Restoring trust at the doorstep

GET IN TOUCH

Share your feedback and stories.

CALL

0800 183 0569

EMAIL courier@linney.com

WRITE Courier, Linney Create, Adamsway, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire NG18 4FW

TEAM Rachel Brennan –Editor at Royal Mail

Damon Parkin –Editor at Linney Create

PRINTING

Acorn Web Offset Limited, Normanton WF6 1TW

MAILING

MAMS, 4 Middleton Grove, Leeds LS11 5BX

DISTRIBUTION

To notify HR of a change of address, employees should email HRSC.Personal.Data@royalmail.com or write to The HR Service Centre, Pond Street, Sheffield S98 6HR Pensioners should write to: Pensions Services Centre, PO Box 5863, HRSC, Pond Street, Sheffield S98 6AB

ADVERTISING

To advertise in the next edition of Courier, email royalmailadvertising@linney.com for details of availability, suitability and rates. Courier is delivered to c.145,000 homes four times a year.

Team – let’s be honest, this is a very difficult time. We have uncertainty everywhere, which is not good for you, your families and not good for our customers.

It’s unfortunate that this dispute has also become very personal, which means we all find it hard to discuss the real issues. We need to change to meet our customer needs, and we all know that this will mean we need to change some things we don’t want to.

We want to put money in your pockets, we want to phase in changes to allow us all to adjust to our new world, we want to give our customers certainty of service. That will mean more sales and job security for you. Without our customers supporting us, we will keep shrinking, losing money – and that puts all our jobs at risk.

Everyone is telling me their offices are not as busy as they were, and they are concerned. They are right to be so. Our financial situation is now very worrying. And yet, we’re only months away from opening our state-of-the-art super hub in the Midlands. If you get the chance to visit, you must. It’s a significant investment in your future. There’s no reason why we cannot compete and win in the market.

During the half year results I was struck by the fact that since the pandemic, our addressed letter volumes (excluding elections) were down 24%, or around 1.1 billion fewer letters to deliver. Even though we have put stamp prices up, our letter revenue is down 13%, or around £0.25 billion.

We do still love letters, but we need to accept that our customers love them less than they used to. Letters are rapidly approaching only £4 out of every £10 we make.

That said, it’s great to report that letter quality has made a major leap forward, with our quality levels now in line with our performance in January 2020. There’s more to do, but we’re on the right track.

But overall, we urgently need to get back to owning ‘trust at the doorstep’, something that’s magical and uniquely ours. The best way to do this is by having harmony everywhere. I also want to make it clear we do not want to ‘de-recognise the CWU’, this is complete nonsense.

We recently launched our new national charity partnership with British Heart Foundation. It’s fantastic to have teamed up with such an important charity and I know you’ll go all out to help us reach our £2 million target.

Thank you for everything you are doing. I know it has been tough. Blue skies will come again, and we will all be back doing what we do best. Looking after our customers like only we can.

Steps To Zero

We’ve more than 4,500 electric vehicles in our fleet and celebrated our milestone 4,000th at Blackpool and Poulton Delivery Office.

Women in the Workplace

To mark International Women’s Day, on Wednesday 8 March, this edition of Courier features just some of the thousands of inspiring female colleagues across our business.

Scan the QR codes for films from our Workplace series celebrating Royal Mail’s trailblazing female talent.

Midlands regional operations director Kate Ellis on the importance of diversity, encouraging new talent and supporting career development.

Shift manager Jennifer Byrne and line leader Myshelle Tall on how our North West Super Hub’s attracting a high percentage of female managers.

Discover more stories, be inspired and get involved by joining the RM Women and Allies group on Workplace.

Trading Update

We announced an operating loss of £295 million for the nine months to the end of December. We continue to lose £1 million a day.

USING UP STAMPS

You now have until 31 July 2023 to use up non-barcoded stamps www.royalmail.com/ barcodedstamps

We need you to Watch&Win

Our Watch&Win scheme that rewards Royal Mail and Parcelforce people for identifying and submitting business opportunities pays out on average £13,000 every month.

Our most successful spotters earn thousands of pounds through the scheme each year. Subscriptions are proving fruitful leads for some colleagues. One spotter contacted Watch&Win after identifying that Royal Mail could help a competitor struggling with capacity to meet the needs of their pet food subscriptions customer. We secured a piece of the pie and, within only two months, had delivered 5,332 items, with the customer spending almost £26,000 with us. Our spotter earned more than £500 in Rewards and is well on the way to hitting the £1,000 jackpot.

You can still win with a lead even if Royal Mail or Parcelforce do not end up taking over the whole account. Every lead has the potential to earn you £1,000 in Rewards.

GET SPOTTING Submit a lead through the People App or at royalmail.com/watchandwin or parcelforce.com/lead

Delivering on our children’s futures

Parcelforce people are gearing up to handle more than a million exam packages this summer.

After the pandemic forced a two-year break in the student exam schedule, the programme returned last year. Parcelforce securely collected, processed and delivered exam papers to schools and colleges throughout the UK.

Now, teams across the business are involved in the planning, communications and handling of 2023 exam papers – from our depots interacting with schools or education centres, to our hub and network teams processing and transporting the items and our exam helpdesk fielding school enquiries.

“I was especially proud of the 99%-plus quality of service achieved for last year’s 800,000 exam returns,” says Parcelforce customer operations manager Tom Perkins, whose team led on the planning and delivery of the programme which was praised by the Department for Education.

Parcelforce delivers exams throughout the year, but the summer despatch is by far the busiest. The first live exams for the summer series enter the network in March, with despatches and collections continuing through to the end of June. Exam board contract manager Ryan Benn says: “The programme is critical to our children’s future and many parts of the Parcelforce team are fundamental to the successful delivery of the summer exams.”

COURIER CATCH-UP

Browse previous issues at myroyalmail.com/courier or by scanning the QR code. This edition will appear online around three weeks after it’s been delivered.

USING QR CODES

Use your smart device’s camera to scan codes throughout this edition of Courier for more features and interviews.

Enhanced service captures trust

Our Capture Photos on Delivery feature is being extended to Special Delivery Guaranteed and to RM Tracked with Signature or Age Verification. And it now includes our important Age and ID verification variants. The change is great news for customers – giving them greater peace of mind on our premium services. It also helps us grow trust at the doorstep and makes these services even more competitive in the vital e-commerce market, which continues to drive parcel growth.

Milestone moment in stamp history

King Charles III has become the seventh monarch to appear on a Royal Mail definitive stamp.

Depicting the current monarch on our ‘everyday’ stamps is a tradition dating back to the reign of Queen Victoria, whose image featured on the world’s first adhesive stamp, the Penny Black, in 1840.

The new definitive is an adapted version of the portrait created by Martin Jennings for The Royal Mint for the obverse of the new UK coinage and shows King Charles facing to the left, alongside a barcode in matching colour.

“Uniquely, British stamps do not have the country of origin printed on them as the image of the monarch is sufficient,” says CEO Simon Thompson. “This is a hugely important milestone for Royal Mail and the country as we reveal the image of the King Charles Definitive.”

The new First Class definitive is the centre-piece of a new exhibition, called The King’s Stamp, at The Postal Museum (pictured). Visitors can see rare stamps from the reigns of seven monarchs, including King Edward VII’s Tyrian Plum, which was never released, and Queen Victoria’s Two Penny Blue.

Visit postalmuseum.org for details of the exhibition, which runs until 3 September.

WATCH Scan the QR code to watch a film about the King Charles Definitive stamp’s creation.