Seasonal Variation: Confirmation Of Summer Low Period 2024 & The Recording of Annual Leave in PSP (RMG/CWU Business Recovery, Transformation and Growth Agreement – Appendix 1)
Branches, Representatives and members will recall LTB 165/24 (Letter To Branches) issued on 21stMay, which included a Joint Communication that advised of two further agreed changes to the application of Seasonal Variation for this year’s Summer Low Season, which is designed to better support the introduction of Network Window.
The first adjustment means that the Summer Low Season for 2024 will be advanced by a week to start on Monday 17th June and end on Sunday 1st September (11-week period).
The second adjustment to better support the introduction of Network Window means that Full Time employees will start 9 minutes later and finish 15 minutes earlier and Part Time employees will start 5 minutes earlier and finish 15 minutes earlier to ensure they align with the Full Timers.
Alongside this, Branches will recall LTB 017/24 issued on 15th January and its linked Joint Communication, which confirmed the principle that in line with the BRT&G (Business Recovery, Transformation & Growth) Agreement, annual leave booked and taken from the 2024/25 annual leave year (commencing April 2024) would be ‘seasonalised’. This means that the number of hours an individual is deducted for a day’s annual leave will vary, if taken during a period of Seasonal Variation (i.e. a reduced level of leave will be deducted in the Low Season, but a higher daily deduction of hours in the High Season).
As a result of these and other changes to the original Seasonal Variation dates, this has meant that there are a number of weeks in which the Human Resources PSP system (which records individual’s annual leave) is now not aligned with the new Seasonal Variation periods. This will impact on the following weeks:PeriodNumber of WeeksStart weekEnd WeekDescription1327/05/2416/06/24PSP will deduct less time per day’s leave than it should (24 mins Full Time; 10 mins Part Time per day)2102/09/2408/09/24As above31009/09/2417/11/24PSP will deduct more time per day’s leave than it should (24 mins Full Time; 10 mins Part Time per day)
As before, when there was an imbalance in booked and taken annual leave during the introduction of Seasonal Variation last year to that recorded in the PSP system (as communicated in LTB 017/24), Royal Mail HR Services will run an exercise retrospectively to ensure the correct annual leave deductions are recorded for all individuals who take leave during the affected weeks. This will work in two ways:
- In abovementioned Periods 1 & 2, for those employees who took annual leave, work schedules will be centrally adjusted to ensure the correct amount of leave is being deducted in PSP during leave taken in those weeks where there is mis-alignment;
- In Period 3, HR Services will adjust the leave balances for employees who took leave in these weeks retrospectively, which is planned for mid-January 2025. This adjustment will show as a distinct entry against the employees’ leave quota in PSP.
To confirm, local managers do not need to take any action in PSP, as the above outlined exercise will retrospectively ensure the correct annual leave deductions. As a result of this, no one will lose any leave balance and individuals will be able to book annual leave as normal.
Attached to this LTB, is a Royal Mail WTLL briefing which they have advised will be issued the week commencing 17th June to confirm the above arrangements and that: ‘no one will lose any leave balance, and employees will be able to book annual leave as normal. Any errors in terms of the realignment of employees’ hours will be corrected.’
Where there are local level issues or questions in terms of the application of the above, these should be raised as a matter of priority by the relevant local CWU Reps and COMs to ADR/OPL level for resolution. Any errors in terms of the realignment of employees’ hours will be corrected and Royal Mail commits to do so in line with the above plan.
Any enquiries to the content of this LTB should be directed to the Outdoor Department, email address: Pharacz@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Baulch
Assistant Secretary
LTB 212-24 – Seasonal Variation Summer Low Period 2024
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 
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