The head of Royal Mail told Parliament that his company has used technology to track the speed of postal workers, including for how long they stood still.
(Bloomberg) — The head of Royal Mail told Parliament that his company has used technology to track the speed of postal workers, including for how long they stood still.
Appearing before the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committee Wednesday, Chief Executive Officer Simon Thompson said the exercise was to avoid cases of work overload and not to monitor performance or output.
Thompson and other senior executives were summoned again and asked to speak under oath after the panel said it wasn’t convinced that their responses in January were accurate.
“None of the data we use today can be used in performance management,” Thompson said. He added that by measuring how long people take on their postal routes, working imbalances can be corrected.
However, the committee questioned why data on how long people stood stationary was being collected if not for performance reviews.
Royal Mail has suffered months of strikes from members of the Communication Workers Union, which wants higher pay and accuses the company of planning widespread job cuts and changes to working practices. Royal Mail argues that it must reform to compete in the post-pandemic delivery market.
Letters and Parcels
Executives were also questioned on evidence that managers were asking workers to prioritize parcels over letters, a breach of their universal service obligation.
Posters showing postal workers being compared with each other and warned of repercussions based on their performance were presented in the committee. Thompson along with other senior officials of Royal Mail insisted these were from “rogue managers.”
Thompson did not deny that there was “systematic failure” in honoring their universal service obligation. He blamed rogue managers for the evidence presented as well as contingency plans due to the pandemic and industrial action which meant parcels had to be cleared from the network to prevent it grinding to a halt.
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