A credit to the community

'I moved to Oban in mid-July,' says COM Louisa MacDonald.

'It's a good unit, but they needed recognition. They had been doing really well, but they just didn't really know how well they were doing.'

During Louisa's first peak period at the unit, the 43-strong team hit the tracked target every day in the run up to Christmas and cleared the office nearly every day.

They also hit the targets for customer complaint performance. The net promoter score performance continues to improve, whilst Collection Management Database (CMD) performance saw a massive improvement during peak with every box cleared.

Louisa, who moved to Oban from the Highlands of Scotland after completing the RM graduate programme, says a strong sense of community and camaraderie are the secrets of her team's success.

She also credits daily Team talk:take 5 sessions, at which she highlights the net promoter score and any important updates, as being a vital way of keeping colleagues informed and aware of how they and the wider business are doing.

She also shares as much information visually as she can, and during peak created a display showing the net promoter scores and an additional one to keep the posties informed of their Christmas incentive performance.

'We have a huge patch to cover with four islands to cover,' says Louisa.

'We are two and a half hours from Glasgow Mail Centre. We have one postie who jumps on a ferry with a bag on his back and it takes him two minutes to get across. One postie delivers the mail to Kerrera on a quad bike. And there is one island – Lismore - we cover, that is a 50-minute ferry ride from Oban.

'The weather can be an issue. This winter it has snowed once and we have also had extreme wind, rain and anything else that the elements can send us.

'It can be a bit of a logistical challenge up here. You plan the best you can, but you always have to be flexible and I think that is why the team are so successful – they will go to the ends of the earth for their customers. They are very, very customer focused and such a positive group of people. Nothing is too big a challenge. And it is not an easy place to be positive, because they are covering huge, huge mileages.'

Louisa really appreciates her team and says customers do too.

'There is a really nice community atmosphere here. My granny was a postie for a number of years in the Highlands. And now years later, as a COM at Oban, I have a brilliant team. This is my third Christmas in Royal Mail and it has definitely been the best one.'