Royal Mail Vans - Why So Abused?
Discussion
I drive past a Royal Mail depot on the way to work each morning so often see loads of Royal Mail vans coming and going, all of them totally trashed! Even the newish vans have mirrors knocked off, scrapes down the side, bumpers hanging off.
Now I know they are tools to do a job, 'just vans' and I imagine seen as commodities to get the job done, but how on earth do they get, and Royal Mail let them get in such as state? If I ran a company with tens of thousands of vehicles, and the profit of that company decided whether I still had a job in the morning, wouldn't you want to look after your assets so you got the best return come the time to offload them?
Out pool cars at work do 30-40k each year and the company have a strict "you pay for the first £100 of damage" rule - so guess what, none of the cars have dents, scratches or ripped seats. Wouldn't Royal Mail want to ensure they're fleet always looked presentable to the public like UPS do, and wouldn't it make good business sense?
Now I know they are tools to do a job, 'just vans' and I imagine seen as commodities to get the job done, but how on earth do they get, and Royal Mail let them get in such as state? If I ran a company with tens of thousands of vehicles, and the profit of that company decided whether I still had a job in the morning, wouldn't you want to look after your assets so you got the best return come the time to offload them?
Out pool cars at work do 30-40k each year and the company have a strict "you pay for the first £100 of damage" rule - so guess what, none of the cars have dents, scratches or ripped seats. Wouldn't Royal Mail want to ensure they're fleet always looked presentable to the public like UPS do, and wouldn't it make good business sense?
Exactly, I wouldn't want my company logo down the side of a total wreck, not really good for your image. There has got to be a fleet manager job that would pay for itself ten fold out there somewhere in Royal Mail. Imagine if you managed £500 extra per van come resale just by looking after your fleet. That's got to be worth it!
HerrSchnell said:
RM do a hell of a lot of management of drivers from telematics data, this piece is a few years old and they've developed further since then but gives you the jist:
http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/fleet-management/road-s...
And the savings in fleet costs which would be made by becoming militant over dings to the vans would soon be swallowed up by fines from OFCOM for failing to meet the Universal Service Obligation which states, among other things,:
"At least one delivery of letters every Monday to Saturday to every address in the UK
At least one collection of letters every Monday to Saturday from every access point in the UK that is used to receive letters and postal packets for onward transmission"
There are also heavy penalties for failing to meet percentage targets of each mail category delivered which is monitored by a private company who send test items of every variant of service offered which are tracked by RFID tags.
I used to work for that private company and it was often quoted that each of our test items which arrived late would cost RM £2k in fines. So on balance I can see why they apply a "don't spare the horses" approach to the fleet.
Interesting... Can see the argument there, is it attitude or targets that drive (excuse the pun!) the perceived abuse though?http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/fleet-management/road-s...
And the savings in fleet costs which would be made by becoming militant over dings to the vans would soon be swallowed up by fines from OFCOM for failing to meet the Universal Service Obligation which states, among other things,:
"At least one delivery of letters every Monday to Saturday to every address in the UK
At least one collection of letters every Monday to Saturday from every access point in the UK that is used to receive letters and postal packets for onward transmission"
There are also heavy penalties for failing to meet percentage targets of each mail category delivered which is monitored by a private company who send test items of every variant of service offered which are tracked by RFID tags.
I used to work for that private company and it was often quoted that each of our test items which arrived late would cost RM £2k in fines. So on balance I can see why they apply a "don't spare the horses" approach to the fleet.
buzzer said:
We had three vans at a rural outstation where the drivers REALY looked after the vans, even polishing them. They were immaculate. So I used to give them a new van each every year, and put their old one into the reserve pool. Union intervened and said it was favouritism.. I was forced to stop it.
Treated those who looked after the company property well were rewarded but those who abused them weren't? And the unions thought this was unfair because?!!!What I've taken from this thread is that the drivers don't give a toss, and are protected from giving a toss, so it's just self perpetuating. Those who look after things are outcasts.
It's like being in 1970 not 2014!
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