An opportunity to grow

Attending to our quality of service was one of the key topics discussed when Jon Millidge hosted a Town Hall event at Crow Lane Delivery Office in Northampton.

Around 150 colleagues attended the session, which also focused on growing parcel volumes, economic uncertainty, and the need to improve our productivity. You can find out more about how colleagues felt the session went by playing the video above.

‘We’re facing some challenging times,’ said Jon. ‘The share price has drifted lower and although parcels volumes are doing well, since our peak in 2004, nearly half of our letters volumes have gone.

‘As we all know, parcels are growing, which obviously gives colleagues on delivery a heavier workload. We can only handle small and medium-sized parcels manually, with very little automation on the few parcel sort machines we have, such as in Swindon and down the road at South Midlands Mail Centre.

‘There is an increase in costs, while profits in the UK are continuing to decline. There is also a fundamental change in society with fewer people using mail and a wider change in the UK economy. Retailers are suffering a bad time at the moment, such as the example we saw earlier this week with Debenhams going into administration.

‘Parcel volumes are an opportunity for us to grow. Our quality of service over the last year hasn’t been good across the business and that’s true here in Northampton, too. We have to get it right. Our fundamental day to day quality just isn’t good enough. We only get growth through quality.

‘We’re not the cheapest, but what we do better than Hermes and Yodel etc, is we offer better quality. Everyone needs to deliver that quality. If we don’t, then we won’t win those volumes. The big growth opportunity is parcels but that can only happen if our quality is right. Let’s get that focus on productivity and quality.’

Jon ended the session by telling Crow Lane colleagues: ‘Thank you for all you do for the business. We wouldn’t have one without our postmen and women.’