LTB 517/18 – Royal Mail: Four Pillars Agreement – First Hour Reduction in the Working Week – Business Services
No. 517/2018
7th September 2018
Dear Colleagues
ROYAL MAIL: FOUR PILLARS AGREEMENT – FIRST HOUR REDUCTION IN THE WORKING WEEK – BUSINESS SERVICES
I am pleased to advise we have been working jointly with Royal Mail with regards to introducing the first hour reduction in the working week from October 2018 in line with the Four Pillars (Guiding Principles) Agreement.
In this regard, a Joint Statement has been published today outlining the agreed processes for the implementation of the first hour reduction for Business Services.
The Joint Statement reads as follows:
Dear Colleague,
Royal Mail Business Services and the CWU commit to continuing to work together in line with our agreements, in particular the recently agreed pay deal and Guiding Principles Agreement.
Following extensive ongoing talks both parties have established jointly the principle approach for the deployment of the first hour reduction in the working week to be implemented from October 2018.
Our discussions have also examined the wider resourcing challenges with ever changing customer demands and technology advances.
Shorter Working Week
For the majority of Business Services we will be reducing the working week evenly across five days for all full time employees e.g. 5 x 12 minutes. We believe that this is both the simplest and most advantageous way of applying the reduction within the broader team. Primarily this will be achieved with full time duties starting 12 minutes later. However, there may be a few instances where it is operationally beneficial to consider removing the 12 minutes at the end of a shift. Detailed work is jointly underway in the background to implement the shorter working week using these principles.
Within the Business Insight, Data Governance & Integrity team we are proposing to apply the reduction across a period so it is in line with the workload profile as follows:
– Week 1 : No change
– Week 2 : 1 hour less
– Week 3 : 1.5 hour less
– Week 4 : 1.5 hours less
– Week 5 (when applicable): 1 hour less
In this way, there is still a 4 hour reduction over a 4 week period (or a 5 hour reduction over a 5 week period).
It is however important to emphasise that part time employees in Business Services will benefit from a commensurate increase in their hourly pay rate.
The second full hour reduction in the working week will be triggered in October 2019 at the latest in line with the national agreement. Both parties will have ongoing discussions on the feasibility of various options and we will share the agreed final position.
Flexible Working Review
As part of the ongoing discussions, both parties have acknowledged that Business Services has evolved and as such there have been a number of changes challenging the alignment of resources versus customer demand.
There has been a history of offering a wide variety of flexible arrangements across the teams, essentially driven by employee requirements. However as customers become more demanding we need to ensure we are continuing to meet the required levels of service.
The existing range of different flexible working arrangements available may need to be streamlined, standardised and communicated more effectively. Therefore, as part of the wider discussions we are jointly considering the different types of arrangements going forward. Both Business Services and the CWU aim to make the opportunities more visible and equitable and ensure that they are easily understood by everyone.
Both parties have started to work on this activity with the plan to implement agreed changes from January 2019. More details will be shared once outputs have been jointly established.
As we continue to change and adapt as a unit we hope you’ll agree these activities strike a good balance between improving your Terms and Conditions and focussing on our customer’s changing needs. We would like to thank you for your continued support and hard work.
Kind regards,
Helen Bradshaw – Royal Mail Director Business Services
Andy Furey – CWU Assistant Secretary
I would be grateful if Branches could bring this positive development to the attention of our Admin members and Representatives.
Further developments will be reported as appropriate. Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be directed to Lea Sheridan on 020 8971 7361 or lsheridan@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely
Andy Furey
Assistant Secretary