Royal Mail’s Position Regarding Year Two Productivity Targets & Revision Activity in Delivery – Resourcing Calculator
Branches and Representatives will recall LTB 299, issued on the 7th July, which reported on Royal Mail’s intention to impose ‘Year-Two’ productivity targets for both Table Top and Structural Revision units and to confirm the current position in terms of our agreement on productivity under the Pathway to Change Agreement.
Since then we have continued to receive reports into the Outdoor Department on new year-two improvement plans from Royal Mail being set out at local level. However, Royal Mail has now also changed local unit’s agreed year-one WIPWH (Weighted Items Per Work Hour) targets in the Resourcing Calculator.
The Resourcing Calculator was a jointly developed system by Royal Mail and the CWU and was designed to assist local units that underwent table-top revision activity in 2021, in terms of overall agreed productivity levels and targets based on WIPWH. It is, therefore, a matter of both disappointment and concern that Royal Mail has, (without agreement and outside of the wider commitments on productivity set out in the Pathway to Change agreement), now sought to replace agreed year-one levels within the Resourcing Calculator with completely un-agreed and unacceptable year-two targets.
Whilst the JWG on productivity recommended that unmeasured hours would be removed from the WIPWH calculation in year 2 revisions and that any improvement in WIPWH performance would count towards year 2 and 3 productivity targets, we do not agree to the way Royal Mail have removed unmeasured work hours and given new targets based on either the new measured target, or last year’s week 1 – 46 WIPWH performance rates. The unilateral change is a breach of the Pathway to Change Agreement.
Royal Mail have decided to take the unmeasured work hours from units by going back to weeks 27- 30, 2019 instead of the unit’s year 1 WIPWH performance target. Even though we disagree with Royal Mail’s decision to try and impose a unilateral change, the current evidence demonstrates that almost 40% of the 886 tabletop revisions units were always above 196 standard performance on measured work only but it was unmeasured and, in particular, collection hours, which resulted in disguising their true productivity.
We now believe that Royal Mail realise that on measured time only, that 347 units are above 196 standard performance but have changed what was originally agreed in the Pathway to Change Agreement and now want these units to maintain WIPWH above 196. This means that for 40 units, they would have to maintain WIPWH performance at above 260 WIPWH which is simply unachievable.
We are also aware that Royal Mail is further seeking to use the Resourcing Calculator in delivery units that performed structural revisions and again, replace the unit’s agreed revision Flightpath WIPWH level with an un-agreed year-two target. This is despite the fact that the National Joint Statement For The Deployment Rollout Of Resource Calculator, as set out in the ODM (Outdoor Department Memo) 04/22, issued on the 27th January states: ‘Both parties will jointly work together to test whether the resourcing calculator can be used for structural revision offices following their PIR. This is in recognition that the flightpath calculator (used to set a unit’s Adjusted WIPWH level) on structural revisions has changed the WIPWH target.’
As previously set out in LTB 299/22, attached for ease of reference, the current position remains that units that underwent table top revisions in 2021 should only apply the agreed year-one WIPWH levels as set out in previous Joint Statements and Agreements.
Equally, there is no agreement on the use of the Resourcing Calculator in delivery units that performed structural revisions, as set out in the National Joint Statement for The Deployment Rollout Of The Resource Calculator, issued in the Memo ODM 04/22, also attached.
Again, for those units which introduced structural revisions, there is no agreement in place to change a unit’s revision Flightpath WIPWH target.
Whilst we have already written to Royal Mail nationally on these wider points over the past few weeks and have made it clear that we expect our National agreements to be jointly honoured and that these issues are part of the wider Current National Dispute Resolution Procedure. Branches and Representatives are advised to progress any savings or revision proposals that are not in line and consistent with our National Agreements through the IR Framework and the dispute resolution process.
From a National CWU perspective and to be absolutely clear we have not agreed to any Revision proposals or programme of revisions activity, either through a structural or table top approach. Neither have we agreed on any year-two revised WIPWH productivity levels.
Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Department reference 555, email address: njones@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Baulch
CWU Assistant Secretary
LTB 323-22 – Year Two Productivity Targets & Revision Activity 28.07.22
Joint Statement National Deployment Of The Resource Calculator
LTB 299-22 – Two Year Productivity Targets – 07.07.22_
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 
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