Long Term Fatigue Study – Final Report & Recommendations

Long Term Fatigue Study – Final Report & Recommendations
                                                                             
Further to LTB 293/13 Branches and CWU Representatives will be aware of the Long Term fatigue Study that has been jointly carried out over the last 3 years in a number of delivery offices. The report has now been concluded and is attached to this LTB. The report contained recommendations which have now been discussed with Royal Mail and the way forward/actions are listed below. 
Recommendation:
Further investigation of the national increase in absence due to musculoskeletal disorders should be carried out and this is already included in the health & safety wellbeing plan for 2015/16. 
Action:
This clearly requires further work and for continuity should involve Corrine Parsons and Mick Gledhill. 
Recommendation:
Breaks should be taken during the duty and not scheduled at the end. Individuals should be encouraged to take their due breaks and drink during their duty and to allow this the availability of toilet facilities on routes should be reviewed and arrangements made where there are problems.
 Action:
This is the responsibility of the Delivery Director and the Outdoor Secretary. The Delivery Programme Group (DPG) will have the responsibility to come up with a strategy to deploy this. It will also form part of the talks on the future of delivery. 
Recommendation:
More visibility of the variations between planned and actual outdoor times should be obtained and the reason for this investigated to ensure that workload and lapsing/absorption arrangements result in fair and achievable workloads for individuals.
Action:
This will become the responsibility of the Integrated Delivery Programme to identify and agree a process for dealing with this 
Recommendation:
If further extension of outdoor spans is proposed a break with access to toilet facilities on the route will be essential during the outdoor work. It appears that access to shelter as refuge from inclement weather and a place to take a break is beneficial to enhance well-being; the provision of (shared) vans has increased access to such shelter. Assessment of the physical workload for potential future duties will be necessary during design and early deployment of the individual methods and duty structures, with adaptations to methods/equipment as appropriate to enable longer spans for our people. 
Action:
This will form part of the talks on the future of delivery. 
Recommendation:
A study is recommended to review the most effective way to plan shared van routes and deliver large parcels. It should look at how many parking stops people make when using light pouches versus the planned loop stops with the use of trolleys to understand any differences in efficiency and other benefits/issues of the ways of working. 
Action:
This is outside of the remit of the Fatigue Study but does need further discussion. This will fall under the remit of the DPG and will also be factored into the future of delivery talks.  
Finally the department would like to place on record its thanks to Corrine Parsons Royal Mail and Mick Gledhill CWU ASR for their involvement in this study and their invaluable input into the final report. 
Any enquiries to Bob Gibson’s Office, quoting reference 600
Email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org
Yours sincerely
 
Bob Gibson

CWU Assistant Secretary
Email Attachments – Click to download
LTB 041/16 – Long Term Fatigue Study – Final Report & Recommendations

Attachment 1 Long Term Study of the Delivery Role