Weekend warriors

At Royal Mail, we’re incredibly proud of our USO – the Universal Service Obligation. It’s a key part of our heritage and it will continue to ensure we stand out in the increasingly crowded delivery marketplace.

It does, however, mean we have to run a 24-hour operation, seven days a week. It’s therefore essential that every colleague feels motivated and supported – no matter what hours they work.

This principle is at the heart of Tyneside Mail Centre, as weekend manager, Gary Easten explains. ‘We need our people to feel valued and supported if we are to produce great results. We try to do this both individually and collectively.’

Tyneside employs a mix of full-time, part-time and overtime colleagues on the weekends, with a compliment of 50 full-time colleagues.

Gary believes the Employee Survey is an excellent way of monitoring progress in the mail centre: ‘Engagement is fundamental and our people scores have improved engagement +4 to 77, culture +8 to 73 and customer +2 to 85.’

The mail centre has particularly focused on mental health this year, running a campaign inspired by RMtv promoting coping strategies to colleagues and highlighting where they can turn for help.

They also maintain a board, where last year’s engagement priorities are displayed and progress towards them is monitored. ‘It’s a reminder of the great work we’ve done,’ said Gary. ‘We try to capture events as and when they happen, and we’ve covered it with health information, safety coaching and information on involvement sessions where colleagues have had the opportunity to change their working environment.’