The Royal Mail has stated that absenteeism levels are nearly twice what they were before to the coronavirus outbreak in 2018.
It has stated that most of the country’s supplies are proceeding normally. However, a person familiar with the company’s operations claims that the internal situation is “worse” as a result of sickness and increasing demand in the run-up to Christmas.
According to this source: “It is a lot worse than a typical holiday season. We had arrived here as a result of a mix of persons suffering from stress or Covid, increased demand for items to be sent by post, and the run-up to Christmas “they stated
“Sickness levels are almost twice what they should be,” they continued.
Delivery difficulties
Royal Mail’s website lists offices that are experiencing difficulties, which it says means they may not be able to deliver the usual service temporarily because of local issues. The firm has pointed out that there are currently 21 offices listed as experiencing delays out of 1,200 delivery offices around the country. However, the insider source says there are wider issues.
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“The 21 offices listed on the Royal Mail website are the places were the situation is undeniably bad. They are weeks behind, but there are problems and backlogs across the country,” they said.
One worker, who wanted to remain anonymous, said that this Christmas had been the worst in the 10 years they had worked at Royal Mail.
“We are told daily to concentrate on tracked parcels meaning a lot of post is not taken on every walk. The manager doesn’t want extra staff because delivering letters is not as profitable as packets. It doesn’t matter if letters go tomorrow or next week. The parcels are tracked and you get money back.”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “Every item of mail is important to us. Where offices are experiencing local challenges, such as higher than usual absence levels, we have asked teams to rotate deliveries to minimise delays for individual customers.
“We have also reminded colleagues that the delivery, collection and processing of letters and parcels should be treated with equal importance.”
‘Very difficult’
Royal Mail announced earlier in the year that it would keep on thousands of workers it had taken on in temporary positions given the record volumes of post it was delivering. However, in an open letter published by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) on Friday, it said that times were still “very difficult” for workers.
Terry Pullinger, deputy general secretary of postal at the CWU, wrote: “Trying to maintain a great public service throughout the pandemic has been incredibly difficult for everybody, especially whilst deploying major changes and considering the great annual challenge of the Christmas period pressure.’
But the CWU suggested that the blame lies with “managerial capability issues”, saying that “postal workers and the public deserve better”. The open letter also discusses ways to improve issues with recruitment – by using family and friend referrals, as well as advertising on social media, for example.