Colleagues & Communities

We published our 2019-20 Corporate Responsibility (CR) report last week. The report covers our people and our contribution to local communities. 

Our people play an important role in achieving our strategic priorities. We rely on them to deliver high quality customer service, to fulfil the Universal Service, and to represent Royal Mail among our customers and communities. Engaging our people within a fair, rewarding and customer-focused culture is essential for our success.

Did you know?

• Royal Mail have now been named a Times Top 50 Employer for Women for seven consecutive years.
• Royal Mail is an inaugural signatory of the Business in the Community (BITC) Race at Work Charter.
• 430 colleagues across the business have now taken on the role of Health and Wellbeing Ambassador, promoting mental and physical health and offering peer to peer support.
• We delivered over 1,800 ambassador programme briefings to around 67,000 colleagues.
• Royal Mail makes the 7th largest contribution of any UK company to the UK economy.
• The money raised for our charity partner, Action to Children, to date has funded the delivery of the Blues Programme to 5,200 children – a nationwide programme of mental health support for young people in schools across the UK.
• We worked with Action for Children and The Prince’s Trust to launch a special toolkit – ‘Can’t Talk, Write’ to support young people through lockdown. Since its launch, the toolkit has been downloaded over 2,400 times.

Our performance 2018-19

• Our employee engagement score increased by one point to 61.
• We recorded a 22 per cent decrease in Lost Time Accident (LTA) Frequency Rate, in comparison to 2018-19. 
• 19 per cent of our overall workforce, and 32 per cent of our senior managers are women.
• We raised around £530,000 for Action for Children. More than £1.8 million has been raised since our partnership began in 2017.
• Royal Mail contributed around £5.7 million to charities and good causes this year, with colleagues raising a further £2.8 million.

Keeping communities connected

In March 2020, the UK was largely placed into lockdown in an effort to contain the Covid-19 outbreak. Royal Mail played a hugely important part during this time, keeping our communities connected. Our postmen and women went above and beyond, not only to provide our essential service, but to offer help where they could.

Despite the additional pressures, our people continued to support their local communities. From donning fancy dress costumes to cheer up their customers, to checking in on those most isolated, our colleagues used their role as key workers to lift spirits and keep delivering.

In April, we launched a national campaign – ‘Thumbs up for your Postie’ enabling the public to acknowledge and thank postmen and women by greeting them with a simple thumbs up.

Keith Williams, interim executive chair, said: ‘Our UK postmen and women are playing a crucial role in mitigating the impact of the pandemic. They are key workers on the frontline.

‘Our GLS colleagues have also gone the extra mile in the many countries in which they operate to support their customers and communities. Simply put, the efforts of our people across the Group are humbling. On behalf of the Board, I want to say thank you to each and every one of them.’

Find out more about our CR report here.