue how many tens of thousands of letters.
Newdealz - "Any delivery model works IF you keep in touch with customer, this is where i can see RM make major improvements, after any failed first delivery attempt they should communicate that to customer not via card by either email or text message."
The major problem with that is we don't have people's text numbers or email addresses, and neither should we. GDPR etc.
We actually do better than what you suggest by advising people before the first delivery for Tracked items.
On the day of delivery the item gets scanned and the receiving person gets a message saying it'll be delivered at (estimated time window) and if you're not going to be in then you can say where we should deliver it to. I'd guess between 1% and 2% of people actually do this as it comes up on our PDAs if they've requested a safe place, alternative delivery point or even alternative day.
That message may appear to be from Royal Mail but it's actually the sender that has the email / text number. I don't know how the technology works fully, but it does.#
I'm not sure what the rules are on redelivery to Post Offices now. It used to be the case that the PO would charge you 50p for that service. I know we get tracked items that have the Post Office as the delivery address. I assume they're free. Local Collect it's called if you wish to look it up and use it.
Darkesh - we get up to 300 parcels bought back a day in our office, but it is quite a big DO. We have ten DPR drivers so that'll be 30 a day each to redeliver, all to save having to have one person man the Caller's Office for six hours a day (two hours on Monday). Just doesn't stack up in my opinion. Yes you can try neighbours til you're blue in the face and you can doorstep, either officially or unofficially, and you can sign for things yourself but, if the job's done properly, try a house, maybe one neighbour, leave a P739 move on is the most efficient way of working in my opinion.
It would help if the public made the job easier by actually using the inflight request system or having parcel boxes but very few do. Doesn't seem to bother the likes of Amazon, Yodel, DPD, EVRI etc but we, at least used to be, a cut above them by not leaving stuff lying around to get soaked or stolen. RM won't say it officially but that's how they want us to work these days.
I know when you have someone on a fixed route they get to know where to leave things at each house but, another inefficiency, I'm doing parcels in different areas every day. It's gonna take a long time to learn all 40,000 houses preferences!
But hey, if it does work overall nationally I benefit as both an employee and a shareholder. I just think things could be done better based on what happens at my office (as an aside we still have poll cards undelivered as some areas haven't had a letter delivery for three weeks but, according to some on here, they don't matter).
Boark - I was replying to an incorrect opinion that the CWU / Royal Mail were sponging off the tax payer.
As for the future - it looks exactly like the past. We now have Dedicated Parcel Routes in place, just like we did until the changes a dozen or so years ago when bikes were replaced with vans. It's not an exciting new change, it's a realisation that the old ways maybe were better. The only difference now is that instead of going around on a £50 bike, letter posties have £30,000 electric vans. That's Royal Mail efficiency for you!
In May Royal Mail are changing the way parcels are delivered and copying Yodel's way of working by automatically redelivering anything that couldn't be delivered the following day. Anyone's who's suffered from a Yodel delivery knows that's not very efficient either. If someone's not in at 11am on a Monday there's a high chance they won't be in at 11am on a Tuesday but RM have decided to try anyway. Yodel have managed to make a profit in one year of their entire history thanks to the pandemic so copying them isn't a bright move in my opinion but hey ho.
JohnNth - "CWU wanted to stay in govt hands..end of and sponge off taxpayer year in year out"
That isn't the case at all. The government has never put a penny into Royal Mail, and I mean going back hundreds of years. It started off as a franchise if you count 1635 as the year Royal Mail started properly.
In fact, the opposite is true. The government sponged off The Post Office / Royal Mail to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds in some years between 1977 and 2003 via what was called the EFL. The most paid to the government in a single year was in 1997-98 when they took £313 million in EFL in addition to Corporation Tax and all the other things like vehicle tax, fuel duty etc. which RM have always had to pay.
Quote from https://www.postalmuseum.org/collections/statistics/
"Higher taxes were simply a function of the significantly higher net profits achieved in the 1990s, but greatly increased cash demands from the Treasury (‘negative External Financing Limits’) represented a government decision to take advantage of the Post Office’s heightened earning power. Over this entire period, the Government was paid £2.4bn in negative EFLs, effectively a proxy for dividend payments, in addition to £1.4bn in corporation tax. The EFL regime was dropped after 1999 with the Post Office’s transition to plc status."
The numbers can be seen here - https://www.postalmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/13_Returns_to_the_Exchequer_from_the_Post_Office_Corporation_1976_2001.pdf
It cracks me up how everyone on this board bangs on about the CWU. They're irrelevant and have been for 20+ years. For the first three years at my current office I didn't even know who the union rep was, I know now who it is as it's changed and I was offered the chance to join the union for the first time in decades but no-one at work mentions them very often.
Anyway, from tomorrow the latest changes kick in. My round has been 'absorbed' and I'll be a parcel driver. Just like I was years ago before some bright spark decided van sharing was a good idea. Any posties remember the Starburst initiative? We scoffed at the time. Time has shown we were proved right as we're going back to how it used to be. Posties go out and deliver letters and small packets, what we used to call bulk drivers do the bigger stuff.
Suits me.
Onwards....
"The majority of people have very little mail (or useful mail) in 2023. The numbers are there for everyone to see."
Yep. 8 billion addressed items (not including elections) delivered in the last full financial year. There are about 27 million houses in the UK so that's about 300 each a year. And that doesn't included unaddressed items. Some walks get five or six a week to deliver to each house, some get one or two so, say an average of three that's abut 450 letters a year to each house plus any election mail, which doesn't just cover general elections.
Domestic parcels - 1.365 billion in the last year and what RM consider a parcel is, quite often, something that's actually a 'large letter'.
In my office Sundays are a waste of money. 10 agency staff guaranteed 8 hours pay at £18 something an hour to deliver maybe 500 Tracked parcels. (We get over 600 in on an average week but many are for businesses who aren't open on Sundays) That's over £3 per parcel they're getting paid and, even then, some of them only actually do four hours work and then go home as there aren't enough parcels to deliver. The agency staff pay was due to be cut to a guaranteed six hours at £13 something an hour from this Sunday but I hear that's now been postponed.
During the week our office gets between 3 and 4 thousand Tracked items a day so this Sunday delivery thing is overstated.
And the money from the IPO went to reduce the national debt, not to RM.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06668/
Sorry for the late reply. I've been out watching punk bands.
It was a tongue in cheek dig at the pricks on here like Maximas who knows **** all about nothing. If the UK Royal Mail reported those figures you'd be saying it's because of the workforce. Many of you think the sun shines out of GLS's **** but, as IDS have revealed, GLS is unprofitable in the US and, if they keep going down their current route, they'll be losing money in Germany and elsewhere.
Your shares, your choice but GLS is going down the pan. if you can't see that then you're not a savvy investor.
I've been looking into the GLS figures this morning.
Revenue up, profit down. It happened in FY2021/22 and it's happening again this year. Operating margin still ok at 5.5% but it was 8% this time last year.
They don't break the figures down by country but there is a paragraph on their biggest markets. Canada is doing very well since the acquisition of Rosenau Transport but the rest...
Their biggest market by revenue is Germany. Revenue up by 4.9% but, quote, "Revenue growth benefited from strong price increases implemented to mitigate inflationary pressures, including the impact from the increase in the German minimum wage. Overall operating profit declined as better pricing could not fully mitigate cost increases. "
The bit about German minimum wage is telling. It went up on 1st July to €10.45 per hour. It has since been increased by 14% from 1st October to €12 per hour. If they're employing people on minimum wage they're gonna take a big hit in the next six months. Clearly known in advance and planned for but how much is this gonna affect the whole company?
Italy - "revenue grew by 5.3%, driven by better pricing and slightly higher volumes. Operating profit decreased compared with the prior period due to an increase in operational costs which impacted margin development."
Spain - "Revenues grew by 3.1%, driven by better pricing which compensated for a marginal decline in volumes.
Operating profit was below the prior period as higher operational costs could not be fully offset through improved pricing."
France - "revenue grew by 4.1%, benefiting from better pricing which mitigated a decline in volumes"
USA - "The decline in USD terms was driven by lower volumes partly mitigated by better pricing. Final-mile and line-haul costs were impacted by inflationary pressures which resulted in an increase in operational costs and an overall loss"
I'm sure you'll all join me in encouraging the GLS leadership to cut costs, sack people if necessary, to stop this gradual erosion of profits!
Talk2Much "The science behind the numbers is sound. Here is your weighted traffic *forecast* (that's a sticking point because we're guessing at traffic declines) "
One day, during a team briefing (remember them?) the subject of declining letter volumes came up. As one postie said - "instead of having to go to every house with three letters a day I now go to every house with two letters a day". A 33% decline in letter volume doesn't mean a 33% decline in the amount of time taken to deliver them.
Yes, there's less sorting and prepping time but not enough to make a noticeable difference.
The problem is that, even in just one office, each walk can have a wildly different demographic which means a different mail profile but the revisions don't seem to take this into account. Surely they know how many mech letters and parcels each walk gets each day so why don't they use this info instead of a blanket approach that, mathematically, will mean 50% of walks will be heavier than average?
I'm sure you're aware that newer estates and developments generally get very few letters but packets and parcels are crazy, while older, more rural areas with an older, often richer population, still get magazines, catalogues, bank statements galore on a daily basis. Doing a revision based on how far you walk or drive and based on going to whatever percentage of delivery points they decide upon isn't fit for purpose.
Or are there tools that can personalise revisions based on the mail profile for each walk but they're not always used?
Anyway, my two days off now. I shall wake in the morning keen to see what happens to my share price. Whatever happens it's old news. Christmas shopping has started and it's hit us big time this week. I strongly suggest you start sending your Christmas cards now - any posted after about December 10th are quite possibly not gonna make it in time cos we don't have time to deliver letters anymore. Can't wait for the papers to start their 'chaos at Royal Mail' articles. It's tradition!
What happened at 8.30 this morning? I see the the share price was 246 at 08:32, plummeted down to 235 at 08:34 and then went back up to 246.2 at 08:48.
I don't check the price every day but I've never seen anything like this before without some major news.
Omen - "First I recall a fairly recent comment here which stated that posties were being urged to order replacement kit when it was not necessary. So a bit confusing"
That may have been my recent comments. In our office we were told, not urged, to order new uniform in bulk. This was about 18 months ago for delivery early 2022. We were told it was because RM wanted to bulk order the whole country's new uniform in one go.
I see my old colleagues from the previous office I worked in regularly. It's just 10 miles down the road but in a different postcode sector and none of them have new uniform yet. I read somewhere that the plan to roll it out UK wide in one go got cancelled. Apparently some places won't get it until 2023 now.
That being said - everyone should still be able to order replacement uniform. Whether you get the old style or the new stuff depends on what stock Dimensions have, or maybe they've run out of certain things and are waiting for new stock?