What really happened to your Christmas post

Around a third of the UK’s 1,400 delivery offices have introduced geomapping technology to redraw postal routes, which has also “caused some problems,” explains Mark Baulch, assistant secretary at the Communication Workers’ Union, which represents almost 200,000 members. Those in charge are typically in an office, hundreds of miles away from the district they are tasked with improving: online mapping tools, particularly in rural areas, can fail to accurately calculate how long it will take to get a sack of post to the top of a winding lane, for instance. That means postmen “struggle to complete” their round, which “is where we’re having some issues on quality,” Baulch admits. Post not delivered during its intended shift is then bumped onto someone else’s – potentially doubling the workload of someone already failing to fulfil demands.

Colin Garner*, who joined Royal Mail in 2018, says that the surge in parcel deliveries, sickness and organisational failures during the pandemic have left his team “completely burnt out… Staff have constantly been taking out two days’ [worth of] mail and parcels on jobs for weeks on end and it’s a lot to carry. Customers don’t realise how hard things have got.” He says he knows colleagues who have left due to the strain.

Retention is a major issue, Baulch agrees. “A lot of people don’t stay because they have a halcyon view of what a post person is – [that] you just pick up the work and walk round, and whistle.”  Dunns5 say Royal Mail is “actively trying to recruit, but it’s very difficult, because the contracts have changed, now incorporating a seven-day week, so a lot of people don’t like the terms.” One strategy has been to up the hours of existing staff. “I’ve been offered a full time contract so many times,” Weller, whose agency pays £12.54 per hour (and £18.58 on Sundays), says. Currently working 40-50 hours a week, he has “no desire to sign a contract with Royal Mail,” and plans to leave in the coming months.

George Osborne described Royal Mail’s privatisation seven years ago as “a win all round – for customers, the workforce and the taxpayer.” For shareholders, things have never looked brighter – they received a slice of a £400 million pie last year, when the company posted a £311 million pre-tax profit in the six months to September 2021. For the first two groups, though, the last few months have been more loss than victory.

Baulch knows that the current delays are “not good enough”, and hopes that omicron dwindling will “improve and restore quality of service.” But while Royal Mail says it is “providing targeted support” to offices that are struggling, bolder ideas – or at least, functional technology and a full workforce – are urgently required. “There isn’t a magic solution,” Baulch says. For the service, and the tens of thousands of customers still awaiting their post and parcels, more’s the pity.

*Details have been changed