We Are Royal Mail

Gary Richards is the night manager at Cardiff mail centre and is currently acting as temporary plant improvement manager – responsible for supporting the overall performance of the plant.

He first joined Royal Mail 41 years ago and has since taken on a number of roles, from dealing with pensions at a post office counter in Newport to managing Swansea mail centre.

His current responsibilities at Cardiff mail centre include analysing escalation boards which monitor quality, productivity, machine performance and our people. He is responsible for identifying issues in the pipeline process.

‘You need knowledge of everything that goes on,’ said Gary. ‘The problem could be anywhere in the pipeline. The initial bit is dissecting the information, then getting the team involved.

‘You need to be good at data analysis, understanding what the numbers are telling you – and a lot of that comes from experience.’

Gary believes teamwork is very important at Cardiff mail centre because ‘everyone does a bit of everything on every shift’.

In his spare time Gary enjoys volunteering for charity, and last year he completed a zip-wire challenge to raise funds to fight prostate cancer. Gary and his wife were at one time one of only two married couples in Wales to have donated bone marrow.

Gary is proud to have worked at Royal Mail since 1977 and cites his centre’s excellent performance for this. ‘We are now a relatively small mail centre and the volumes are huge,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in the business 41 years and it impresses me every day. It’s a well-oiled national machine.’

Gary is part of We Are Royal Mail, our campaign to showcase the different people and roles that make up our unique operation. See more profiles here.